How Canadian Youth Can Find a Fulfilling, Lucrative Career

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If the sudden rise of industry-disruptor ChatGPT has taught us anything, it’s that emerging technology is quickly impacting all sectors of the workforce and dramatically changing the way we do our jobs. And we’re only at the beginning of the tech boom. That means to have a successful career in the foreseeable future, most students need to thoroughly understand how the digital space works—which also happens to be essential for growing Canada’s economic base and protecting the Earth.

The fact is, even with technology aside, we can see the world is rapidly changing. From growing healthcare needs to a warming planet, there’s never been a greater demand for smart thinkers, problem solvers and innovators who are, of course, digitally literate.

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Digital literacy is learned through exploring and utilizing the current digital tools available, staying up to date on new tech and integrating them all into everyday life. It equips people with the ability to know how to use technology and communication tools to collect information, make sense of it and determine the best solutions. That’s because digital literacy fosters essential skills like research, critical thinking, decision making and creativity, which are crucial in just about every career in skilled trades, science, technology, engineering, and math fields.

New opportunities for digitally literate youth are springing up daily. But most youth are unaware of the numerous rewarding and lucrative career paths they can take that also happen to align with their individual passions. That’s where the Let’s Talk Careers Competition comes in.

Let’s Talk Science has partnered up with Skills/Compétences Canada, which promotes careers in skilled trades and technologies, and Engineers Canada, the national association of Canada’s engineering regulators, to offer a fun and exciting way for high schoolers to discover and explore career opportunities they may never have considered. Through the gamified content platform ChatterHigh, middle and high school students across Canada can complete 10-minute daily quizzes that expose them to today’s buzziest career opportunities, so they’re better equipped to find the best pathway for themselves.

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Now, here’s where the gamified part comes in: Schools get ranked based on how much they explore over a 40-day period.  The more people exploring for their school, the better they do. Top schools share in a cash prize pot (last year, that prize pot was $65,000). Top schools earn a “Canada’s Most Informed School” banner. What’s more, students can earn increasingly larger personal cash bursaries depending on how well they do.

The competition is a fun way to build relevant career awareness, which also helps keep youth engaged in learning at school. Competition results also show that the earlier youth are exposed to career pathways, the more interested they become.

The next Let’s Talk Careers Competition starts on October 30th and goes until December 8th, 2023. Learn more about it here.

Funding for this article is provided by the Government of Canada.