Summer 2008 Gloomy Job Market = Opportunity for Teens to Follow Their Passion

The economic situation this summer offers a terrific opportunity for teens to follow their passion. First, the situation:

In Harvey Mackay’s June 19^th email column, he reported an economic statement about summer teen employment from The New York Times:

“The job market of 2008 is shaping up as the weakest in more than half a century for teenagers looking for summer work. Little more than one-third of the 16- to 19-year-olds in the United States are likely to be employed this summer, the smallest share since the government began tracking teenage work in 1948."

Second, the opportunities:

• Teens whose parents wanted them to get a full-time paying job as a “rite of passage” – for example, at Starbucks or Wal-Mart – can point to the economic situation as a reason to use this summer instead to further their passion.

• Teens who wanted an unpaid internship this summer and haven’t found one yet have more “ammunition” to convince an employer that an unpaid intern can help fill the gap in a company where budget cuts have eliminated job positions.

Now it’s up to the teens to make lemonade out of lemons. And that means brainstorming to think of “outside the box” ways to pursue passions. For example, for a teen who is considering a career as a veterinarian: Why not see if a local vet needs a free extra pair of hands? This is a terrific way to learn whether you can really put up with all those animals all day long. Better to find this out before you apply to veterinarian school.

Or a teen who is interested in architecture can ask to tag along for the summer with an architect working on a major building project. Up close and personal is the best way to find out what headaches an architect deals with – clients, builders, garbage removal, etc. – and what negotiating skills are needed to navigate this maze of frequently conflicting objectives.

Or let’s consider artistic fields. You want to be a painter and your parents are convinced in such a path you’ll starve. See if you can spend the summer being the unpaid assistant to a currently successful painter. During the time you spend with the painter, you should have ample opportunity to talk about the obstacles the painter faced before becoming successful.

And consider volunteering for an organization that does good works. Even though this may not be in a possible career field, you can learn a great deal by watching the dynamics of an organization. Even when you’re making the coffee, keep your eyes and ears open to learn as much as possible.

Make the summer of 2008 the summer you followed your passion. Hopefully you will learn a great deal about pursuing a current passion as a possible career path. And, if nothing else, you should have good material for writing application essays for college or grad school.

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Summer Jobs for Teens -- Opportunity to Think Outside the Box

According to Renee Ward, founder of www.Teens4Hire.org, “Teens seeking paying part-time and/or summer jobs will find it harder but not impossible to do this year. Overall hiring has slowed due to economic uncertainties and businesses are reluctant to hire minor teens. As a result, teens will have to work to find work.”

If you’re a teen, you can go to this website for advice on finding summer jobs.

Yet there’s another avenue for summer employment: You can think outside of the box, something that I always encourage young people to do whether they’re applying to college, looking for an internship, or job hunting.

First, assess how much you need or want to make this summer. This gives you a starting point in your planning as well as a definite target number.

Second, think about what else you’d like to accomplish this summer – learning how to play the guitar, an internship at a local newspaper, training for a marathon. And, of course, you realize there are only so many hours in the week if you also want to hang with friends, go to the beach, or whatever.

Third, write down (so your thoughts are clear) the number of hours you think you need for each activity. Then look at how you can re-arrange the pieces of the puzzle.

To understand what I mean, let’s take an example of Jane. She wants to earn at least $300 a week take-home pay this summer and also have an unpaid internship at a public relations company near where she lives. Here are two different possible scenarios:

Jane could work 40 hours a week at a fast-food restaurant and make perhaps $6 an hour after payroll deductions for a total of $240 a week. This will leave her very little time for the internship even if part of the 40 hours is over the weekend.

Or she can tutor young students in math, a subject at which she excels, and charge $20 an hour. If she signs up 12 hours of tutoring a week (maybe 6 students for two hours each a week), she can make $240 a week – the same as at the fast-food restaurant and with more flexibility of hours. And out of 40 hours of work a week, she has 28 hours a week free for the unpaid internship she wants.

Before you start getting desperate that you can’t get a teen paying job this summer, consider what your strengths are and how you might earn money legitimately by thinking outside the box. And, for an added bonus, you might even use this experience as the topic for one of the short college application essays. Now that’s a real good deal!