As the summer comes to an end, about 200 Champaign students are wrapping up jobs they found through Champaign Unit 4 School District’s Youth Employment Services (YES).
The YES program helps students learn everything from what to put on their resume to how to get comfortable in an interview.
With valuable on-the-job experience, the high schoolers in the program shared these five tips with IPM News for others applying to jobs.
1. Look for jobs you can enjoy.
As part of Unit 4’s YES program, students attend lunches throughout the school year with guest speakers discussing different jobs and how to apply to them.
Centennial High School freshman Jaziyah Clark attended every training. She recalls acting out workplace scenarios, which taught her how to stay calm and get a manager if confronted by an angry customer.
But one of the best lessons came from her job experience this summer.
“Find a job you can be yourself in, because I feel like that would be the job that you can best perform in, and that’s what this job did for me,” Clark said.
Clark got a spot in one of the two art-related, group jobs Unit 4 hosted this summer. One was welding a sculpture for downtown Champaign and the other was painting a mural in Centennial High School.
Clark was thrilled she got the responsibility of sketching out the face of one of the girls in the mural, as well as touching up other students’ lines.
The group jobs were the brainchild of YES Program Supervisor Amanda Danowitz. A former art teacher at Franklin STEAM Academy, Danowitz has been the supervisor for two years and has overseen a growth in the program’s enrollment.
She said there were about 60 students in the program the year before she started. Danowitz said that number grew to 152 students with jobs last year, and 200 students this year.
Danowitz said it helps that so many students know her from her art teacher days.
“Now they are taller than me and I see them in the hallway and I’m like, ‘Hey, do you want a job?’” Danowitz said.
But that high demand has also meant she needs to find more employers than ever. The art projects are one way to give employment experience to a large group of students. The district compensates them for their work with scholarships.
2. Don’t overthink job requirements.
Unit 4 has hosted mural projects for two years now, but the idea to create a sculpture idea is new, thanks to a surprise donation from a couple interested in supporting trade internships.
Since trade jobs rarely hire those under 18, welding a sculpture gets younger students started on their career.
Malakai Hyman is 15 and wanted to get a trade job this summer. He was excited to win a spot welding the sculpture under supervision from a professional artist, Gregory Stallmeyer, and a welding teacher.
The sculpture starts with a solid cube at the center, framed by hollow cubes and spheres.
“It’s expanding out, showing that opportunity grows as you continue,” Hyman explained.
Unit 4 plans to install the sculpture in downtown Champaign near the Humpty Dumpty statue in August.
The YES participants interview with local employers at a job fair the program hosts each April.
That’s where Hyman learned his tip for job applications: not to overthink the requirements.
“They had requirements that I couldn’t have done or something. There were people who said after, ‘Oh, we would have hired you anyway,’ because of the experience that I have,” Hyman said.
Hyman learned he might be an exception to the minimum age requirement of 18 in most trade jobs because he has certifications in fire and workplace safety.
3. Include keywords from the job description in your resume.
Tip number three comes from rising Centennial High School sophomore Reggie Jones. He said he was not sure how to apply for jobs until the YES program, where he learned to tailor his resume to each job application.
“Before you write your resume for that job, you want to take like 30-40 minutes to look at the job and what they look for and find the certain keywords to put into your resume. That makes them go, ‘Oh, they read our thing,'” Jones said.
Jones wants to be either a professional athlete or a mechanical engineer. This summer, he got a position painting the mural.
The artist supervising the work is Jose Vazquez, whose portraits cover the sides of the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District building and the former Ten Thousand Villages store in downtown Champaign.
Vazquez spent a week brainstorming with the students selected for the mural project. He said the students wanted to represent the figures climbing the wall to represent all of the things they are into, from art to science.
“At the bottom of the staircase, you have a young kid starting his path in high school. And then you have another kid reaching out, inviting him upward to this experience,” Vazquez explained.
4. Smile during your interview.
The YES program partners with a variety of employers around town, from Walmart to Curtis Orchard to Land of Lincoln Legal Aid.
Our fourth tip comes from a student working with a new employer this year: Champaign County.
Kiry Orellana graduated this summer from Central High School. She was nervous about her interview but had some advice to guide her.
“Miss Danowitz always reminded us to smile. So that’s a key thing I do a lot. I’m already known for smiling, but I think smiling just gives [the conversation] a better mood and you also get more comfortable with the person,” Orellana said.
Orellana wants to pursue a career in HR and is working in the county’s HR office.
5. Don’t get discouraged by rejection.
Rising junior Jade Wolf navigated her own challenge in the welding program this summer as the only female member of the team. She said it was awkward at first, but now she feels close to the other students.
She expects to continue being one of the only women as she pursues a career in welding and carpentry. But she hopes to encourage others to join.
Wolf brings us to our fifth and final tip – that there is a job out there for you.
“No matter how many times you get rejected, there’s always one,” Wolf said.
Unit 4 is unveiling the mural and the student welding artwork at an event on Friday evening at 5:15 p.m. at Centennial High School. The event is open to the public.