USFS Career and Professional Development Day

Hat Creek Youth Initiative - 
Student Blog Post: Dylan Spooner

My name is Dylan Spooner and I going into my senior year at Burney High School, and I enjoy playing footballs and participating in Kinetics. I wanted to do the Hat Creek Youth Initiative because I thought it would be a good opportunity to learn more about the area that I live in. My favorite thing I’ve participated in so far this summer is the photo-point monitoring. 

I’m going to write my blog about the career and professional development day we had on July 15^th at the USFS Hat Creek Ranger District Office. The first thing I learned about that day, was the importance of being detailed in my resume. There were great speakers such as Kit Mullen, Allison Jackson, Naomi Brown from the United States Forest Service, that gave us firsthand knowledge about what they are looking for in a resume. We even had one-on-one time to improve our resumes that we used to apply for the Hat Creek Youth Initiative. We also had the speakers talk about how to write a cover letter, and how to have a good interview. 

In the afternoon, we had Jim Ostrowski from the College of the Siskiyous come and speak to us about the many career and education opportunities in Natural Resource Conservation. He described the Natural Resources program at College of the Siskiyous that many students participate in to obtain a degree. 

We had Naomi Brown explain to us the ease of setting up an account on USAJobs. This program allows many people to easily apply for government jobs across the nation. This website is a great opportunity for me because in the future I have easy access to look for a job I would be interested in applying for. One job I’m interested in that I learned about is working with GIS (Geographic Information Systems) because I like working with computers. 

Overall, I thought this Career and Professional Development Day was very helpful and a great experience for me. I gained knowledge about writing resumes, cover letters and having interviews. I got to speak with important members of the USFS such as the District Ranger Kit Mullen, Allison Jackson and Naomi Brown. I feel that this opportunity has given me a great advantage in applying for jobs in the future. 

Thanks, 

Dylan Spooner

A huge thank-you goes out to the USFS Hat Creek Ranger District Office for hosting this career day for the Hat Creek Youth Initiative. We would also like to thank Jim Ostrowski from College of the Sikisyous for his time and great information. We look forward to another successful career day next year!