Summer Job for Graduating HS Senior

Career Opportunities & Internships
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<p>I'd like to get a summer job so that I'll have some spending money when I start college. I would really like an education/government/public affairs related job.</p>

<p>I received an unsolicited job offer from a local college, but I'm not sure if it will give me the hours (and, thus, the money) I'd like. As for other jobs, I have a few concerns.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>As a high-school senior, is it too presumptuous for my resume to be more than one page? I made one that's one page, but I had to omit a few relevant positions. Between past and current stuff, I have about fifteen very relevant positions... with one page, I have to omit several and do not have room to add pertinent details (e.g., responsibilities, accomplishments, appointing authority). </p></li>
<li><p>I have some education-related work-experience; then, I have bona fide experience in my field (e.g., appointments from government boards). Is it too presumptuous to differentiated between the two by calling the latter "Professional Experience"?</p></li>
<li><p>I live in a small-ish city. It's just not feasible for me to get an out-of-town job with a long commute. While I'm open to whatever job I can get, I'm objectively overqualified for the typical "teen summer jobs" and local employers for such jobs seem intimidated. Should I apply for some of these jobs with a significantly "dumbed-down" resume?</p></li>
<li><p>When a potential employer requests references, will he or she feel insulted/be suspicious if I provide references from my least impressive/important positions? I don't need ten potential employers calling prominent state officials for recommendations on my book-stacking or phone-answering abilities.</p></li>
<li><p>Is it better to find an un-challenging, low-paying summer job to have a bit of spending money next year, or to get an unpaid internship with someone like a local college president to help my job-search next year?</p></li>
</ol>

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<p>Most of these questions are relative. That is to say that it is personal preference.</p>

<ol>
<li>Your resume should NEVER be more than one page. If you are doing a CV (curriculum vitae), then you can go into more detail, but you must be able to show a resume that highlights your most relevant and recent experience. If you have fifteen things on your resume, you have too many; it just isn’t possible for you to have fifteen unique positions relevant to any particular job you are applying to. </li>
</ol>

<p>Here’s how I created my resume. First I broke it up into two sections: Work Experience and Leadership Experience. Under work experience, I listed jobs waiting tables, doing research and running a campus store. Now, in my life I have worked at eight restaurants, but there was one which really gave me valuable life and professional experience, so I listed that. I had several administrative type jobs, but my most recent gave me experience in another aspect that would help in the jobs for which I was applying, so I chose that one. In the end, I chose three jobs and listed only the most relevant information.</p>

<p>Under Leadership Experience, I had more to choose from. Now, the difficulty for high school students is that most of the experience you get in leadership is difficult to put on a piece of paper. You don’t want to embellish, as employers will know when you are giving them BS. Instead, be realistic. If you have worked on the school newspaper, don’t say that you ran a business, because you probably didn’t; you did, however, probably have to manage other students, edit articles and make real decisions, even if they weren’t high level business decisions.</p>

<p>With regard to what to actually do, be realistic. Many long tenured working professionals are underemployed, so when you see people with bachelor’s degrees working retail, you’ll realize that the market is very much in favor of employers right now, especially for the types of jobs high school graduates get before freshman year of college. </p>

<p>With regard to references, it doesn’t matter who they are as long as they are actually able to make solid statements about you. I am acquainted with several high ranking officials in my state (including the former governor), but just because they are the most powerful doesn’t make them relevant. If you have worked directly for a state official and he/she can talk about you in a concrete fashion, go for it! Realistically, employers don’t check references for temporary jobs all that often, so while it’s possible, it really isn’t a very big deal.</p>

<p>As far as low-paying v. non-paying, what are your needs? Personally, I turned down an unpaid internship with the DA’s office my freshman year solely because it was unpaid, and I didn’t have the financial flexibility to spare money I could earn with a paying job. If you could forgo that money, that gives you more options, so it really is a personal preference. Personally, I go for paying every time… and if you are looking for flexibility with good money, look into restaurants. I started working at restaurants when I was sixteen, and I earned well over $30,000 over the course of three summers waiting tables during college. Now, I can say with certainty that I will ALWAYS be employable: if a company lays me off, I know that I can start waiting tables and make $600-$1,000 a week while looking for another job, so in my specific case, turning away unpaid opportunities has led to job security into the foreseeable future.</p>

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<p>Quite nice posts. Thanks for sharing such views.</p>