Helping Teens Land Summer Jobs
The end of the school year is almost in sight, and that means teenagers are starting to look ahead to summer employment. While the job market for teenagers is expected to be stronger this year, finding work can be a difficult and frustrating experience — and competition from older, more experienced workers can be fierce.
Teens4hire.org is a Web site dedicated to helping teenagers find jobs, a process that includes teaching them job skills and interviewing strategies. On Tuesday, the site's founder, Renee Ward, joined The Early Show and said the idea for the site came to her after watching her own son struggle to find work.
"I realized that job hunting for teenagers was a very haphazard thing at best. We wanted to put together a safe national environment where teenagers could come on board and find really good information in terms of how to look for a job, how to job hunt, who might be willing to hire them and also the best places to go to look for a job," she told co-anchor Julie Chen.
Ward brought tips and suggestions for teenagers and their parents.
"If you can't do basic adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing, that will really put you in a disadvantageous position," she said. "If you come in, speak in that business voice. use great articulation skills and dress appropriately. For example, remember to use the iron when you prepare for the meeting."
Ward explained why employers are often reluctant to hire teenagers, saying, "They feel they don't have the right attitude, that they really don't want to come to work, that they really just want to get a paycheck. A teen that's upbeat and has a positive attitude and is upbeat and willing to learn has a leg up on the competition. They have to know how to show up on time, fill out that application properly and use their business voice when they come into the workplace as opposed to their peer voice."
Once a teenager lands a job, Ward stresses the importance of following up on the commitment with these goals in mind:
"You hear stories every now and then of people that go into certain retail stores and feel the teenager is busy or preoccupied doing something else. We want them to focus on the job, do a good job, understand they're there to be on time, complete a task on time," she said.
As for which industries Ward recommends for teenagers to explore, they are:
"The No. 1 place teens want to work is where it's air conditioned. Typically, that would mean a major retail store in a mall setting or, secondly, a casual dining or fast-food restaurant. Third, maybe an office environment where they could use their Internet and computer skills," she said.
And while the task might seem daunting, Ward says the forecast for this summer is brighter than the recent past. "It has been really, really bleak. In fact, for the past five years, teen employment has been at an all-time low. Things are picking up this year," she told Chen. "Companies in traditional industries where teens could find jobs are now telling us that they're increasing their hiring this particular summer."
Finally, Ward cautions not to delay the search. Teenagers should be well into their research and, for the most coveted industries, they should be starting to apply for positions now.