Saturday was a big day in the life of young Trevor Ballinger, 15, who spent time in Aurora doing an interview for his very first job.
“I think I did pretty well,” Trevor said shortly after completing a sit-down meeting with staff from Blackberry Farm during the Fox Valley Park District’s Job Fair Saturday in Aurora. “I told them I want to be outside and work with the paddleboats and with the kids. I talked with them for about five minutes. The most difficult thing they asked me was to tell them three things about myself I hadn’t told them already.”
The park district was working full throttle during the job fair at the Prisco Community Center in Aurora as it prepares for the upcoming summer season.
For over 15 years, the fair has proven to be a successful recruiting tool for the district to fill seasonal positions that include parks and ground maintenance, camp counselors, lifeguards and slide attendants, guest service attendants at facilities and more, district officials said.
The district was looking to fill “around 350 seasonal positions, many of which are involved with summer programming and the maintenance required to keep FVPD facilities – indoors and out – clean and safe,” according to a press release from the district.
Fox Valley Park District Human Resources Coordinator Kelly McGloon said the day before the fair that more than 150 people had registered in advance for the event and perhaps 100 more would attend Saturday as walk-ups, making it “one of the largest we’ve ever had.”
“I feel like this gets bigger and bigger each year, and the community looks forward to it,” McGloon said. “We are looking to fill part-time seasonal help and our retention this year is amazing – we’ve retained about 75% of our help from previous years, but there are still a lot of positions open.”
McGloon said the largest concentration of employees needed this year are park safety officers “who will be working with our park district police and public safety.”
Those hired would work with sworn law enforcement staff and be charged with preparing reports, supervising large crowds and writing tickets, according to McGloon.
“Another big push this year is in our Aquatics Department,” she said. “Camp counselors are also needed at multiple locations, inside and out. The most difficult positions to fill are operations – some of those have age requirements, and we prefer our campsite counselors be older.”
More than a dozen stations were prepared to interview candidates Saturday at the job fair.
According to Fox Valley Park District Recreational Superintendent Josh Barry, those stations were pretty jazzed up this year, thanks to some friendly competition among those representing various park district facilities.
“We wanted to really represent what the areas are about and give them the power to come in with their own theming,” he said. “We had an internal decorating contest so it got the staff behind it.”
Le’ah Green, 18, of Aurora, was one of those applying for a job Saturday. She said she is currently a student at Northern Illinois University and was hoping to get a position at one of the summer camps.
“I am a college student so summer jobs are the best outlet because I live on campus. I’ve never worked for the park district before,” she said. “As far as why I chose this, I like to work with all types of people and I’m really good at working with others. I like to create connections with other people and thought this was a good opportunity to get to know my community better.”
Mutheu Kasyoki, 15, of Aurora, said she was looking for her first job and that she was also “hoping to work outside somewhere with kids.”
“I chose the park district because I want to get to know people and be part of the community,” she said. “I found out about this through my aunt. I’m a little nervous but it’s going to be nice to see a paycheck, hopefully.”
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
