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He received bullet points about job interviews. He got coached on presenting his “unique personal brand.” Then Onoh Udensi looked 10 stories down onto New Haven’s bustling green and saw another glimpse of his path to the CEO’s office.
He saw people wearing suits. And he imagined himself wearing a suit.
Onoh was already partway there as he and 11 classmates from Hill Career Regional High School’s finance and IT courses swept into the offices of the Chamber of Commerce at 900 Chapel St. Wednesday. He had on his striped “church shirt.” He’d put on a tie. His dad, a limo driver, had lent him his square-toed dress shoes.
Onoh and his classmates came to get tips on how to succeed in business while really trying. The Chamber invited the kids up for pep talks and hands-on advice from job-interview and “image consulting” experts.
“You are our future employees,” Chamber President Anthony Rescigno told the students seated around his boardroom’s oval doughnut-holed wooden conference table. The Chamber has joined city political and civic leaders in working on a “jobs pipeline” to link local people to local jobs.
“We really want you to be the best,” Rescigno told the Career students. To come out of the workplace and be hired, “we need to prepare you guys.”
Onoh, a 17-year-old Nigerian native whose family moved to Fair Haven last year from Texas, came pumped for preparation. He wants a job.
Not just any job. He wants a CEO job. Preferably in the technology field.
“When I got out of middle school, I was like: ‘I want to be CEO of Apple when Steve Jobs goes away,’” he said. “I want to run something. I want my name to be on CNN. Positive, not negative.”
So he came prepared Wednesday with questions about how to get there.
Before asking questions, Onoh and some of his classmates (including Star Schoenmehl, who’s pictured with him above) received a sample resume from Kelsey Brooks, who interviews job candidates for a living for a company called Creative Financial Staffing. They also got a “candidate interview” manual highlighting how to dress, what to say, what not to say at interviews.
Seated at the far end of the boardroom, Brooks offered some additional tips:
• Link in — to LinkedIn. Start off looking for internships there and chatting with people in the field that interests you. “Build up your profile,” she said. “That’s how a lot of people are getting their jobs now,” through social media.
• But beware Facebook. Keep your page private and non-searchable. Job-screeners like her check Facebook pages and frown on party pics of sloshed applicants. She finds herself asking, “Really? That’s your picture?”
• Grab internships. They open doors to permanent jobs.
Brooks (pictured) had other tips, too; more than should be listed here — because, she said, you should generally limit yourself to three bullet points when, say, delineating your strengths or experience on a resume.
Onoh had a question for Brooks.
“I want to get to CEO when I go into business,” he said. “How do” I do that?
Stay with a company a long time, Brooks advised.
“Is there a quicker way?” Onoh pressed.
Brittany Jennings, Brooks’ colleague and fellow presenter, suggested he could start his own company. But she and Brooks emphasized that in most cases you start at the bottom and work your way up. “The common misconception is you’ll be a CEO by 28 and you’ll be a millionaire,” Brooks said. Doesn’t usually work that way.
Onoh didn’t seem convinced. Does it help to meet the CEO when you seek a job he asked?
Connections always help, Brooks said. Though she got her job without meeting the CEO.
One of the tips in Brooks’ handout mystified Onoh. Why, he asked, should he bring a pen and notepad to an interview? “Wouldn’t that be a negative on you? Show that you think you’re the boss?”
No, Brooks responded. “It shows a little bit more professionalism, if you’re prepared.” When people come to interviews with her empty-handed, bereft of resume or pen and notepad, “it just comes off odd,” she said.
Next the students repaired to a conference room with a dramatic window view of the New Haven Green. Alicia Valentino (pictured) of Chica Guapa Image Consulting tutored the kids on dressing right and developing their overall “personal brands.” Udensi took the seat beside her at the front of the crowded room.
“You’re your own personal product. You are your own walking billboard,” Valentino informed the students. “Your unique brand will help you stand out. … Your image is your label. Like Nike has their image and their label.”
Besides “taking time to groom,” the students should mine the Internet and clip pictures from magazines to devise their “personal dress codes.”
When she finished, everyone was treated to pizza. Onoh paused to look out the window along with the teacher who organized the Chamber visit, Jennifer Keith.
Keith (pictured with Onoh at the top of this story) pointed to buildings that the late Herb Pearce had built. She called Onoh’s attention to other landmarks, other possibilities.
“I always thought this was a gym,” Onoh said of the 900 Chapel Street tower. From street level he hadn’t seen above the second-floor fitness center. Now he had a different view.
What struck him most, he said, was all the people walking around down there with suits on. One day, he said, he wants to be one of those people.
Previous “jobs pipeline” coverage:
• Carbone’s Pipeline Call: Don’t Forget The 99ers
• “Pipeline” Pitch Gets Personal
• $5M Jumpstarts New Jobs Effort
• Jobs “Pipeline” Gives Patrick Ndagijimana A Shot
• Should Developers Pay A “Pipeline” Fee?
• Push For Jobs “Pipeline” Gets Underway
• A Pipeline In 90 Days
• “Grassroots Agenda” Starts With Jobs