This page contains a much more thorough presentation of my work experience, achievements, education, and skills than that found on my Resume. For documentation of details listed here, please see the Verification section.
Please do not read this expecting a quick, Resume-like read. For that, please see my Resume.
This page is not so much intended to act in the stead of a Resume, but rather as an exhaustive reference for employers seeking to learn more about any information listed on my Resume.
This page contains a complete listing of all my Jobs, all my major Achievements, all my Education at the high school level and above, and as thorough a listing of my Skills as I can present.
Job Duties: Tearing down drywall, moving furniture and other items, setting up fans to blow out bad air, driving to location, communicating with other workers to get job done.
Description: I found the job through association with an employment agency known as Corporate Services, an agency with which I have since parted ways. Though I had signed up for office work, they for whatever reason called me up about a job offer doing demolition work to clean up a flooded house.
Because the Corporate Services employee said it would be only lifting required and presented it as helping someone in need, I took the job, although the extensive travel (which was unpaid and approximately 85 miles RT) made the monetary reimbursement negligible.
While I did do some drywall removal, since I wasn't familiar with the equipment/tools, I just did most of the heavy moving/lifting for the 4-person team.
Job Duties: Interviewed residents door to door, completed and proofread census questionnaires for each household. Interviewed residents and landlords over the phone. Canvassed neighborhood blocks; updated city maps and registers to reflect information about streets, house locations, etc. Filled out and left Notices of Visit for households with no one there. Strictly followed all Census rules and procedures. Met regularly with Crew Leader to turn in registers and questionnaires.
Description: As with my other Census jobs, I found out about the job opening from a newspaper ad alerting residents to the occurrence of a new census. I went through the testing process necessary to obtain the job as well as the mandatory approximately week-long training process. I completed roughly 80 interviews, each at a different household, and another 100-150 questionnaires for deletes (questionnaires in wrong AA, Block, no longer existing, etc.). I was not fired from the job, but left when the Census went into extra weeks. Because the Census was wrapping up, they were beginning to let go of all but the most productive Enumerators anyway, and my classes were starting up soon. As with the Montgomery Census, my Supervisor was Henry Gray.
Job Duties: Pick up materials (voting equipment, paperwork, large voting sign) from the Government Center in Geneva. Transport materials to an election site and have official sign off on receiving items. Return next day to assist election judges in packing up voting equipment.
Description: I learned of the job from a meeting at Waubonsee Community College. The Kane County Clerk's Office was trying this new method to assist election judges, many of whom were elderly or female, in the packing up of voting equipment. Instruction letter signed by David Bruun.
Job Duties: Interviewed residents door to door, completed and proofread census questionnaires for each household. Interviewed residents and landlords over the phone. Canvassed neighborhood blocks; updated city maps and registers to reflect information about streets, house locations, etc. Filled out and left Notices of Visit for households with no one there. Strictly followed all Census rules and procedures. Met regularly with Crew Leader to turn in registers and questionnaires.
Description: I learned of the job from a newspaper ad alerting residents to the existence of a new census in the area. I went through the testing process necessary to obtain the job as well as the mandatory approximately week-long training process.
Despite this being my first Census as an Enumerator, I handled a difficult situation with my first AA (Assigned Area) very well. In what I now know to be a very rare happening, the AA I was assigned to had been annexed by Sugar Grove. The city clerks had done a very poor job in cataloguing the area, as some houses had 2 or even 3 house numbers (at least 1 for the fire number) so that some questionnaires listed non-existent households which had to then be sought out so that it could be assured they were not in fact existent. Still other houses were not listed at all and had to be added in. And because it was a rural area and well forrested, some interesting buildings that needed to be checked for occupants included a church, a carwash, and a large abandoned barn.
