AUGUSTA — White doors arranged in Waterville Senior High School’s booth bore phrases like “leadership development,” “career preparation” and “civic awareness.”

Those are key aspects of the mission of Jobs for Maine’s Graduates, and Waterville seniors Emily Pullen and Bridgette Hill said they’ll use skills in those areas to open doors to opportunity in their lives.

Pullen and Hill were among hundreds of seniors from around the state who converged on the Augusta Civic Center on Friday for the Jobs for Maine’s Graduates annual Career Development Conference.

They competed to show skills they’ve developed in their JMG classes and service projects, as well as part-time jobs and apprenticeships that JMG helped them to land.

Students from each of the more than 50 high schools that participate in JMG set up booths to showcase their projects, which are intended to build skills such as teamwork and communication while also helping the community. The booth itself demands that students have a grasp of marketing and public presentation.

Waterville’s students took inspiration from a quote attributed to a woman named Flora Whittemore: “The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.”

By staying away from bad influences and concentrating and work and education, Pullen said, young people can establish a positive course for their lives.

Pullen and Hill said that without JMG, they probably wouldn’t have part-time jobs. They wouldn’t know how to write resumes, fill out a job application, speak confidently in interviews or even to shake an interviewer’s hand.

Gov. Paul LePage spoke at the start of the conference and said Jobs for Maine’s Graduates is an excellent investment, thanks to the work of students, teachers and business volunteers.

“I agree with LePage, I think every single student in the state should be able to do JMG,” said Pullen, who wants to attend the University of Maine at Farmington and study early childhood education.

The nonprofit organization works with 4,000 students in grades six through 12. The students are identified as having barriers to education, and JMG works with them for a year after high school graduation to help their transition to the work force or post-secondary education.

About 92 percent of JMG students graduate, compared to 83 percent for all students in publicly funded schools in 2010, according to the most recent data available.

Two students were presented with scholarships on Friday from the Maine State Chamber of Commerce: Jeffrey Maylin of Hall-Dale High School in Farmingdale and Crispo Niyokwizerwa of Portland High School.

Jobs for Maine’s Graduates CEO Craig Larrabee said he is excited to be able to expand the program to serve 4,500 students next year.

Some of the skills that business leaders have said they need in workers include goal-setting, decision-making, communication, organization and time management, Larrabee said.

“I truly believe it doesn’t matter if you’re 14 years old, 24 years old or 44 years old — time management skills are crucially important to becoming a successful adult,” Larrabee said.

In competitions around the civic center, students demonstrated public speaking and employment interview skills.

In a communication exercise, students speaking across a partition tried to guide each other to replicate block structures they couldn’t see.

During a teamwork exercise, they built miniature cars out of paper, tape and CDs, then tested them to see whose would roll down a ramp the most smoothly.

Emily Newman, a Hall-Dale High School senior from Gardiner, said she hoped to snag first place in the employment interview competition. She talked with Linda Smith, a Hannaford employee and volunteer, about working on a team to organize the Kennebec Valley Special Olympics.

Newman also improved her teamwork skills when overseeing the creation of Hall-Dale’s “bridge to success”-themed booth.

Newman said she’d like to see high schools enhance their regular curricula with the sort of financial skills and life skills she learned through JMG. When she took a financial peace class at school, she was one of only four students in it.

She said she learned at JMG to delegate and not micro-manage.

“I tend to take charge a lot, so being in JMG has really allowed me to step back and be a team player,” said Newman, who wants to study law and perhaps work on women’s rights issues. “In any work situation or school situation, it helps to be able to step back and let others step forward, especially if you’re not the best person for the job.”

Susan McMillan — 621-5645

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