Public media outlets turn to platforms used by youth to highlight emerging career opportunities

When the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) wanted to raise awareness among young people about the high-paying jobs and rewarding careers in their communities that were going unfilled, executives realized that traditional TV programming wasn’t going to reach this demographic effectively.

“This audience doesn’t typically watch prime-time PBS content,” notes Chris Czajka, senior director of strategic initiatives and community engagement for New York public media outlet, The WNET Group.

CPB’s American Graduate Initiative, which began in 2011 with the goal of keeping students on a track toward high school graduation, was shifting its focus, and CPB wanted to connect students with promising career pathways in their geographic areas. The organization approached WNET for help with this task.

In response, WNET created Jobs Explained, a social media program that targeted youth with short social media videos and other content to broaden their understanding of the possibilities that existed for their future.

“Young people often aren’t aware of the many career opportunities that exist in their region or how to take advantage of them,” Czajka says. “At the same time, there are many industries that are starving for more people to enter that field. We created Jobs Explained to help bring those stakeholders together.”

Reaching students with an ‘authentic voice’

Jobs Explained launched in 2023 with ten public media outlets participating, coordinated by WNET. The participating stations hired social media specialists to create content for youth on platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.

Each station focused on one promising career sector in its community that offered significant opportunities for growth, such as health care, cybersecurity, or green jobs. The content these stations produced included “day in the life” videos showing what employees did in those fields, as well as posts communicating facts and figures like average starting salaries.

WNET and its partner stations used focus groups and surveys to learn what types of content resonated with youth most effectively. “We found that young people were looking for an authentic voice,” Czajka says. “As a result, much of the content produced was off the cuff, unpolished, and irreverent.”

The project’s first round proved highly successful, with more than 2,500 videos reaching nearly 14 million young people altogether.

Now, with the continued support of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, WNET is taking the lessons it learned in this first iteration and is applying them to a cohort of ten new public media stations beginning this summer, each of which will promote at least three in-demand industries in their communities this time around.

Students anywhere can benefit

Public media stations in this new cohort include Maryland Public Television, Arizona PBS, WCMU in central Michigan, and WXXI in Rochester, New York. However, students don’t have to live in these communities to benefit.

“Anyone with a smartphone can access Jobs Explained content,” Czajka observes. “A simple search of @JobsExplained on any social media platform is going to lead you to a treasure trove of videos.”

The program doesn’t just raise awareness of the job opportunities that exist in various regions of the country. It also connects young people with practical guidance about how to start on a pathway toward those careers.

“The videos generate a lot of discussion in the comments section,” Czajka explains, “and each station’s social media specialists are highly responsive to students’ questions, pointing them to where they can find more information about those careers.” The program’s website, JobsExplained.org, contains a wealth of additional resources, including interactive tools for exploring job interests, quizzes for discovering new career paths, links to online aptitude tests, and more.

Although the Jobs Explained content is designed for students to explore informally on their own, WNET encourages educators and librarians to become ambassadors for the program in their communities.

“We’re looking for librarians and educators to let kids know these resources exist,” Czajka concludes, “and then steer them toward other resources in the community if they happen to be interested in a particular career.”
 

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