Job Coaching

Location: Open Door Shelter

Date: Monday, August 25, 2014; 6:45-8:30 pm

I was leading again this month and while I wasn’t as detailed in my preparations as before, I did send out a high level agenda in my welcome email to the volunteers.  Two of them dropped out and I was a bit concerned that we may not have enough.  So I asked Wilson if he could help recruit and the project promptly appeared on the ‘Meetup’ calendar, leading to 2 volunteers signing up through that.  I arrived at ODS in advance and soon the volunteers started coming in, including the ones from ‘Meetup’.  I went through my introduction of the location and the residents as well as how the evening was expected to unfold.  They were all paying rapt attention and with most of the questions addressed, it was time to go upstairs.

Everyone loves pizza!

We entered the common area and I gathered the youth around the table.  They were very engaged today and in fact came as soon as beckoned.  We went around the table and introduced ourselves and then as an icebreaker, I said that we should play the game of 10 things that they have in common with each other.  Since there were 6 youth and 6 volunteers besides me, I paired a youth with a volunteer.  Everyone was involved in a passionate discussion and I was walking about and listening.  A group of 2 youth and volunteers had gotten together and identified pizza as one of the things that they had in common.  I said that this was easy, so they had to see if there was a particular style that each of them liked, for example Chicago, New York or ‘Neapolitan’.   They said that they liked all types and I really couldn't argue against that! 

While this was going on, a new volunteer arrived and she said that she had come through the ‘Meetup’ as well.  I took her aside and told her about this place and the project, and she seemed were enthusiastic.  I placed her with another volunteer and his youth, though the time for this activity was almost up.  I pulled everyone back to the table and the pizza group went first.  They mentioned that one other thing that was common to all of them was that each of them had lost a pet.  Lost, not died, which was fascinating because it’s not as if you park your pet somewhere and lose track do you!  Other duos had interesting ones like some liked to grow plants, or things like shopping for shoes and favorite TV shows.  This had been a fun game to get everyone warmed up and now we could move on to the main activity for the evening.

Once again, there was one volunteer per youth, except in one place where we had 2 volunteers.  I wanted the volunteers to take the youth through an entire cycle of a job search; starting with creating resumes, applying for a job, networking, interviewing and finally the follow-up.  I told them not to try and do everything, but if the youth wanted to focus on one particular area of the process, then to spend more time on that.  The session got underway and as before I was walking about and checking on people from time to time.  I stopped by one pair and the youth said that she wanted to become a paramedic.  I said that there may be hundreds of applicants for that job - thousands, she corrected.   I asked how we could help her become the best candidate and move to the top of the list.  I said that she should be prepared for questions like, “What’s the most stressful situation you have been in” etc. 

I stopped by a duo and the discussion was whether having tattoos was going to be a problem at the interviews.  I said that unless the tattoos were offensive, as an employer I should be more interested in the candidate’s future than anything else.  If the candidate came across as a personable individual, this should not matter as much as sincerity.  A youth wanted to be a chef and the 2 volunteers interviewing him told me that they would definitely hire him.  Another candidate was really willing to learn and was working with the volunteer on preparing an application for a job.  One was writing her resume while one volunteer was trying hard to bring a shy youth out of his shell.  This was by far the best group of volunteers and candidates that I had ever seen during my visits here.  I said as much to their site counselor and he was pleased to hear this.  He said that we are really helping to which I replied that it was our responsibility to do so. 

It was nearly time and I gathered everyone back at the table for reflection.  I asked all – youth and volunteers alike – what they had learnt and offered them a chocolate piece for each response.  All of them gave great answers, including the volunteers; though some youth said that they were allergic to chocolate!  We came downstairs and I had a separate debriefing session with the volunteers. They had some good suggestions like doing a real interview through sitting across a table so that we could study the youth’s body language.  They also said that we should coach the youth on writing “Thank You” notes.  This had been a terrific session and I was really glad to have had the ‘Meetup’ crew along with the regular Chicago Cares volunteers.  Not bad for a backup leader.