Entry-level jobs in Chicago are plentiful, but they’re not always easy to find. The city is a hub for a lot of industries, and has a diverse job market that includes everything from banking to healthcare to retail.
If you’re looking to get your foot in the door in a new city, or just want to take advantage of all the opportunities Chicago has to offer, there’s no better place than this burgeoning metropolis.
The first step is knowing where to look. If you’re brand new to the city and don’t know anyone yet, it might be hard for you to find out about job openings before they’re filled. That’s why we’ve put together this list with some of the best places you can go if you want an entry-level position in Chicago.
Entry Level Jobs In Chicago
Chicago (/ʃɪˈkɑːɡoʊ/ (listen) shih-KAH-goh, locally also /ʃɪˈkɔːɡoʊ/ shih-KAW-goh[5]), officially the City of Chicago, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois, and the third-most populous city in the United States, following New York City and Los Angeles. With a population of 2,746,388 in the 2020 census,[6] it is also the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the fifth-most populous city in North America. Chicago is the county seat of Cook County, the second-most populous U.S. county and the principal city of the Chicago metropolitan area. It is one of the 40 largest urban areas in the world.
Located on the shores of freshwater Lake Michigan, Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837 near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed. It grew rapidly in the mid-19th century;[7] by 1860, Chicago was the youngest U.S. city to exceed a population of 100,000.[8] Even after 1871, when the Great Chicago Fire destroyed several square miles and left more than 100,000 homeless,[9] Chicago’s population grew to 503,000 by 1880 and then doubled to more than a million within the decade.[8] The construction boom accelerated population growth throughout the following decades, and by 1900, less than 30 years after the fire, Chicago was the fifth-largest city in the world.[10] Chicago made noted contributions to urban planning and zoning standards, including new construction styles (including the Chicago School of architecture), the development of the City Beautiful Movement, and the steel-framed skyscraper.[11][12]
Chicago is an international hub for finance, culture, commerce, industry, education, technology, telecommunications, and transportation. It is the site of the creation of the first standardized futures contracts, issued by the Chicago Board of Trade, which today is part of the largest and most diverse derivatives market in the world, generating 20% of all volume in commodities and financial futures alone.[13] O’Hare International Airport is routinely ranked among the world’s top six busiest airports according to tracked data by the Airports Council International.[14] The region also has the largest number of federal highways and is the nation’s railroad hub.[15] The Chicago area has one of the highest gross domestic products (GDP) in the world, generating $689 billion in 2018.[16] The economy of Chicago is diverse, with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce.[17] It is home to several Fortune 500 companies, including Abbott Laboratories, AbbVie, Allstate, Archer Daniels Midland, Boeing, Caterpillar, Conagra Brands, Exelon, JLL, Kraft Heinz, McDonald’s, Mondelez International, Motorola Solutions, Sears, United Airlines Holdings, US Foods, and Walgreens.[18]
Chicago’s 58 million tourist visitors in 2018 set a new record.[19][20] Landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis (Sears) Tower, Grant Park, the Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicago is also home to the Barack Obama Presidential Center being built in Hyde Park on the city’s South Side.[21][22] Chicago’s culture includes the visual arts, literature, film, theater, comedy (especially improvisational comedy), food, dance, including modern dance and jazz troupes and the Joffrey Ballet, and music, particularly jazz, blues, soul, hip-hop, gospel,[23] and electronic dance music including house music. Chicago is also the location of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Of the area’s colleges and universities, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago are classified as “highest research” doctoral universities. Chicago has professional sports teams in each of the major professional leagues, including two Major League Baseball teams.
Contents
1 Etymology and nicknames
2 History
2.1 Beginnings
2.2 19th century
2.3 20th and 21st centuries
2.3.1 1900 to 1939
2.3.2 1940 to 1979
2.3.3 1980 to present
3 Geography
3.1 Topography
3.2 Communities
3.3 Streetscape
3.4 Architecture
3.5 Monuments and public art
3.6 Climate
3.7 Time zone
4 Demographics
4.1 Religion
5 Economy
6 Culture and contemporary life
6.1 Entertainment and the arts
6.2 Tourism
6.3 Cuisine
6.4 Literature
7 Sports
8 Parks and greenspace
9 Law and government
9.1 Government
9.2 Politics
9.3 Crime
9.4 Employee pensions
10 Education
10.1 Schools and libraries
10.2 Colleges and universities
11 Media
11.1 Television
11.2 Newspapers
11.3 Movies and filming
11.4 Radio
11.5 Music
11.5.1 Industrial genre
11.6 Video games
12 Infrastructure
12.1 Transportation
12.1.1 Expressways
12.1.2 Transit systems
12.1.3 Passenger rail
12.1.4 Bicycle and scooter sharing systems
12.1.5 Freight rail
12.1.6 Airports
12.1.7 Port authority
12.2 Utilities
12.3 Health systems
13 Sister cities
14 See also
15 Notes
16 References
17 Bibliography
18 External links
Etymology and nicknames
Main article: List of nicknames for Chicago
See also: Windy City (nickname)
The name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the indigenous Miami-Illinois word shikaakwa for a wild relative of the onion; it is known to botanists as Allium tricoccum and known more commonly as “ramps”. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as “Checagou” was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir.[24] Henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the eponymous wild “garlic” grew abundantly in the area.[25] According to his diary of late September 1687:
… when we arrived at the said place called “Chicagou” which, according to what we were able to learn of it, has taken this name because of the quantity of garlic which grows in the forests in this region.[25]