Job Coaching

Location: Open Door Shelter

Date: Monday, April 07, 2014; 6:45-8:30 pm

As with most Chicago Cares projects, I had not been to this one in a long time as well.  I arrived early and settled in the familiar lobby to wait for Claire and other volunteers, who arrived shortly after.  All of them were new to the place and many were in fact volunteering for the first time, including a group of 4 guys who had a lot of energy.  They had several questions for Claire and me and it was clear that their positive attitude would help.  We went upstairs and I did not recognize any of the youth from before, which was understandable owing to my absence and since they keep rotating residents after a few weeks stay.  It looked like we would have 7 youth this evening, which was perfect since there were 7 volunteers and so everyone would get individual attention. 

There I am!

We gathered around the table and after introductions, Claire started us off with an icebreaker game.  For this one she taped the name of a personality – either real or fictitious – on everyone’ back and we had to guess who we were by asking others questions.  The youth next to me had ‘Barack Obama’ taped to her back and she was very keen on discovering her identity.  She asked plenty of questions and was able to guess correctly.  Next to her was ‘Batman’ and that was a trickier proposition than ‘Obama’.  Another one was ‘David Beckham’ and the youth had absolutely no idea who that was.  I was ‘Michael Jordan’ and I could guess that in a few questions, especially when I learned it was a Chicago based ‘NBA’ athlete.

It was time for the main activity and today’s topic was ‘Networking’.  I was paired with a youth who certainly looked the part since he was wearing a suit and tie.  He said that he wanted help on his resume and I said that we could start off with what he already had and then build on it.  He said that never had one before and so we decided to make one from the scratch.  We went to the computer room and he told me that he wasn’t very good with computers and so I took over and we started with a blank sheet.  I asked for his email address and at first he couldn't remember what it was, but then gave me a gmail address.  We then added the phone number and address of ODS and that took care of the header.

Next, we outlined the 4 main sections – “Objective, Education, History & Accomplishments and Other Interests & Activities”.  I asked what he wanted to become and he said a psychiatrist.  I said that we would write the Objective accordingly and so looked at an online template of a resume for someone applying for a psychiatrist’s position.  We borrowed some of the language for our objective and I mentioned that as a practice, he should use this as an example to craft objectives for other positions.  For Education we put down his expected High School graduation date and for fun, also added a college and graduate school, including a PhD.  He wanted to add ‘Ohio State University’ as his school of choice and why not!

He had never held a job or worked at all, so the History section was going to be a challenge.  He said that he was a member of ‘ROTC’ or ‘Reserve Officers Training Corps’ and I said that while it would typically go in the final Activities section, we could include it here.  I had never heard of this organization and so once again we relied on the internet for reference.  He told me that he had volunteered with them at Homeless shelters; packing and delivering Christmas presents.  Besides that he had other volunteering experiences with them, such as being a school usher for parents during Open House etc.  I said that we should definitely use all of this and asked him some additional questions to quantify these activities; once again preaching the importance of quantification, for it shows people that you are not just making things up.  So we wrote sentences such as, “Part of a group that twice served dinner for over 250 homeless people”. 

I learned that he was a part of the Wrestling as well as the Track team, and so we decided to include that in the Activities section.  Furthermore, he said that he was a “Competitive Poet”.  What?  He said that he had taken part in poetry competitions!  I said that this was definitely making the resume, which was looking quite decent at this stage.  I said that it showed that he had Compassion because of his volunteering, Discipline because of ‘ROTC’, Teamwork, because of his sports and Artistic qualities due to his poetry.  I told him to use this resume as a template for future opportunities.  He seemed pleased and thanked me.  We discussed the importance of a cover letter and decided to write a sample.  I told him about the difference between the cover letter and resume and then created a framework with 3 paragraphs, with the 1st stating interest in the job, the 2nd  introducing his skills and the 3rd requesting an interview.  He wanted to know how the cover letter would be used and I said that it should be the main body of his email application with the resume being attached. 

Claire called us out in the main room and asked all the volunteers to stand in a line with a youth in front of each.  This was our version of “speed networking”, where we would have 2 minutes with each youth, and they would ask us questions like, “Where do you work”, “Do you like your job”, “What education or skills do you need for that job” etc.  I started with the ‘Barack Obama’ girl and she was asking the right questions.  Some of the other youth were not taking this seriously and were more interested in my personal background, which would not be relevant in a professional networking environment.  But not all were like this and one of the guys was exceptional in the way he was conducting himself and it looked like he really wanted to learn and practice.  Claire then had a debriefing session with all of us and then we left after another successful session.  The youth I had worked with had learned something and hopefully he will use it as a springboard.  For me, it had been a nice return after the extended layover.