<p>Until this year, my D did not have trouble finding a summer job. She keeps plugging away, filling out applications, but time is running out. I have personally spent hours a day scanning job notices for her under a number of different employment categories, in two states, and in several cities in both states. The problem is the lack of true “entry level” jobs and “pre-entry level” jobs. There really isn’t anything between babysitter/nanny/camp counselor [which are no longer simple either, since they require a car to drive kids around, CPR and first aid certification, sometimes foreign language fluency, sometimes life guard training (no classes being offered in our area now–I checked), and for camps knowledge of expensive sports like golf, gymnastics, and horseback riding] and jobs which require prior experience in the industry, certain licenses (eg. for local insurance offices) or higher level knowledge D won’t learn until junior or senior year, or IT skills she doesn’t have. I don’t think this is unfair, but at the same time I don’t know what jobs you all think these kids should get which will count as internships or relevant work experience. Babysitting won’t cut it, unless you are studying education, which she’s not.</p>
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<p>ROTFLOL! IME, most academically achieving undergrads who excelled in college tend to be the most likely to avoid teaching K-12 like the plague. </p>
<p>For them, the idea of having a job that’s as much classroom disciplinarian as teaching, unruly out-of-control children with parents/school boards who’re inclined to support them, having most students who are anti-intellectual in inclination with parents/school boards who strongly agree, anti-intellectual culture among bureaucratic teachers/educrats in many school districts who would be their colleagues/superiors, and more would be the epitome of the nightmarish job from hell. </p>
<p>Not to mention that with the exception of a few public-service minded undergrads/families and/or college campus cultures like the one at my LAC…K-12 teaching has a widespread stigma as a career path for “unambitious” and those in the “bottom of their graduating class”. </p>
<p>I’ve lost count of how many high achieving HS classmates, their parents, and corporate execs/exec wannabe colleagues made viciously disdainful comments about the K-12 teaching profession and their practitioners. Heck, I’ve seen some of those same attitudes here on CC…though fortunately there are also many others who rise up to defend K-12 teaching/teachers. </p>
<p>Found this attitude especially common in many financial/banking corporations and biglaw firms at which my friends, acquaintances, and I were employed in. More unfortunate is how most of those attitudes seem to derive from their parents/families and start from a very young age.</p>
<p>Poetgirl, I think we need a young adult version of “take your kid to work day”.</p>
<p>Young grad wants a job in sports management. I suggest 5 things that are sports/business related, none of which are what he wants to do. Turns out he wants to run programming for ESPN or be a big time sports agent or be COO of a major league team. Well ok- except all those people started in some crappy sounding job as a marketing assistant for a minor league ball team, or as a salesperson selling ad space for a local cable channel, or in the mail room at William Morris (or one of its fine competitor agencies.) That’s what you do. Nobody gets hired to run anything with a BA. Nobody hands you a $500 million player payroll and says, “Go negotiate this” when you’ve never sold or negotiated anything. Nobody hands you the fall schedule and asks your POV when you’ve never been on either side of a TV camera, never stayed late until 3 am finishing up a promotional spot, or never persuaded a third rate washed up sports “celebrity” to do a ribbon cutting at a local car dealership.</p>
<p>Kids-- those are the people willing to hire you. The people who need someone to shlep the camera equipment, sell ad space in online directories, analyze reams of data and make excel spreadsheets summarizing it all for the person in the corner office whose time is too valuable to analyze it him or herself. You want to be CEO of Amazon? Get a job folding towels at Bed Bath and learn about retail. You think you’re the next Mark Zuckerberg? Get hired into the training program at any company in the hospitality industry (rental car, hotel, restaurant chain) and learn how real companies monetize their investment in their brand and how expensive it is to maintain your technology platform. </p>
<p>I do know plenty of the unemployed 20 somethings and I gotta say- I see a singular disinterest in starting at the bottom. But nobody (except for Zuckerberg) goes from dorm room to board room without a couple of decades of hard labor and paying your dues.</p>
<p>PS. I have an attractive, personable friend who was laid off at age 58 with years of administrative experience for an oil company. She has been looking for a new job for several years, with no luck. She is currently working for a daycare, but keeps getting sick. She has applied to places like Target as well, with no luck.</p>
