Niles West welcomes new career counselor Anthony Gliffe, who grew up in Skokie and is a D219 alum. The career counselor is a new position that has been added to the school district meant to guide students into making informed decisions about life after high school.

Gliffe also works in collaboration with Lisa Edelson, the director of education, and Kia Pickett, the career counselor at Niles North to help students make career choices. Although the position is entirely new, Gliffe and his team already have a lot of new ideas that they’re going to implement for students this year.

On a district level, the team is planning to enhance students’ exposure to various careers through field trips related to their specific career courses. They also want to bring in career speakers that align with specific careers to provide valuable insight. So far, they’re collaborating with classes like law, cybersecurity, welding, and manufacturing to give them targeted career field trip experiences.

As of right now, the team is mostly focusing on helping the career-technical education courses by aligning them with similar field trip experiences. However, they’re beginning to explore various opportunities and are making field trips accessible to students with general interests as well.

“Gliffe and Pickett will be coordinating programs such as: Classroom Career Speakers, Off-Campus Field Trips, Post High School Options Fairs, Summer Jobs Recruiting Fairs and even Post-Secondary Education/Training Opportunities including Industry Certifications, Apprenticeships and Internships Job and Volunteer Postings; Resume Building and more,” Edelson said.

Students can also seek Gliffe out directly if they just want to do career-exploration or look into actual job opportunities and internships. They can develop their resume or cover letter with Gliffe, and even develop a professional social media account if they want to build their social media presence. Additionally, Gliffe gives students the opportunity to participate in mock interviews to improve their interviewing skills and get valuable tips.

Gliffe also offers valuable general job-related information. Students often seek details like salary, required skills, necessary training or degrees, and potential extracurricular involvement for specific positions. Oftentimes, it leads into conversations about what club or organizations they should look into to help that, and also possible pathway courses.

From there, Gliffe works in collaboration with school counselors to help students look into pathway courses that would help them prepare and gain more knowledge for the field that they want to go into. These courses, which align with students’ interests, can help them build a foundational skill set for what they want to do once they graduate.

“Pathway courses allow students to gain an early entry into a specific career or into developing a foundational skillset for what they go off in a specific college. They’re gonna be ahead of the game of their peers from different schools,” Gliffe said.

One of Gliffe’s main goals for this school year is to get the school connected with the local chamber of commerce. He wants to develop new business partnerships that are going to allow businesses to work with students in a variety of ways. For example, he hopes that these businesses can get students connected with jobs and internships. Although Gliffe remains optimistic about accomplishing this goal within the current year, he thinks it might take a little longer to finalize.

“This year, we’re hoping to make those introductions and hit the ground running but also kinda establishing our role within our school community and let students know that we’re here and support them in what they want to do,” Gliffe said.

Gliffe really wants students to know that his position is here and he can be a valuable resource to help them figure out what they want to do.

“Anthony’s passion for helping students explore and navigate various career paths, as well as his commitment to empowering them to make informed career decisions, will be invaluable as our students prepare for their futures beyond high school,” Assistant Principal of Student Services Antwan Babakhani said.

Be sure to take advantage of all the opportunities that Gliffe provides to support students!