<p>Living in a college town, summer jobs are always difficult to come by here. The college students are often willing or want to work more hours during the summer. DD could get her life guarding certificate, but won’t do it. She says it’s a pretty boring job. Truthfully there are LOTS of lifeguards here anyway and those jobs are hard to get. </p>
<p>Our mall is pretty small. She’ll apply at a couple of movie theaters and a local marina to work in the boat shop or convenience store. I don’t want her to apply at a 7-11 or gas station type store. Security in those places concerns me. I will have her inquire at the local Kaplan and other learning centers. I think she scored high enough on her SATs that she could work there. </p>
<p>Another thought since this thread has started me brainstorming. A local organization provides respite care to families with disabled children. She might be able to get something there as they always seem to be hiring. She does have experience being around a disabled child, her cousin, so would not be totally new to the experience and differences. </p>
<p>The big problem is that she can’t start until mid June. She’ll be in France until then.</p>
<p>I had son in the car today and detoured (w/out his consent) to Burger King, the local gym, etc. so he could get applications. Apparently I am the meanest mom on the planet.</p>
<p>Maybe I’m being too harsh, but having him apply to one place every 5 days (if that) is just not the work ethic that I think this task needs. Then again, I need to get off CC and send out my own resumes!!!</p>
<p>RE: respite care–there are a lot of elderly folks who need help around the house/yard/running errands–There are those are mildly disabled, who have had strokes, for example, who just can’t be left alone and need an “eldersitter” to give spouse/family a break. If you have connections with a church or community group that can give you a reference, I know there is a lot of demand out there.</p>
<p>Has he talked with his friends who already have jobs? “Networking” works for teens, too. “Are they hiring? Who should I talk to?” I think it’s easier for a kid to ask another kid than to walk into a store and “cold call.” My s tried the online apps and walking in to pick up apps but he found his job by asking a friend.</p>
<p>Do not overlook the value of “fast food” for a first job. Working hard for very little money, dealing with the public, and learning to get along with adult co-workers are life-lessons.</p>
<p>Networking–always smart.
I’d be thrilled if DS could get a fast food job! I hope something opens up somewhere! I love (and am hoping for) some camp job–then kids could get another, different weekend job and rake in the big bucks.
Sometimes it annoys me how many jobs I see that are being relisted as “intern” jobs. I saw one internship that was a 8-4 receptionist/gofer in a day camp. In my day we called that a "job"and paid young people some pittance for it. And they still learned just as much!</p>
<p>My D1 told me how difficult it is for her friends in college to get internships this summer. I needed a pet project, so I put together a business case to hire 2 summer interns in my department. I then contacted her school to get a handful resumes because I didn’t want to go through every resume. Now, I did reserve one for our daughter’s friend. What really surprised me was some students didn’t have the curtesey of to reply back to me after I contacted them. One replied a week later to let me know it wasn’t the right job for him. We ultimately hired the person that got back to us within 5 minutes. Her resume and GPA weren’t the best, but she was responsive and willing to learn something new (outside of her comfort zone). It was very short sighted of some of those applicants not to respond, even if this may not be the perfect job, it is always good to keep the door open for the following year. What’s interesting is salary we were offering were competitive to most bank’s summer internship programs. I question how bad it is out there, or there are just a lot of prince/princess.</p>
<p>Hey, memake, do enlighten on the gender expectations (post 45). I could actually take your shock as a compliment, but in any case you could reveal your interior mental model publicly or privately.:)</p>
<p>oldfort, I think it’s just the tunnel vision of youth & the short yardstick created by inexperience. (Rather than prince/princess.) I get exasperated with mine, too, but then I realized that I thought in “categories” then (probably) myself. They’re not in a position to understand how even “unrelated” job experience is a plus, let alone how that “unrelated” internship or job can later fructify into something else specifically helpful in your career, in grad school, etc.</p>
<p>Therefore I’ve resorted to giving both my kids specific examples of initially tangential experience of my own becoming helpful in a centrally important way. In other words, I’ve become an instant career counselor – which is what such professionals do, too – illustrating how the candidate can market her ability and skills (even if not experience), and secondly how that can or will relate to their chosen field & build a stronger resume.</p>
<p>The second unspoken reason for non-response is lack of confidence: they do assume the inquiring party will not be interested, so again it can be helpful for intimate adults to illustrate the relevance to the candidate. (parents, etc., not the provider of opportunity)</p>
<p>And finally, of course, they need to be taught or reminded about the fine points of response. It’s esp. hard to convince them of that when they’re applying during an enrolled semester and they’re busy with classes.</p>
<p>^^^agree with epiphany. I too try to play the role of career counselor, and remind my s regarding the importance of responsiveness and follow-up.