<p>GFG- babysitting is just fine; your D is really too young for a paid internship (not that she’s too young, but i don’t know anyone hiring sophomores for those any more.) If she’s interested in banking, she can do an online course in personal investing “for fun” when she’s not babysitting. There are plenty of ways for her to beef up her resume long term; she doesn’t need to be running Morgan Stanley at the age of 20 to be competitive for a full time job when she graduates!!!</p>
<p>I can’t help your friend sadly- age discrimination is really pernicious in some industries. Is she good at Excel, all the latest Google Office applications? I know one of the prejudices against older workers is that they’ve mastered 2002 technology but haven’t kept up- so being able to put the latest in office technology on a resume is really important for administrative assistants.</p>
<p>D can certainly babysit for money, but I don’t agree that companies will see that as “relevant work experience” for jobs in banking, finance, marketing, etc. My son had a more professional summer job as a college soph. which they didn’t count as even remotely relevant.</p>
<p>And I am SO glad she is not running Morgan Stanley…</p>
<p>Blossom, I can’t really figure out where these kids get the idea that they are going to walk out of college into their “dream” job? Perhaps because they walked out of high school into their “dream” college? Too much MTV is always my diagnosis on this one, and we used to joke around our house about this with our kids.</p>
<p>My oldest was basically hired to run errands for her first internship, but since she was always around and would never leave before her boss, her boss just started to include her in the later night thinking sessions and loved her ideas and would give her a few extra things to do, and so, she did those well, and was kept on, inspite of still being a student.</p>
<p>The youngest was hired to be a hostess but just kept wandering back to the kitchen where the chef was when she showed up twenty minutes early to work. She was picking up shifts whenever anyone called, and one day she happened to be standing there when something needed to be done in the kitchen. After that, she just kept getting asked to do more things.</p>
<p>I’m not sure how else these thngs work, honestly. If there is a magic trick, I’ve never found it, yet. But honestly, when the oldest said she was going to run errands, we told her to be the best errand runner she could be. I think that’s the main thing. </p>
<p>Be the best babysitter you can be. Who knows who you will meet when you are a nanny? Could be the world’s best networking opportunity ever.</p>
<p>Bottom line: not that many people show up and do what they are asked the best they can, no matter what it is. It really does get noticed when you can be counted on to get things taken care of, and it matters. </p>
<p>I remember when I babysat as a girl, my mother always said she loved when she came home and the house was all picked up after the kids were put to bed. So, I did that. By the time I was in 8th grade, I ran a small day camp out of our park (since more than one family wanted me for the summer.) You could never do that now, unfortunately, but it all came about from picking up the house after the kids were in bed. a tiny little thing.</p>
<p>GFG- nobody expects her work experience to be relevant. Just that she’s had some; did a good job; learned some skills; exhibited the kind of personal behaviors that employers like to see- waking up, showing up, being courteous, staying late if required, etc. You’re over-thinking it.</p>
<p>If baby sitting is all she can get right now- what’s the alternative? So babysit. If she’s interested in marketing, she can spend her non-work hours volunteering for Susan B Komen, or March of Dimes, or any one of 50 non-profits that need people to help coordinate their corporate sponsorship programs, membership drives, etc. Your local PBS station needs people during their fund drive to help update membership files, assist with order entry/fulfillment, do basic analysis (which do our subscribers prefer- the coffee mug or the tote bag) all of which is marketing related for a “real job”.</p>
<p>If she’s interested in finance, she can start the self study for the CFA. It’s too hard and time consuming to do during the school year. I’d be blown away by a college junior who had already started the CFA prep. Or she can volunteer at the library to help them prepare their budget and financial statement for their annual audit or review. They probably have someone on the board who is a partner at a CPA firm who has junior people at his/her firm who do the accounting work pro bono… but to have someone volunteer to help the library coordinate the budget process? And get to work with a group of professionals? Fantastic experience.</p>
