This summer of 2010 has been a hard one for teenagers of all ages looking for jobs. There aren’t enough companies that are hiring and there are too many people looking for jobs. Employers want some sort of work history and for 16 year olds that are looking for their very first jobs, they obviously don’t have any. It’s a catch 22: how do you ever get work history if you can’t get a job in the first place, right?

If you don’t find a job this summer make sure you at least learn this valuable lesson: nothing is given to you in life and there will be many obstacles and challenges ahead for you as you get older. Remember, you are only 16 years old and you don’t have rent to pay, food to buy, or a family to feed. Chances are good that you have a roof over your head and parents who are providing for you. Yes, a job would have been real nice and it would have given you the opportunity to earn money for yourself or your family that you probably want very badly. However, you are just a kid and you will make it through.

Imagine what you would feel like if you were an adult with a family and you couldn’t get a job. Perhaps some of you are experiencing this as well if your parents are out of work and can’t find a job. Adults who can’t find work have REAL problems because they have bills to pay and people relying on them.

At age 16 this is probably your first job hunt and it is a good lesson early on in life. If you keep looking you will eventually find a job but it is important to learn that nothing in life is given to you. That is why it is important to go to school and continue on to college if at all possible. Your education will help you get jobs later on in life and as you have learned this summer, you need all the tools you can get so that employers will give you an interview and consider you for a job.

One thing 16 year olds don’t think about is what kinds of things they put on the Internet. I am specifically talking about Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and any other place like that where you might have information about yourself. Those types of social websites are fun, but if an employer can find information about you there, you need to be very careful about what you put online.

You might have read or heard stories in the news about people getting fired for something they put on their Facebook page. You see, employers do poke around to see what they can find online about their employees. They also might look to see what they can find out about you BEFORE they even hire you!

If you have a MySpace or Facebook page that you would not want an employer or an adult to see, you should consider taking it down or improving it so that it will not be embarrassing. Store managers that are in charge of hiring teenagers in 2010 have a lot of candidates to choose from and you don’t want to take yourself out of the running for a job just because you have things on the Internet that will discredit you.

You need to also think about where else you might have left a trail online that will lead back to you in some way. Over time, it is amazing how much content some people put online. They have blogs, contribute to forums, and do all the social media things that can lead back to them. All a crafty employer has to do is become good at nosing around and he or she may find out all sorts of things about you that you don’t want them to know. So, be careful what you put online and start to clean up what you can so that you will have a better chance of getting that job you want.

Online job applications are becoming more and more common, so using them should be something you become accustomed to on your job search. Large companies such as Walmart are always searching for employees and do a lot of their hiring, or at least application review online. No matter how young or inexperienced you are, you should put together a resume.

If you don’t have any employment history all you need to do is list your skills, accomplishments and areas of expertise. Teenagers are at the forefront of social skills, which makes them ideal for many jobs that involve working with management or as part of a team to get the job done.

In most states teenagers are required to be at least 16 to be employed and many states require a workers permit. Legal working hours for a teen are based upon age and the school calendar.

Once you know that you have the legal part down, now you need to decide what you want to do in order to find a job that will interest you. A retail job for example may involve communicating with and helping customers and folding clothing. If this sounds like something you’d enjoy then applying for a retail job would be a good idea. For a teen who doesn’t want to spend hours cooped up indoors and serving people directly, there are summer jobs for 16 year olds and older such as delivering pizza at Domino’s and many others.

While the economy is leading people to have a gloomy outlook, the fact remains that stores will always need employees and people will always need stores. A teen job is usually a rite of passage, a first step toward independence and self-realization. As a teenager your job search may take a while, but you can’t give up. Using technology and networking to increase your contacts in the working world is one way to help you locate a job, even if it takes several months. If you follow these basic principles you will more than likely have a successful job search, even as a teenager.

If you can’t find any jobs for 16 year olds, you can do everything you can to make money on your own. A great idea that kids have had success with in the past is a dog walking or a pet sitting business.

There is a lot of demand for something like dog walking because right now, many families have both parents working. This means bot the mom and dad come home every night and they are tired from working all day. One of the last things they want to have to do every night is walk the dog.

This opens up an opportunity for any enterprising young 16 year old to go out and find people who need their pets cared for or dogs walked. You certainly don’t need any experience and all you really need is a bag to pick up the dog’s poop in.

Any teenager who is reliable can find people who need this service and are willing to pay for it. Most likely the hours will be quite flexible and as long as you get the job done and are reliable, your customers will be happy. There have been kids that have gotten so much business that they couldn’t do it all themselves!

With this kind of a job, you will learn how to be your own boss and to deal with your own customers. If you do well, people will like you and keep you on as their dog walker. If you slack off and don’t do a good job, you will learn quickly what being fired feels like.

People will pay others to do jobs for them that they either don’t like doing or don’t have the time to do. There are other things similar to walking dog jobs such as house cleaning, weed pulling, mowing lawns and many other things. Dog walking is just one of many things that you might find people are willing to pay you for.

So, if you can’t find what you consider a “real” job this summer, go out their and think of other ways you can make money. Jobs for 16 year olds are everywhere, all it takes is some good brainstorming and the energy to go out and find your own customers.

