On Saturday March 1, the city of Dublin hosted the Tri-Valley Teen Job and Career Fair. At this event, teens could come and check out the booths run by organizations around the community.
“To inform teens about how to get their first or second job, we basically teach them about things they need to know to get a job, like interview techniques and resume building,” said Edwin Tse, recreation coordinator for the city of San Ramon.
The career fair gives teens a chance to scout out both the type of job they might apply for and meet the people working there first hand.
“Make a good first impression. Because when you’re doing it online you’re just sending it out into the aether and you’re never going to get a response back with sites like Indeed,” said Colin Gillette (’25).
Preparing for a Job
Getting a job can be stressful, but the fair can take some of that stress away by putting teens in a safer environment to make mistakes and see how they might need to prepare.
“Dress professionally. We see a lot of teens in shorts and all that. They should also have a resume with them. Regarding that, this is a mock interview simulation where they can make mistakes and they can learn from it. The professionals will give them tips and tricks that they have learned throughout the years,” said Tse.
Interviewers will be looking for more than what is on your resume. It can help to be more comfortable with talking to others and being prepared as much as possible.
“If you wanna prepare, interact with people in your daily life. What we do is we \interact with people all the time, with kids or their parents. So I’d say just go out there, talk to people, and just learn about what the world is like,” said recreation leader Savana Garber (’25).
Pros of a Summer Job
Getting and maintaining a job is going to be an important part of many peoples lives. A summer job is an easy way to get introduced to working.
“It can help develop a sense of responsibility, having to get somewhere consistently on time. It can give you more of a sense of purpose being able to help somebody. For example, if you’re working at a summer camp, being able to help kids have a good and safe time at that camp is very rewarding. And you can just have some extra spending money,” said Brendan Roche (’25).
Hiring Process
The career fair allows teens to submit applications, resumes, and have mock interviews with the workers, which can be very helpful to see what an interview can be like.
“Some will hire here but a lot of times what they will have to do is they have to apply online and then they will have to interview, just because most cities will have to interview and have people apply as a record,” said Tse.
Summer jobs are a great way to get an introduction to working a job, allowing someone to see what a job can be like and even continue working longer than just the one summer.
“So most of the job offers here are part time. But if you just work for the summer, we usually work you through the whole summer, and then our managers will message you back during the start of the next summer if you wanna come back and work with us,” said Maxwell Divizich, senior staff at Aquatics.
