If there’s one thing we hear from almost every company we interview across our state, is that it’s a challenge to find qualified workers. Our next guest’s organization is working hard to improve the available workforce here in our state. Mike Switzer interviews Scott Burgess, education services specialist at Fort Jackson, who runs the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery program.
TRANSCRIPT:
Switzer: Hello and welcome to the South Carolina Business Review. This is Mike Switzer. If there's one thing we hear from almost every company we interview across our state, it's that it's a challenge to find qualified workers. Our next guest organization though, is working hard to improve the available workforce here in our state. Scott Burgess is education services specialist at Fort Jackson who runs the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery program. Scott, welcome to the program.
Burgess: Thank you, sir.
Switzer: So tell us exactly what it is that you are doing there at Fort Jackson.
Burgess: So I oversee the ASVAB, which is an acronym for Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. And the ASVAB is a career readiness indicator for South Carolina and several other states. So it's a free service offer by the federal government. It measures both the verbal and math, but also different vocational categories like electronics information, auto information, shop information, mechanical comprehension. It's utilized for both career readiness indicator for the state, which is based on the math and verbal. But also if students want to dig deeper, we have what's called the ASVAB, Career Exploration program, which goes through and it allows them to search occupations and fields through an interest survey and other assessments that they could also look and see and find things that may be interesting. So what I'd like to do is expand that to some extent because, you know, if a young person has a strong skill set within electronics information, mechanical comprehension, I think a lot of times the traditional pathway is that they go to a two year or four year degree pathway instead of, instead of apprenticeships, go straight to work, things like that. So what I would like to do is kind of open up the ability for individual students to utilize the ASVAB as, you know, maybe stapled to the resume, hypothetically. And they use that as a foot in the door to interview where a, company goes through and says, okay, we were looking for people who are skilled in the trades or show that aptitude, so we'd like to screen that process.
Switzer: Okay, and so what you're saying then is that companies don't necessarily know about this program and so maybe the students might not realize that. Or is this something that you are already coaching the students on, to take this to potential job applications?
Burgess: All the above. All the above, all the above. So like for instance, you know, if you look at different mechanical careers or electronics careers within the military, they're using this test to say, okay, Little Susie, she shows aptitude within these fields. So maybe she would be good with something like, I don't know, unmanned aircraft systems repair. So that career field, it's heavy on electronics, auto shop, mechanical comprehension. I think if someone was in, you know, the business of trying to find someone who, you know, coming out of high school wants to go directly into work, they could utilize these scores to help narrow down applicants.
Switzer: Was this originally intended for potential, recruits into the military?
Burgess: Yes, yes, that's the original intent of
Switzer: this and now it can be used for any job out there.
Burgess: I would hope so. And I think that's the rub is we're trying to look at ways to make it more applicable. So when a student tests, they could say, hey, I'm showing aptitude in these fields. And so it matches my interests with working collaboratively or, you know, social connections, things like that. And then that steers them towards different career fields. But I think ultimately what I'd like to see is a student tests and scores particularly high in a certain area and it opens their eyes and you know, as you go through our career exploration program, that would open up different doors and say, okay, well here's some career related fields to some of the things you've shown that you're good at within the asvab. And then you could put in there your academic strengths and say, okay, I'm really strong at science technical and I, show high scores in electronics in my comprehension. What does that equal? And so that's really the purpose of our site. Then from there, if it was something like video game developer, whatever, within the site, within the career exploration program, it'll give all sorts of information. Other careers that are similar, if you want to get there, is the educational level that people working in that field have attained. And if it is college bound, you could click on the college bound part for more information. It'll give in state, out of state tuition, all sorts of other information. and from there it's got links for apprenticeship programs, licensures, certifications. US Government jobs through USA jobs are linked through that as well as salary information based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So it'll say average incoming salary or entry level salary by state and average salary by state. So you know, if you wanted to move out west, say, you can figure out, okay, here's what that position makes once it's in an established position as the average salary, things like that.
Switzer: Well, Scott, very interesting, thank you so much for spending time with us today.
Burgess: No problem. Thank you for having me.
Switzer: Scott Burgess is education Services specialist at Fort Jackson and we will have a link to the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery program he spoke of posted at our webpage. So you can learn more SouthCarolinaPublicRadio.org, just look for our show. With the South Carolina Business Review, this is Mike Switzer.
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