Anyone looking for a Chicago education job is bound to have some tough competition.

While the State of Illinois certifies many teachers each year, only a fraction of those actually make it into teaching positions. For instance, during the 2007-2008 school year, only 6 percent of the overall teaching force was made up of first-time teachers. However, Chicago Public Schools have been inundated with applications recently. A recent career fair brought out 1,100 Chicago job seekers, and applications for teaching positions have doubled in the past five years to 23,568 during the 2008-2009 school year.

According to an article by the the Illinois State Board of Education, the State of Illinois as a whole is producing thousands more new teachers than public school districts are hiring. There is an oversupply of teachers in all subjects except bilingual education, and the highest concentration of teachers is in social science. In the year ending June 30, 2007, 5,033 teachers were certified to teach social science in Illinois, but only 373 were hired by public school districts for the following school year.

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A new kind of internship is taking shape at Sara Lee.

Brenda C. Barnes, CEO of Sara Lee, recently announced the creation of a program she calls “returnships.” The program is a four-to-six-month paid internship for people who have been out of a Chicago job for three to five years and are currently trying to return to work, according to an article by Forbes.

The company has 10 to 12 internships at its Downers Grove, Ill. headquarters. The internships are in such fields as marketing, accounting, sales, finance and the legal department. The only requirement is that applicants have some experience in that field of work.

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Chicago education jobs are continuing to grow.

As of July 2008, the Chicago-Naperville-Joliet area’s education and health services industry employed 505,800 people, according to the United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, an increase of 1.4 percent from last year. The Illinois Department of Employment Security states Chicago’s educational services industry is expected to employ 351,245 people by 2014, up from 300,399 in 2004.

There are 600 public schools, 394 private schools and 83 colleges in Chicago. The city’s public schools are maintained by Chicago Public Schools, an organization that governs the district of more than 600 elementary and high schools, which includes some selective-admission magnet schools. The school district has an enrollment of more than 400,000 students and ranks as the third largest in the country.

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With summer about to end, many Chicago area college students may feel like they missed their chance to participate in an internship program for the year. Although the three month break period may be the most popular time for interning, Chicago internships can still be found during the school year.

According to a survey conducted by CBcampus.com, 61 percent of hiring managers that responded said that they would be looking for interns during the fall term. Of those who said they would have an internship program going during the school year, 44 percent said that they would consider hiring interns as full-time, permanent employees.

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