By the time I finished this first and very difficult AA, 5 days had passed. Normally I could have gotten another AA at that point, but for this Census a surplus of Enumerators had been hired so that there were no more job assignments to be handed out. I was simply told this fact upon turning in my AA, and they said they would call if any more AA's became available, which did not happen. The headquarters for the Census was a building in the Aurora Municipal Airport, and I was not at the job long enough to remember my Supervisor's name.
Job Duties: Inputted questionnaire info via laptop into Access Database. Scanned Questionnaire ID Labels with scan gun. Created Excel spreadsheets to monitor Enumerator progress. Wrote memos and other documents in Microsoft Word for my Supervisor, Henry Gray. Filed questionnaires, folders, and other forms in filing cabinets, and maintained neat and orderly assemblies of the many Census forms constantly used by the Census employees. Performed Quality Control checks of randomly selected questionnaires, contacting the household residents over the phone. Oversaw the office, usually alone, 6 hours a day, 6 days a week. When Supervisors and Crew Leaders were there, communicated with them or Census Enumerators about the progress being made in censusing Montgomery. Answered phones and addressed any questions residents had about the agency.
Description: I found out about the Census through a newspaper ad (I believe it was in the Beacon News). I went through the testing process necessary to obtain the job as well as the mandatory approximately week-long training process.
I feel I went above and beyond in performing this, my first job. There were periods during my 6 hour daily shifts where there was simply no work to be done. Rather than using this downtime reading a book or eating some snack brought along, as suggested by Census employees, I sought to use it productively and created Excel spreadsheets to track Enumerator progress so they could see how they compared to one another in various types of progress such as total Questionnaires completed, total Deletes completed, and total households interviewed.
I had told Census staff months before that my classes would be starting up in late August. When the Census went into extra weeks, I eventually had to quit early. However, it was as the Census was wrapping up so that very few workers were needed anyway, and I had given enough advance notice that they were able to locate and train a replacement for my position by the time I had to leave.
I have had 5 major achievements in my life, 4 of which deal with testing (the test results can be seen in the Documentation section of the Verification page):
1. In 2004 I was awarded the ACT Certificate of Achievement from the Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency (CAAP) while taking the Critical Thinking test at Waubonsee Community College (I believe it was as part of a placement exam if I recall correctly). My score on the test was a 69, ranking at or above 98% of college students at the local level and 95% at the national level. Both the Certificate and the Test Results page can be seen in the Documentation section of the Verification page.
2. In 2002 while attending West Aurora High School I received the Prairie State Achievement Award "for Exceeding the Illinois Learning Standards" in Reading and Social Science from the Illinois State Board of Education as a result of my scores on the Prairie State Achievement Examination (PSAE). On those 2 sections of the 5 which made up the test, I performed especially well. On the Social Science Test I scored a 181 with 98% of students at the district level scoring at or below my score and 95% of students at the national level scoring at or below my score. On the Reading Test I scored a 178 with 91% of students at the district level scoring at or below my score and 89% of students at the national level scoring at or below my score. Also noteworthy was my score on the Mathematics Test of 168 with 75% of students at the district level scoring at or below my score and 76% at the national level scoring at or below my score. Both the Award and the Test Results page can be seen in the Documentation section of the Verification page.
3. In 2002 while attending West Aurora High School my overall ACT Score ranked at or above 76% of college-bound students in the nation. My overall Reading score ranked at or above 94% of students in the nation, and in the Arts/Literature section my score ranked at or above 97% of students in the nation. Also noteworthy was my Pre-Algebra/Elem. Alg. score which ranked at or above 89% of students at the national level. The Test Results page can be seen in the Documentation section of the Verification page.
4. In 1994 while attending Nicholson Elementary School my score of 366 for the Social Sciences half of the IGAP (Illinois Goal Assessment Program) test was the highest in the school. While my score on the Science half of 362 was not the highest, it ranked well above the average. All scores for all sections on the test ranked well above the averages at the school, district, and state levels.
