The 2023 Southwest Minnesota Career Expo was held on Sept. 26th and 27th at the college campuses of Southwest Minnesota State University–Marshall and Minnesota West-Worthington. The event brought 130 employers and educational programs; they provided valuable career and education information to these high school students, plus highlighted regional businesses and the type of jobs they provide in our communities. 

• Minnesota West Carl Perkins Consortium
• Southwest Initiative Foundation
• Southwest Minnesota Workforce Development Board;
• Minnesota West Community and Technical College
• Southwest Minnesota State University
• Southwest Minnesota Private Industry Council
• Southwest Regional Development Commission
• SWWC Service Cooperative
• Marshall Area Chamber of Commerce
• Worthington Area Chamber of Commerce
• Marshall, Montevideo, and Worthington CareerForce
• Department of Employment and Economic Development
• Many regional businesses and service agencies.

We heard from several teachers, students, and exhibitors that it was a valuable opportunity to expose students to what Southwest Minnesota has to offer and help students to identify paths that warrant further exploration.

A unique and fun component of the Career Expo is the Game Show. The Game Show provides students the opportunity to learn about the local labor market in southwest and west central Minnesota. Prior to kicking off the Game Show, the students are asked a series of questions to better understand what students are thinking about when it comes to “What’s Next After High School”.

One of the questions the students are asked is “What type of job are you MOST interested in?”. The area of most interest (23.2%) was hands down, Health Science & Human Services. Entrepreneurship (13.4%) and Agriculture, Food & Natural Resources (12.6%) is second and third. See the graph below.

Another question posed to the students is “What do you plan to do after high school”. Overwhelmingly, “get a bachelor’s degree” was the majority’s (54.3%) plan with “get an associate’s degree (2-year-degree)” coming in second with just 16.7%. Following not far behind was “get a job” with 11%. See the graph below.

The other question that we ask the students is “Where do you want to live?”. Their responses are nearly equal except "The Twin Cities” which was only chosen by 4.4%. If you see Figure 3, the other responses in our region’s favor include “near my current hometown” (19.5%), “in the same area of the state but not the same hometown” (21.4%), and “a rural area someplace else” (27.8%). A large portion of the students like rural, the region, and even their hometown.

The final few questions asked of the students include “What would be the MOST helpful information to decide what type of career you want?” and “How would you prefer to learn about careers?”. Nearly half of the students said “hearing from people who work in different jobs” would be the most preferred with 17.1% of students indicating “taking a class about careers” would be the most preferred. See the graph below to see the other preferences students believe would help them best to learn about careers.

Finally, the top three pieces of helpful information to help students decide upon a career are “what I would be doing on the job” (37.2%), “how much money I could make” (27.9%), and “how much education I need to acquire” (16.8%).