What is Kareers4Kids?
Every student, future ready.
Kareers4Kids (K4K) has been designed with one goal in mind: to help students plan their futures. By connecting students with hands-on, career-based learning experiences (CBLEs), K4K helps students apply their academic and technical skills in the real world of work while also developing essential workplace skills critical to their future employment success.
As a business member, you are not trained experts on how to teach or engage with students—that’s where we come in!
With K4K, employers can:
- Offer a wide range of career-based learning experiences (CBLEs) for students and teachers
- Directly mentor and help prepare students for careers that align to their interests or expose them to careers they didn’t know existed
- Contribute to curriculum, ensuring that education looks and feels like the job
- Communicate their career/employment needs
K4K accomplishes this through:
Leveraging business and education partnerships to coordinate Career-Based Learning Experiences (CBLEs) for teachers and students
- Opportunities Planner:
driven by member businesses, this is a online platform designed for teachers and students to utilize for career exploration
- Wisconsin Job Board: Sponsored and used by Walworth County schools (and beyond), this is a FREE resource for businesses and an excellent space to publicize job opportunities and connect with local youth.
This is a long-term solution to developing your talent pipeline. Through continued support of Kareers4Kids, regional and local career pathways, and simply connecting with local students, you will see the impact on the number of employees you hire. The time you invest now will continue to pay off year after year as you grow connections to local students.
Why Support Kareers4Kids?
Providing career-based learning opportunities is mutually beneficial to schools and companies:
- INVESTING IN THE FUTURE WORKFORCE. Working with students will help expand the pool of job applicants and their skill sets in the future. Career-Based Learning Experiences are an early recruitment strategy.
- INFORMING THE FUTURE WORKFORCE about the occupations businesses employ and the skills businesses look for when hiring.
- CONTRIBUTING TO K-12 CURRICULUM by hosting educators at your work site and partnering with educators on the development of skills-based career pathways.
- IMPROVING EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT. Employee knowledge of roles and responsibilities are reviewed and reinforced and mentoring students can be rewarding for employees.
- CREATING POSITIVE COMMUNITY VISIBILITY FOR YOUR COMPANY by providing a visible example of your partnership with schools and students to maintain good community relations, and providing an opportunity to promote the company as an employer of choice. In addition, people will gain awareness of what your company does. Oftentimes people know the name of a company, but not the breadth of what happens on the inside.
- EXPOSING STUDENTS TO WORK CULTURE AND TEAMWORK. Students discover and learn about the working world and begin to understand company culture and what it means to work as a team.
Source: Workforce Development Pathway Study Millipore Sigma
Learning Experiences
Only 11% of employers feel new graduates are ready for work. Bridge the gap between classwork and the work world.
Examples of CBLEs available through K4K:
- Site tours
- Internships
- Youth apprenticeships
- Job shadows
- Teacher externships
- Classroom speakers
- Mock interviews
- Career fairs
According to the 2018 McGraw-Hill Education's Future Workforce Survey, only 4 in 10 U.S. college students felt very or extremely prepared for their future careers.
More than half of those students also said increased access to professional experiences would have helped them feel better prepared.
Millipore Sigma Workforce Development Pathway study
Our Supporters
You're in good company! Join our partner businesses in supporting Kareers4Kids Walworth County:
Adams Electric
Allan ICS
Arntzen Corporation
Baker Tilly
Batterman
Bigfoot School District
Birds Eye Foods Inc.
Continental Plastics
Delavan Holdings
Delavan-Darien School District
Elkhorn Area School District
FORM Wealth Advisors
Gateway Technical College
G10 Fulfillment
Grand Geneva Resort & Timber Ridge Lodge
Kikkoman
Lake Geneva Economic Development
Lake Geneva-Genoa City Union High School District
Lake Lawn Resort
Mercyhealth
Midwest Precision Molding
Mode Industries
Palmer Hamilton LLC
Plas-Tech Engineering
R&L Spring Company | Medicoil Inc.
Radius Packaging
Reader Precision Solutions
Royal Basket Trucks Inc.
Simple Cafe LLC
SPX Flow
Stebnitz Builders
Swiss-Tech
The Reesman Company
University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
USG Interiors
Viant
Voyager Wealth Management
Williams Bay School District
Wisconsin Oven
Annual Membership Levels
0-10 Employees
$250
WCEDA Member Pricing:
$125
11-25 Employees
$375
WCEDA Member Pricing: $195
26-50 Employees
$500
WCEDA Member Pricing:
$275
51+ Employees
$750
WCEDA Member Pricing:
$375