This hub brings together curated tools and guidance to support your team at every stage, from exploring careers and researching local workforce needs to designing a solution and planning its implementation. You’ll find numerous external resources alongside challenge-specific templates and guides.
This page is provided for informational purposes only. Use of these resources for completing a submission to the Careers in Your Community Challenge is optional and not required by the U.S. Department of Education.
Getting started
Organize your team, collect your school information, and begin working on your submission.
Begin here
- First, view this handout, which provides an overview of the challenge and reasons to participate.
- Then, check your eligibility: Ask a school administrator whether your school is eligible to receive funding under the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006 (Perkins V). You can also check by entering your NCES school ID into this search tool. A school does not need to receive funding currently, but it must be eligible to receive Perkins V funding to participate in this challenge. For more information on eligibility, please refer to the Official Rules, Terms, and Conditions.
- Finally, designate a primary contact to serve as the team lead. Each team lead must be employed as a CTE teacher, coordinator, or director at the school and must be at least 18 years of age. For the purposes of this challenge, “a CTE teacher” refers to an individual who is currently teaching a career and technical education course.
Once you have confirmed your eligibility and designated a team lead:
- View the challenge submission form and selection criteria.
- Mark the submission deadline on your calendar: The deadline for submissions is 6:00 p.m. ET on November 19, 2026.
- Review frequently asked questions and their answers.
- Use this email template to request participation approval from your school administrator.
Discuss career exploration
Explore resources that can be used to discuss career exploration with your team.
As you begin exploring careers, the resources in this section can help you understand the career exploration process, spark classroom discussion, access free career research and self-assessment tools, and learn about postsecondary pathways, including options beyond a four-year degree.
Resources that explain the career exploration process
- Pathfinder Guide and Checklist (Jobs For the Future and American Student Assistance, now called Britebound): A student-facing planning tool that walks learners step by step through exploring, evaluating, and choosing a quality postsecondary education-to-career pathway, including nondegree options such as apprenticeships and credentials.
- Career Development Resources (American School Counselor Association): This resource hub offers magazine articles, an infographic, research data, webinars, and downloadable career conversation guides.
Classroom conversation starters about career exploration
Educators may use or adapt the following questions to begin a classroom discussion:
- What current hobbies or activities interest you the most, and where could they lead after high school?
- View this list of career fields and job types — which options do you find most interesting and why? Did any part of your answer surprise you?
- Explore this list of durable skills. Which skills would you expect to be most important, regardless of your job, and why?
- As artificial intelligence changes the workforce, how might careers in your CTE pathway change? What new opportunities could emerge, and what risks or challenges might workers need to navigate?
- What is one thing you would like to understand better about jobs, college, apprenticeships, or other training opportunities after high school?
Free career exploration tools
Career assessments are exploratory tools that can help expand your awareness or spark unexpected possibilities. They do not provide definitive answers, and results should be interpreted as just one possibility among many.
- CareerOneStop (U.S. Department of Labor): This federal website offers free career assessments, occupational and wage information, and tools for locating employers and American Job Centers.
- My Next Move (U.S. Department of Labor): Built on O*NET federal occupational data (a database covering more than 900 occupations), this free tool asks users about the types of work they enjoy and suggests potential matching careers. A Spanish-language version is also available.
- GoZig (Britebound): This career exploration platform provides an interest-based assessment and related resources for young adults and the educators or other adults supporting them.
Resources for exploring postsecondary options, including alternatives to a four-year degree
- “Which Career Path Is Right for You After High School? 4 Best Options” (Bridge Year): This article compares apprenticeships, certificate programs, associate degree programs, and bachelor’s degree programs.
- “The Apprenticeship (R)Evolution” (Inside Higher Ed): This article examines the expansion of apprenticeships into fields like healthcare, artificial intelligence, and advanced manufacturing and discusses available data on participation, completion, and earnings.
- Apprenticeship for Young People (Apprenticeship USA): This federal resource explains how Registered Apprenticeship programs operate and how students may begin apprenticeship-related experiences while still in high school.
Research your community and identify gaps
Explore local labor market data and map the career exploration resources — and gaps at your school.
As you work on your submission, the resources in this section can help you learn about local employment trends and identify in-demand occupations and training pathways in your community.
Local labor-market databases and occupational search tool
- Labor market data finder (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics): This federal resource helps users locate labor-market, employment, unemployment, wage, and industry data for state and local areas.
- Occupational Outlook Handbook (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics): The Occupational Outlook Handbook is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ principal career reference. Users can explore occupations by occupational group, median pay, entry-level education, projected growth, and required training, and review a detailed profile for each occupation.
Resources for contacting local chambers of commerce and workforce development boards to identify employers
- Contact your local Workforce Development Board or Chamber of Commerce to request information about regional industries, employers, workforce needs, and career opportunities. Available services vary by organization and may include employer directories, labor-market information, job boards, referrals, or introductions to local partners.
Writing an interview guide for school-, community-, and employer-based conversations
Students should always involve a teacher or trusted adult when contacting and interviewing professionals, and should follow their school’s guidelines for outreach and supervision.
- Coming soon: a template that can help students develop structured interview questions for their conversations with local employers, educators, school counselors, students, families, or other community partners. Students should always involve a teacher or trusted adult when identifying, contacting, and interviewing professionals, and should follow their school’s guidelines for outreach and supervision.
Brainstorm and design a solution
Collaborate with your team to identify a meaningful gap in career exploration at your school and design a practical solution to address it.
As you develop your submission, the resources in this section can help you move from an initial idea to a clear concept, build and deliver your elevator pitch and video, and design a solution that works for the full range of students in your community.
From idea to concept resource
- “5 Steps to Turn Ideas into Concepts” (FutureLearn): This resource provides a short, five-step breakdown. Identify a real problem, research what already exists, know your users, validate the idea with real people, then pitch it to get buy-in.
Elevator pitch and video
- Pitching your solution worksheet: This worksheet can help teams describe their proposed solution clearly and prepare the 60-second video required as part of the submission.
- Video tip sheet: This resource provides practical guidance for planning and recording a short video that explains the problem, proposed solution, student role, and expected impact.
Designing for accessibility
The strongest solutions work for everyone. Consider the full range of students who might use your solution, including those with disabilities, those with limited or inconsistent digital access, and those who need materials in alternative formats or languages.
Create a plan and think through implementation
Identify the steps, partnerships, and resources needed to bring your solution to life — and envision how you would know it is working.
Implementation planning and project timeline template
- Project planning template. This worksheet provides a four-step planning table and callout prompts that can help students consider a variety of factors relevant to successful implementation of a solution.
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