How to throw an awesome LDS Youth Career Night

An LDS Youth Career Night is one of those youth activities that your youth will talk about for years to come. It’s a great way to have an impactful activity that can shape the career path of many of these young teenagers and give them a better picture of their personal goals and what they want their future to look like. Plus, it’s not as hard to organize as you might think. Check it out.

As Latter-day Saints and as adult leaders of our youth program, we are always looking for fun activities and great ideas for our youth. This activity turned out so amazing. Our youth all agreed that it was one of their favorite activities and it really didn’t really require too much work. This is definitely something that we want to continue to do annually. The important thing is that the youth learned a ton and taught them different ways they can succeed in the future. It was a huge success. Here’s how we did it.

Recruit your career professionals

This is the most important part of the entire activity. You’ll want to find career professionals in a variety of different fields so your young men and young women can participate in a workshop that interests them. You can mainly focus on individuals in your own ward boundaries, but it’s also okay to ask other people as well.

You’ll want to find at least 2 people in each workshop and a total of 8 workshops. We assigned other youth leaders to find their career professionals so that the Young Women president didn’t end up doing all the work. Here’s a list of the different careers that we highlighted at the activity just to give you an idea:

• Getting a job & Financial Advising
• Medical & Dental
• Catering & Cosmetology
• Engineering & Computer Science
• Education & Mental Health
• Interior Design & Graphic Design
• Law & Military
• Building Trades (or you could do plumbing and electrical)

When we asked our career professionals to present, we told them we would be having three 20-minute workshops and they would have another presenter in their workshop with them. So the first person would have 10 minutes to do their presentation and then the second person would have 10 minutes. We also told them that they would have a table in their room and encouraged them to display items on their table that represent their business. Some people showed up with nothing to display and other people went all out. It was fine either way.

Send invites and prep information sheets

Since we were asking these busy members of our ward to take time out of their night to present, we wanted to make sure that all of our youth would come. We did lots of advertising and tried to get them really excited about the evening. Here’s the invitation that we sent out.

We also asked each person who was presenting to fill out an informational career form that summarizes their profession. It was nice for the youth to have something to take home with them. You can download your own career form below. I offer this printable for FREE to all visitors of my blog, but if you’d like to show your support, feel free to buy me a taco.

Prep the workshop rooms

On the night of the activity at our local church, we showed up early and hung signs outside all of the workshops rooms so they were easy to find and identify. We also set up about 10 chairs in each room for smaller groups and placed a table at the front of each room. Then, when the presenters arrived, they decorated their own tables and set up their own rooms. Even if no one had any table displays, it would still be a great activity. But it was nice that so many of the presenters when to so much effort to make it nice. They were great displays for a small group a fun way to get the youth excited.

Start your career night

We had a big group of about 40 youth plus leaders show up to our activity and it was amazing! We all met in the Relief Society room to begin. We gave everyone a workshop guide that showed which workshops were available and which room they were located in. We told them they could attend a presentation in three of the eight workshops that were available. Whether you have activities on Tuesday night or Wednesday night, here’s the schedule and time limit for each workshop that we followed:

• Workshop #1: 7:15-7:35
• Workshop #2: 7:40 – 8:00
• Workshop #3: 8:05 – 8:25

I wrote the workshop times on the blackboard in each of the presenters rooms so everyone could keep track of the time. That helped a ton! Overall, the presenters gave some awesome presentations that were super helpful and a lot of the youth commented on how much they enjoyed the activity. Afterwards, we had cookies as refreshments.

Career Night tips and tricks

This was an awesome evening of building relationships, networking and spiritual growth. But there are a few things that we learned along the way as we were planning this activity:

• Don’t hold booths in the gym: It’s incredibly loud and the youth don’t take it as seriously. Presentations in a classroom setting allows for time to sufficiently explain the career and allow for questions and answers.
• Four workshops instead of three: Three workshops wasn’t enough, the youth wanted to learn more from the other workshops. Next time we will do four 15-minute workshops instead of three 20-minute workshops.
• Take-home flyers: It would have been easier to just ask the presenters to create a simple flyer that lists the career, education pathway, salary and other helpful information.
• Invite another ward: This takes more coordination, but it would also expand your pool of presenter possibilities and bring a large group if you have a smaller ward.
• Keep refreshments simple: Ask the youth to each bring a dozen cookies or cinnamon rolls and call it good.

Other combined youth activity ideas include a youth group game such as glow in the dark volleyball, service project, board games, amazing race, self defense night, making homemade ice cream, camping trip, outdoor games, delivering care packages, making freezer meals, talent showe, movie night, vision boards and so much more.

What other ideas do you have for fun youth activities in your ward? Let me know in the comments below.

More from My Silly Squirts: 50 cheap or free LDS youth activity ideas