<p>this is a terrible time to be trying to line up summer jobs, I'm sure, but I'm trying to motivate my twins, freshmen at large state university, to get started. They say their friends aren't doing anything about it and don't know where to start. I'm assuming the university has some kind of jobs office, but in my experience kids often get summer jobs through friends and their parents.
Any ideas for 1. motivating and 2. where to look for summer employment? I can imagine how easily the spring semester will slip by if we don't focus on this now.</p>
<p>I feel for you. I am also trying to motivate my high school senior son to get a summer job. I brought up the idea several weeks ago and he said he wanted to relax. I brought it up again yesterday and he said he doesn’t know where to start. I guess if I want him to have a summer job, I will have to do the research and jump start him.</p>
<p>I share your concern about motivation and do not have any insight to help. Regarding summer jobs, most colleges have a Career Center/Office that help students to find permanent and summer jobs. Right now is the prime of summer intern recruitment season and is not too late to apply for summer jobs at this point. The students, however, need to be proactive. They need to find out how the system works in their school and go from there.</p>
<p>Do try the career office. My son already has one job offer for next summer and is interviewing for another one this week. At least for tech jobs - they start early! </p>
<p>That doesn’t mean you can’t help too. My first summer job I got through my parents. My son started working for my brother. His experience with my brother (in the same field he majors in) was helpful in getting his first job. He’s also gotten projects from neighbors.</p>
<p>My daughter applied last March at a camp. She had worked there one summer previously. The camp director told her they were fully staffed before Christmas and never had to recruit at colleges for the upcoming year. Now that she is older I would like her to intern but I’m glad she worked as a counselor in 2007 because the responsibility was good for her and the camp was breathtakingly beautiful. Now is the time to line up camp positions, if your students would like working in the out of doors, likes children and has a skill or sport they would like to teach.</p>
<p>I get it. Why would a kid want to work a summer job when he has a nice home (with the parents), TV, cable, internet access, a full fridge, and can walk or bum a ride with pals most anywhere he needs to go? The “future” of needing more cash, or needing more cash than what it takes to see a movie once in awhile is just not here for him yet. Everything else is just his parents jammering. </p>
<p>Pay a few less bills and expect your kids to pay or do without. Real world wants and needs NOT paid for by parents are the true motivator.</p>
<p>We are there, too, just a year or so earlier. This has been a constant struggle with our teens as well. The problem is more motivation than anything else… they don’t “see/feel” they need the cash and future issues for them are just that - in the future. While my husband and I squirrel away money into retirement funds, I have to admit, most days I can barely stand that process… “retirement/growing old” is future and I’d rather have that extra cash in my pocket to burn rather than sitting in a 401K. Humans are funny about money, I think. We want it now. Psychology of money is fairly interesting.</p>
<p>So it is an uphill battle against human nature. We ended up having to hand-hold our son by driving him to places he could fill out applications. We found that once employers started calling him for interviews that our son was pretty good about following up and once hired did a fairly good job going to work over the summer. For us, we really had to draaaaaag him through the paper/online app process but once the ball was rolling it wasn’t too bad. The basic problem is that between foot dragging, delays in hiring decisions, a couple weeks of a few hours of “training”, by the time he was actually working a full schedule, summer was practically over.</p>
<p>And then he quits the second school starts. We encouraged him to keep the job going through the school year (this is a kid who plays massive amount of computer games – he has the time just not the motivation.)</p>
<p>We are positive for our son (18, about to go off to college) that he’ll work when he “sees/feels” the need for cash. We aren’t going to heavily subsidize his college living when he is away at college so the crunch will likely begin very soon.</p>
<p>I’ve started to bug my kids about this topic too. Of course, they have to put together a resume, but that’s rather sad too. Does anyone have a good resource / format to create a resume? It’s hard enough to design a resume, and harder still if you don’t have any experience to write about.</p>
