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male
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anonymous
writes:I'm 18, I've never had a part time job before and I'm taking a gap year so I'm gonna need one. The problem I have is that nearly everyone I've been to asks whether I have had past employment experience and that is always my downfall. Yet all my friends were able to get jobs easily and locally with ease. Why is that and can anyone give me advice to sway employers to give me a job (I'm looking for work behind a bar or in a retail shop). Reply to this Question
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female
reader, Bev Conolly  +, writes (3 July 2006):
 Don't underextimate the experience you might have in non-paid jobs. Have you helped out someone in their shop on a volunteer basis, or worked for a relative, or been engaged in a hobby that you can relate to the job you want?
You don't have to have been collecting pay for work to use it in your resume.
If you don't already have it, see if you can get a written reference from a person who knows and will speak on your behalf about your work ethic. If you can get one from a teacher in whose class you did good work, that's a great start. Even if your referee is a neighbour whose leaves you raked last autumn, if that person is willing to put down in writing that you work hard, turned up on time and did a good job (at whatever) then it looks better than having a big blank on your application.
Lastly, don't be too choosy about where you start. If you've never worked before you're going to have a harder time competing against those with a longer employment history, so you may have to accept part time work, or casual labour, just to get you started. Remember that if you're a good worker, you'll always be offered more hours eventually.
Good luck.
A
reader, anonymous, writes (3 July 2006): Are you takign a gap year from school? The number one thing employers look for in out of high school students is either community service work or more importantly expierience. Expierience is the number one thing people hire upon. it may be that your peers either have more expierience with you, or they may have an in with a relative or connections through someone they know to get hired. if I were you, ask around your family and your friends families for someone who has an opening for employment. Even landscaping, cannery work, baby sitting, and hosue painting there is always openings for those kind of jobs. It is difficult at your age because many offspring of the baby boomers are quite picky about the jobs they get.But the truth is you have to work from the bottom to the top.Thats how our parents did it, and jsut because they have the mentality that settle for nothing but the best... well that doesnt apply to adolescent work. The cannery may be a shitty job, but its somehting to get you down the line later. Unless you have marketable skills or talents, or a prestigious degree- well prepare, because you gotta start somewhere.
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