The well-dressed young lady walked confidently into the room, shook hands with her interviewer and slid her application across the table for his perusal. The interviewer had just asked her two or three questions when lead instructor Sharon Tenard stepped in to stop the simulation. “Allison, what did you just say about gum?” she asked the young lady, who emitted a sudden “Oops!” and discreetly discarded her gum. Although she and 19 of her peers had spent three days learning “job readiness skills”-and Allison had just listed which activites were verboten in interviews-old habits die hard.
The job hunting skills class, offered through the Park District of Oak Park as part of the youth skills-booster series, was the brainchild of Village Director of Community Relations Cedric Melton. He began the series two summers ago in response to residents’ complaints about rowdy teens or, as Melton put it, “young people with energy and no outlet.”
“At the same time, I met with young people and I asked them what the problem was,” Melton said. “The overwhelming response was, ‘We need jobs.’ I had several young people come to my office and fill these applications out. When they gave them back to me, I couldn’t believe what I saw.” Applications were scratched-out, whited-out or incomplete, and when Melton gave the teenagers common interview prompts like, “Tell me about yourself,” the kids were at a loss for what to say.
So, in the summer of 2004, Melton organized a series of workshops to teach 14- to 19-year-olds how to fill out an application, write a resume, and give an interview-describing their strengths and articulating their goals. He enlisted the help of employment skills instructor Sharon Tenard, Triton College Director of Adult Education Ken McKay, and Village Health Department adolescent outreach coordinator Floyd Garrett-all of whom had extensive experience working with young people. “It was a quick response, nothing I had planned,” Melton said. “It was something the residents said they wanted, and I try to be very responsive to the residents.” The first class included 21 kids, 11 of whom were hired shortly after taking the class.
But Melton is quick to clarify that the course is not a placement program. “Most of them are great kids, most of them are doing very well in school-there’s just a disconnect between that employment readiness component,” he said. “Mind you, [the program] is a small dent in a larger problem across the metropolitan area. I would like to see the schools implement some sort of job-readiness program in study halls … you could be the greatest kid in the world, but if you can’t fill out an application, what good does that do you?”
In 2005, village board members asked Melton what they could do to help at-risk youth in Oak Park, but Melton had obligations that prevented him from organizing such workshops. This summer, though, Melton received $10,000 from the village to fund the program. “Parents are coming up to us after the session and saying, “Wow. Where was this program five years ago, six years ago?” Melton said. In fact, this year there were more students interested in the class than there was space for them. After taking most of the kids-“the target was about 20 kids so it’s manageable”-Melton redirected some to other programs in the village.
The teenagers in the class went through four 3-hour sessions in which they learned how to look for jobs, filled out practice applications, and conducted mock interviews. The first mock interviews were videotaped, so students could see how they behaved while speaking with a prospective employer; the final mock interviews took place in front of the class on the last day of class, July 21. After politely listening to their final job-related presentation (a representative from broadcast communications company Clear Channel, which owns WGCI), the students received certificates stating that they had completed the 12-hour job-readiness course.
OPRF sophomore Chelsey Smith seemed job-ready before she received her certificate, as she was interviewed by one of her classmates that afternoon. She had done an interview-on-tape before, and after even-handedly assessing her performance, she felt her interviewing skills had improved. “I did better,” she said. “At first my eye contact was bad-I would look down-but that was better. I also learned to speak louder. Sometimes I would drift off and say things that weren’t relevant.” That hadn’t been an issue during this last interview. She had succinctly described herself as a people person, hard-working and on-time and given the interviewer a handshake at the beginning and end of their conversation.
Smith has also had a job interview since class ended-but not a real one, yet. After learning of a job opening through one of the employers who came to speak to the class-Rhonda Finklea of 8-1-8 Day Spa, which opens on Lake Street this fall-Smith filled out an application (without scratching out, of course) and has been answering her mother’s practice questions to prepare for an interview later this week.