<p>My kids made most of their spending money cash through tutoring. That and babysitting are both really good sources of income around here, but not really something to put in a resume.</p>
<p>To them summer is a long way off. There still ALL winter, then ALL spring! All THAT before summer comes!</p>
<p>I don’t think there’s any harm in helping them brainstorm, or asking around to see who might be hiring and THEN passing the info onto them to follow through.</p>
<p>My friend Stacy’s dad told her in the spring, “You’re going to be 16 this summer; you need to get a summer job.” Just like you me, and all our clueless kids, she flaked out. The first day of summer a truck delivers a pile of shingles next to the shed. Dad says, “You don’t have a job. You’re going to re-shingle the shed.” So my friend spends a week in the hot Louisiana sun roofing that shed. All toward the end of the week all she can thing about is how good it was going to be to be done. Friday noon she finishes. Friday afternoon a truck arrives and unloads a bigger pile of shingles next to the barn.</p>
<p>My S is going to take the US Census employment test next week, but I dont know what his chances are for a summer job with them. If he gets hired, it would be $18+ per hour.</p>
<p>“Why would a kid want to work a summer job when he has a nice home (with the parents), TV, cable, internet access, a full fridge, and can walk or bum a ride with pals most anywhere he needs to go?”</p>
<p>Mine even had access to a car, but she still got and worked two jobs last summer. Her motivation - “I need more job experience on my resume!”</p>
<p>Census jobs are a great idea, they’re trying to hire a lot of census workers this year, and it’s a flexible job that’s available in practically every city and community, much higher paying than what they might find otherwise. </p>
<p>The careers center at the university might not be too helpful since they are usually focused on helping students get jobs after graduation, or get internships before graduation, not so much on summer employment. </p>
<p>It’s probably true that your twins don’t know where to start and are plenty busy with their own work. Esp. in this economy, they’ll probably be looking for jobs that you or your family friends can help them get. Maybe think about who you know that they might be able to contact about getting a job and give them at least some names where they can start looking.</p>
<p>I think tutoring and babysitting are fine resume items, particularly if they can use these jobs for positive references. Employers don’t expect teens to have serious employment experience or special skills. They want assurance that the applicant is bright, hardworking and dependable. The resume my D used during her senior year in high school for camp counselor jobs the following summer listed her academic achievements and played up her childcare and camping-related strengths. If she were applying for a different kind of job, I would have recommended she stress other attributes. Think of what activities your kids engage in and how they can be portrayed as positives–e.g., school sports show commitment to a group effort or, if applicable, leadership qualities. Nice English grades and high verbal SAT’s are evidence of good writing and communication skills. Basically it’s a bit of a sales job. I think that most kids simply fill out job applications, so having a well-crafted resume that conveys a seriousness of purpose and professionalism can be very appealing to a prospective employer. Reviewing some basic interview skills is also important. Stuff as simple putting out your hand for a handshake, sitting up straight and looking the interviewer in the eye are intuitive to adults, but not necessarily to teens. Kids also ought to be prepared for the kind of questions they may be asked, so they don’t trip over ordinary stuff like “Why do you want to work here?”</p>
<p>@BunsenBurner: Congrats! That kind of self-driven motivation in your daughter is amazing. </p>
<p>I do tend to believe some of the problem (in a broad generic sense, anecdotally there will always be exceptions) is gender. We did not have as much trouble with our daughter getting her out there and working her first few jobs.</p>
<p>*We used the no job, no use of car. Worked pretty well. *</p>
<p>My parents used the “you have to pay for part of your car insurance and pay for the gas you use” as an incentive for us to get jobs. If we didn’t get jobs, we couldn’t get our drivers licenses.</p>
<p>Do the Census workers visit in teams? I guess it depends on where you live, but I’d be very leery of my kid knocking on doors in all parts of town, especially since some people are very hostile to anyone coming onto their property under the aegis of government. Paranoia, perhaps, but I wouldn’t want to be knocking on strangers’ doors myself, and unless my kid were a big burly guy with great street sense, wouldn’t allow it.</p>