The Hart County Extension Office and the Hart County Chamber of Commerce collaborated with the Hart County School System to offer a Work Readiness Day for all high school juniors to better prepare students for the workforce.  

The goal of the Work Readiness Day was to create an awareness about career opportunities within the county and show students what is require to help them succeed in the workplace. 171 High School Juniors started the day by touring two of the local manufacturing companies to see job opportunities and hear from the human resource department what type of employees they are looking to hire.

After the tours students were divided into groups to learn how to fill out a job application, how to start their job search, learning soft skills, scholarships available to graduating students and mock interviews. The 4-H Youth Development Agent conducted the mock interviews to better prepare students for job interviews after high school.

In a pretest students were asked what occupation they would like to have after graduation from high school or college. That information was used for the afternoon sessions to match students with someone currently working in that field to help the students learn more about career opportunities and participate in a mock interview related to that field.

91% of participants completed a job application correctly after participating in the educational session. 96% of the students stated they were more prepared for an interview from participating in the mock interview..

A follow up evaluation showed that 3 students obtained employment from a local company due to this program. These students are earning an hourly salary ranging from $7.25 to $8.50 per hour. This will result in a total of over $10,000 in income for those 3 students from now until the end of summer.