<p>Any organization in your community which has an endowment (hospital, animal shelter, local community chest, United Way) has a need for someone smart and capable to help create simple reports showing investment performance. Your D doesn’t need to be Warren Buffet to take last years data and show whether the trend line is up or down vs. year ago. These organizations (I’m on the board of a few) always suffer from too many chiefs, not enough Indian syndrome. The board members don’t have time to do the analysis; the staff is too busy doing what they get paid to do (i.e. deliver the services) to do analysis; the brokerage firms and banks send statements every month which nobody has time to open.</p>
<p>My point is that your D is too young to get discouraged that she’s not working “in her field” whatever that may be. Get a job to earn money if she can; go get very valuable corporate experience by volunteering. I interviewed a kid recently who created an automated donor page for a local non-profit’s website. She has no programming skills whatsoever; she googled herself answers to every question she had and found an online tutorial on YouTube. Now when you go to that organizations website, there’s a little pop up which asks, “You seem interested in our cause. Would you like to donate?” and then it takes you to the page which takes your credit card, sends you a receipt, and enters your information into their donor database without any human being having to enter the information at the organization. I’d hire 10 of her if I could find them! Initiative, creativity, transferrable skills- what’s not to love? Who cares that she didn’t get paid? I think she scooped ice cream at night to pay the bills. What a great summer experience!</p>
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Exactly! This is SO HARD for some kids because when they’re taking classes, they’re focused on taking classes. It was hard enough to graduate on time within four years, but it would have been impossible if my son had taken internships, even during the summers because he was always taking classes. Even some “internships” aren’t really entry level.</p>
<p>This reminds me of what we’re doing to our young kids. Most are now expected to read by Kindergarten?!! (Just went to my nephew’s “Grand-friends Day”) No wonder we hear about a kid having a meltdown in college.</p>
<p>And when they’re busy taking classes, it’s hard to find time for a disciplined job search–to make an appointment to get your resume and cover letter looked over by the career center; to research appropriate jobs and internships (including learning what all the acronyms in the ads mean), to prepare and send out the 100 tailored resumes and cover letters it seems to take in order to get one job; if you land an interview, to research the company and related business news beforehand, iron your dress clothes, and get yourself there without a car. </p>
<p>One job that D didn’t get, involved attending a resume drop and info. session, a pre-interview reception, an on-campus interview, booking flights, shuttles, etc. for a trip to their offices (one day to travel there, one day for the interviews, one day to travel home), and then another 3 days for a second visit, not to mention thank you e-mails. She’s very grateful for the experience, but all that set her back a lot in her school work, and she was unable to resume the job search grind again for two weeks while she caught up.</p>
<p>There was a recent article, in the WSJ I think, that said that the kids who are getting summer jobs tend to be the affluent kids with connections through their parents. D’s friend from college only had to send an e-mail to the CEO whom his father knew, and voila he has a great internship. I’m happy for him, but if his parents were to come on CC and tell the rest of us that our kids just have to be persistent, never give up, and be the best little errand runners ever and it will all work out, I’d be annoyed.</p>
<p>What do you define as an “entry level” job? </p>
<p>Maybe this is where we are cross-communicating?</p>
<p>Do you consider an adminstrative assistant to be entry level?</p>
<p>I mean, many of today’s current CEO’s started in mail rooms?</p>
<p>So, maybe we need to define an entry level job.</p>
<p>ETA: cuz, I’ve heard people make fun of being a barista at Starbucks and I consider that to be a fine entry level position.</p>
<p>Oh, and I love it when companies are required to post their jobs online, your kid takes the time to apply, and then you find out after the fact that they already had someone’s nephew in line for it and weren’t really going to look at the submitted resumes. That happened for a job at our local flagship D applied to.</p>
<p>For me, an entry level is a job one can get with the required educational background but without any prior experience doing that particular type of job. </p>
<p>As for pre-entry jobs, mail room clerk might fit that description if they don’t ask for prior mail room experience. However, I have not seen one mail room job or job of that level posted online on job search sites or newspapers for any companies in our area. They no doubt exist, but are probably filled by word of mouth.</p>