5. In 1998 I won 1st Place in the state poetry contest while attending Maranatha Christian School. The document sent to me is in the Documentation section of the Verification page, although I have unfortunately since lost the medal sent with the document. And because I left the school shortly after entering the contest and before finding out I'd won, I was not eligible to enter the contest at a national level.
Details:
I've been going to Waubonsee since August of 2003. It is taking me longer to earn the degree because I am not taking classes over the summer, and am spending the summers working and attending minor league baseball tryouts instead. I also switched my major from Computer Programming because higher-level classes I needed were getting canceled or not offered in consecutive semesters.
Details:
Aside from my high testing scores and some local baseball teams (I played for Kirhofer's Sports and the Sixers), my high school years were largely uneventful. I did take 2 Word Processing/Keyboarding courses, however, which proved the foundation for my now excellent typing speed.
Details:
I attended right around 8th grade/9th grade. Before being switched back to West Aurora High School, I played for the school basketball team and participated in the State Poetry Contest, which I won 1st place in. Because I had to leave before finding out about that, however, I was unfortunately not able to participate at the national level.
I type 75-85 WPM. During computerized testing administered by a temp agency called OfficeTeam in February of 2007 I typed 78 WPM with 99% accuracy and tested well above the average in proficiency for both Word and Excel. During computerized testing for a company called Protocol I typed 81 WPM with 99% accuracy (I did not finish the training for Protocol because I learned the work would consist entirely of persuading people to get student loans from Chase, a company I consider dishonest and have had a bad experience with).
Lately I have been particularly focusing on my ability to use the keypad, and my KPH is now regularly in the 7500-8500 range. As I am gaining a better comprehension of where the keys are (I never used the keypad much in the past) I am beginning to type with more and more speed, and would type faster if I didn't correct my mistakes.
I am familiar in varying degrees with many of the main office software programs out there. I have used the Microsoft Office suite for years, and took a class (Business Information Systems) in 2004 which focused on learning to use 4 of the Microsoft Office programs (Excel, Word, Access, and Powerpoint). While I have only begun using Outlook recently and am less experienced with it than the other Office programs, I have used a variety of other E-mail programs for years and years. I am also at least equally familiar with the Microsoft Works suite and the Open Office suite. I used Lotus' word processing program for a short time.
I have used PaintShop Pro 7 for years, and have limited experience with Adobe Photoshop CS3 as well. I have a lot of experience at using printers and scanners, although my fax machine experience has been limited, even though I did have some experience with fax machines during my 2004 job as a Clerk in the Special Census of Montgomery.
As mentioned in the Education section, I previously majored in Computer Programming, but switched when higher lever courses I needed were continuously canceled or not offered in consecutive semesters. However, I did pick up a rudimentary knowledge of the C++, Q-Basic, and Visual Basic languages. And of course, I have a working knowledge of HTML. While hardly an expert, I can work with it well enough, as evidenced by my building of this website.
I consider reading and writing to be among my most honed skills. As you can see proofs for in the Verification section, I did win the 1998 Illinois Poetry Contest while attending Maranatha Christian School and did some writing for my college's student newspaper, Insight. I have taken multiple college-level writing courses and have some experience writing memos and formal letters, both from my Word Processing classes in high school and from my job as a Clerk in the 2004 Special Census of Montgomery.
I passed College Algebra, the college-level math class, and should have no problem performing any mathematical aspects of a job. I also passed classes in Accounting (Financial Accounting and Managerial Accounting) as well. In the 2002 ACT my pre-Algebra/Elem. Algebra score ranked above 89% of college-bound students, although the other 2 math scores which both involved Geometry were only at unimpressive levels of 59% and 65%. My mathematical abilities are heavily skewed to the algebra side and not so much towards geometry and trigonometry, areas where my ability is at only an average level.
I am an excellent driver who has been licensed over 5 years and driving closer to 6. I still have a perfect driving record despite driving quite regularly. I drove a combined 599 miles for the Aurora and Sugar Grove Censuses.