He’s had a number of interviews, and so far, one offer of an unpaid internship with a pretty cool company. He’s not too thrilled because he really needs the money. The jobs he has interviewed for with top companies in the area have been very tough to get. Thousands of applicants with only a few spots…worse than Harvard admissions I’d say. I’ve worked for big companies and relatives usually get first priority for internships. Companies are cutting their programs or significantly reducing the number of slots. He’s been lucky to get interviews…I think it’s good practice for him at the very least.
He was home for the holidays and confessed that he’s burned out on the process. Doesn’t want to do it anymore. Rejection is hard. Plus he’s busy with classes and a very full social schedule. We’re talking to him about back-up jobs - camp counselors and the like. But those are tough to get too these days (very popular with teachers). We’re keeping our fingers crossed…</p>
<p>Not to be an alarmist but please have your kids be careful with craigslist…meet the potential person in a publilc place, etc. They just finally convicted the man who killed the young woman who thought she was going to interview for a nanny position on craiglist a few years back.</p>
<p>^ well sure, if they’re going to a private home to interview as a nanny. I think the rest of us were talking about showing up at a legitimate business location with an actual business district address. For those situations I’m not worried.</p>
<p>Just be a bit aware of the parks and rec jobs that are related to enrollment-based programs/classes. One year Son got a job at the local pool as a swim lesson aide. He had to take an extensive physical and attend three long training sessions (right before finals mind you). But not very many kids signed up for swimming lessons that year so he was scheduled to work exactly eight 4 hour shifts the whole summer.</p>
<p>On not making a decision quickly: niece has two Harvard internships but she got one that was a bit less attractive first with a deadline of less than a week to accept or decline. Then the other one came in and she’s taking that one. She could also go back to her internship (last summer and during the school year) at Amherst if the Harvard internships fell through. If you have multiple offers, or are expecting additional offers, committing can be difficult. A courtesy reply would be nice though.</p>
<p>There are some employers that will let you take a “leave of absence” rather than quitting. Since most students get a full month off in the winter, it would be great for them to have a job to which they can return, instead of waiting until December to try to find one.</p>
<p>OK. I think the question of recognizing gender in a writer’s ‘voice’ is a bit mysterious. I don’t think I totally know how I decide that a gender-anonymous writer (everyone on CC, in other words) is male or female (although I have some intuitions about the process)…and yet, I think our assignation of gender-to-writer is strong. Although it might often be wrong. Even if you accept at face value all the nomenclature including ‘mom’ or ‘dad’ or ‘girl’ (or ‘grl’) or ‘dude’ (all of which can be false, of course) - you are still left with a large percentage of CC posters who don’t speak directly about their gender. Or speak about it so seldom that if you don’t CC-stalk, you might miss it. And yet, I suppose that mostly we do form a mental image of personality from reading CC-posts, and that mental image includes gender. In your case, what stands out to me are the posts about literature, and the very moving, and often thought-provoking posts you wrote when xxxx (damn, I can’t remember her name) was ill, and then dying. Doing a bit of stalking right now, I now see that many of your recent posts have been about the presidential election and national politics, which I didn’t really follow on CC. You seldom quote or recommend chick-lit, and perhaps my recent experience has been that it’s hard to find intelligent female fiction readers of non-chick-lit. The number of women who, discovering that I like to read fiction, have strongly recommended “The Kite Runner” or “Water for Elephants” or “Kabul Beauty School” to me makes my head spin. I don’t even think those books are all chick-lit – just cheap melodrama. Sexist, huh? I can be equally mean about men who think books by Guy Kawasaki qualify as interesting reading about finance and economics. Have I gotten myself into enough hot water yet? Whether you take my subconscious genderizing of you as a compliment or not really depends on your opinion of my worldview! Scary for me! Suffice it to say that it’s eye-opening and catches me up short when I realize how wantonly I have played the assumptions game, and that I have greatly enjoyed some of your past posts.</p>
<p>Do you think girls are advantaged over boys as workers these days? My son and his best friend, a girl, went job hunting together. The girl got hired as a waitress. He got nothing last summer, and they were both good, solid students. I’m not saying that they can’t hire who they like, but are my perceptions off here?</p>
<p>If you’re talking teenagers, I’d say, as a general rule (exceptions for sure), girls have better interpersonal skills. Lots of teenage boys are grumbly and non-communicative. They grow out of it but it takes a while in my experience. This hurts them when looking for a job.
That said, I think that cultural preferences also come into play here. Boys would have an advantage for jobs like landscaping or construction. Girls for waitresses, maybe even camp counselors, and retail (they smile and talk more!).</p>
What really surprised me was some students didn’t have the curtesey of to reply back to me after I contacted them. One replied a week later to let me know it wasn’t the right job for him. We ultimately hired the person that got back to us within 5 minutes. Her resume and GPA weren’t the best, but she was responsive and willing to learn something new (outside of her comfort zone). It was very short sighted of some of those applicants not to respond, even if this may not be the perfect job, it is always good to keep the door open for the following year. What’s interesting is salary we were offering were competitive to most bank’s summer internship programs. I question how bad it is out there, or there are just a lot of prince/princess.</p>