Teens Disappointed by Tri-Valley Summer Job Prospects

Teens honed their job hunting techniques at a weekend event in San Ramon, but were discouraged about the prospects for finding summer employment.

Several hundred teens, parents, and employers crowded together at the San Ramon Senior and Community Center to attend the seventh annual Teen Job Fair on Saturday.

Sponsored by the cities of San Ramon, Dublin, Danville, and Pleasanton along with the San Ramon/Dublin Women's Club, the event focused on giving teens the necessary tools to get a job in today's world and exposing teens to job opportunities in the area.

Mock interviews and workshops -- with such titles as "Earning Money and Managing Finances" and "Application and Resume Development" -- were popular, but the highest-attended feature of the Teen Job Fair was the roomful of vendors looking for prospective employees.

"We want to provide job opportunities to teens in high school and to give them a taste of the job market," said Steven Cox, one of the event coordinators.

But teens like Chris Bustos, a Cal High junior, found that not very many job opportunities actually exist for them.

"I was looking at the vendors but it doesn't seem like there's a lot of diversity in the jobs," he said. "Most of them are for either volunteering or part time jobs with the cities."

About 20 vendors-including such groups as Tri-Valley YMCA, Play-Well TEKnologies, and the cities of San Ramon, Dublin, Danville, and Pleasanton-were present at the event, looking for possible employees and volunteers, said Carol Lopez, the president of the San Ramon/Dublin Women's Club and one of the event coordinators. She said that both this year and last year, because of the economic situation many businesses are in, it was hard to get a lot of vendors to come to the fair.

"We're just trying to get information out to the kids to get them to apply for jobs," said Adam Chow, a San Ramon recreation coordinator and the representative at the City of San Ramon vendor table. "We have a lot of summer programs that we hire for and we want the best applicants possible, so we try to encourage as many kids as possible who meet the expectations to apply."

But Chow also stated that last year, of the 200 teens who applied for summer jobs, fewer than 10 were actually chosen.

Many of the teens who came to the fair looking for a job, like Dublin High freshman Christian Maselli, felt discouraged.

"I wanted to make some money with a job over summer," he said . "[Being here] is making me realize what is actually out there in terms of job opportunities."

Nevertheless, the event -- which was expected to match last year in drawing over 900 teens -- remains one of the key opportunities for teens to not just find job offers, but to hone the skills necessary for finding employment in the long run.

The workshops offered at the fair focused on teaching teens the basics of employment: work permits, applications, interviews, and more.

"We really emphasize the workshops that help teach kids how to get a job," Lopez said. "It's such a competitive world that they're entering, so we encourage the teens to take advantage of the workshops we have available."

Rachel McAnulty, a junior from Cal High, was one of the many students who did just that.

"I need a good resume for the internships I want to apply for, and I hoped the workshops could help me with that," she said.

Though the workshop rooms were packed with attendees, one of the biggest crowd-drawers of the day was the mock interview room. Teens had the opportunity to take part in fake interviews with professionals who provided feedback and tips on how the teens could improve.

Rick Probert, a member of San Ramon Rotary and one of the interviewers, explained that to better prepare the teens for a real interview, he and the other professionals evaluated students on a variety of grounds, including their objectives, their overall physical presence and, most importantly, their ability to listen and communicate.

Teen Patch correspondent Steven Lau, a Cal High student, covered the Teen Job Fair.