<p>Don’t misunderstand me. I really do get that the kids have to get creative these days, maybe go and work in a furniture store, or a starbucks, something so that they have a record of showing up and doing the job. But, maybe this is what people mean when they talk about learning a trade.</p>
<p>There is no “trade” except engineering, maybe, or CS that is learned in college. So, you have to get creative and find ways into things that interest you.</p>
<p>So, you would consider an adiminstrative assistant to someone in that interesting field to be an entry level position?</p>
<p>Just trying to get some clarity.</p>
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<p>I think this is where we might have a different perspective. I think any job that gets you in the door is an entry level job.</p>
<p>Exactly! Our experience has been similar to TheGFC’s. </p>
<p>I make it a point to ask the young people around here how they find their summer internships, and it does seem that the majority are finding them through parental connections, especially if they are not attending a top tier school. I for one get annoyed when schools list the companies that have hired their graduates, neglecting to mention how many (or how few) got their leads through the college career offices. </p>
<p>I have also had it confirmed by people who work in college placement offices that students have to work much,much harder to even get an interview than was the case ten years ago (sending out 100 resumes, for example, instead of 10 or 12) and go through a far more arduous interview process than was once the case. Interviews that once took up only a few hours time (and might have been done by phone) now involve online screening (aptitude and personality testing), phone interviews, travel, and presentations that can take a full day. How is a student taking classes that involve hours of reading each day, lots of writing, or perhaps extensive lab work, to fit several of these into a packed schedule?</p>
<p>Sorry, but the affluent kids my kids knew in college spent the summer trekking in Peru or kayaking in Costa Rica. It was the “wooden spoon” types who got the summer jobs. Why work if you don’t have to?</p>
<p>And GFG, I am sympathetic that the job search is so time consuming (it is) but you and I have debated this before and I am not convinced that one’s parents need to be Fortune 100 CEO’s in order to learn how to network. Networking is making sure that every parent your D has ever babysat for knows she’s looking for a summer job. Networking is making sure that your Pastor or Priest or Rabbi knows she’s looking for a summer job. Networking is telling her dentist while she’s there, “I’m looking for a summer job and if you know any of your patients who are hiring please tell them about me. I’ve left a copy of my resume with your receptionist.”</p>
<p>Learning to find a job is a life skill. Even if your D ends up in the same company for her entire career (highly unlikely) she will still need to learn to network to find new clients, get introduced to people in her professional association, or advance professionally. Telling her that only rich kids know how to do that is both untrue and unfair to your D. (Unfair because what’s she supposed to do about it?)</p>
<p>My company has an anti-nepotism policy (and we are not unusual) so the “we hired the CEO’s idiot nephew” is an increasingly rare event.</p>
<p>Entry level = a certain educational background or specific skill set is needed, but no prior experience doing the same kind of job is required to get the job. These are hard to find because now companies ask for prior experience and higher levels of education than what is necessary to do the job, because they can. </p>
<p>Pre-entry level = no specific educational background or skills needed; company will train you. These are hard to find for teens because companies prefer to hire unskilled adults who aren’t going to move on to better things, eg. immigrants. There are no teens working at our local McDonald’s, Walmart, or farm market–they are all Hispanic or Middle Eastern adults. This isn’t the 1950’s where an ambitious young lad can beg the owner (“Please, mister, I promise I’ll work real hard!”) for a job, any job, and then move on up the ranks to become the boss. HR is not going to hire an Ivy League student for the mail room.</p>
<p>GFG, one summer D could not find a job. At the recommendation of a neighbor applied to manpower and got a job that summer working in a factory. The pay was bad, the hours were bad but it was 40 hours a week. </p>
<p>When she interviewed this year for a post graduation job, she went back to that factory job as she can work anywhere and do anything.</p>
<p>D’s roommate has never held a job. Graduating this year, no job yet. Has parents with connections so I’m sure they will find her something. I’m jealous, D had to pound the pavement, it was hard but she finally found something that she will be really happy at.</p>