One thing to be wary of is the email address you are using as a contact. Many teens have creative email addresses like “ILoveRick@yahoo.com” or “HaloGodGuy@aol.com”. While this kind of email address is fine for use with your friends and to sign up to various websites such as YouTube, it is NOT a good email to use for job employers.

Anyone looking for jobs for 16 year olds should be sure they are using an email that looks more professional. You should use an email that has your name in it so that employers know you are serious about finding a job. It can be a free email service like Yahoo or AOL but the important thing is to make sure your email address will not turn off people who may hire you.

Along the same lines, you if you have a cell phone you should make sure you have a message that will sound professional as well. If you give any prospective employer your cell phone number or if you have it on your resume, you DO NOT want your message to sound stupid or childish. If your normal message is something like “YO, leave a message” or anything childish like that, you need to make sure you change it.

Employers have a lot of choices this summer for the jobs they have open. There are a lot of 16 year olds looking for jobs and the ones that do the best overall job of interviewing and presenting themselves will get those jobs. Make sure you don’t take yourself out of the running before you even get a chance to be considered!

Of all the job websites online, only one of them specializes in part time and hourly jobs. These are exactly the types of jobs most sixteen year olds are hoping to get this summer.

SnagAJob.com is the online job site and it is free to check out, sign up, and look for a job in your area. (Please only sign up if you are serious about finding a job!)

A lot of the retail names you are familiar with have job listings at SnagAJob. Companies like Kohls, Toys -R-Us, Dominoes Pizza, Bed Bath and Beyond, AMC movie theaters, Chick-fil-A, and many others are places where you might be able to find something this summer.

SnagAJob is your best bet online to find a job this summer but you need to start looking right now. Even though it is only March, it is NOT to early to start trying to line up that summer job. In a month or two it will already be too late as jobs fill up fast and there are lots of older teenagers looking this year.

Summer may seem like it is a long time away but if you really hope to find a job, you should start looking right now. I know, the snow is still coming down in some places and it may continue for a while but you need to get a good jump on the competition to give yourself the best chance you can.

Summer jobs for 16 year olds were real hard to find last year and this summer is shaping up to be no different. If you start your job search now, you may be able to make some contacts that will lead to a job later on. You might start at your local mall and go in the different stores you might be interested in working at. Ask for the manager and inquire as to whether they anticipate hiring this summer.

Showing interest now will let them know that you are serious about finding a job and it may allow you to stick in their memory. If you have a resume to give them it would be a great way of  showing interest as well as leaving a phone number to be contacted. Most 16 year olds don’t have a resume though and probably don’t have much work experience to put on one anyway.

Short of making a resume, it would be a good idea to order some free or cheap business cards that you can find on the Internet. for instance, you can get 250 premium quality, color business cards FREE if you click here. Have your name, address, and phone number printed on each card along with a short message about wanting a summer job. You can hand out one of these cards to each manager or potential employer you meet so they can remember you and have a way of contacting you.

If you truly want to find a summer job, you might have to be prepared to take one sooner. By freeing up your schedule, you will have the ability to take a job after school or on the weekends before summer starts if you find an employer that needs someone sooner. By doing this, you will have secured that summer job well before all your friends do.

The summer of 2010 is probably going to be another tough ones for jobs for 16 year olds. Get out now during the winter and keep looking. Never giving up is the key as well as maintaining a positive attitude. If you do those things, you will stand a better chance of landing a job than most of your friends who don’t start looking until the last minute.

This means means that if you are lucky and do find an employer who might be interested, you need to do the best you can in the interview.There are a lot of 16 year olds out there looking for jobs and employers can pick only the best candidates and the ones they think will do the best job. Your interview may be your one and only chance to impress someone enough to hire you.

1) Anyone interviewing for jobs for 16 year olds should dress nicely. You should NOT wear jeans unless that is all you have and instead wear pants that you might wear to church. At 16 you don’t have to wear a tie but you should look well groomed and your hair should be neat. Remember, it is up to you what type of an impression you want to make. If you are the only job candidate that doesn’t dress well, then you will not look good in the eyes of the employer.

2) You should be prepared for the standard questions you will be asked. Things like your name, age, grade, why you want a job, what your experience is, and other such questions are ones that you should not have to think about. Since you know you will be asked those questions or ones similar to them, you should think about and be ready to answer that type of question without hesitating. 

3) The job interview process is a way for an employer to sit down with you and find out who you are. There is no need to get overly nervous and your best chance of getting hired is to be honest with your answers and respectful to the person asking them. Remember, they are trying to figure out whether you will do a good job for them and whether the job will be one that you can do and will like.

4) Don’t ask silly questions. At some point the interviewer may ask if you have any questions. At that time you may ask more about the job and what you would be doing. It is important not to take up the interviewers time with questions like whether you will be given time to go to the bathroom or how much break time do you get. The prospective employer will learn a lot about you by the type of questions you ask so it is important to stick to questions that are job related and not childish.

5) You should never appear to be desperate for the job or beg for the job. It is true that the economy is down and you have probably had an impossible time trying to find a job. However, it is the same for everyone and no employer wants to hire someone that begs.

6) Never brag about the past jobs you have had, your grades, or any awards you have won. You might include them in the conversation when describing yourself but you should never appear to be cocky or overly proud. Employers want to hire people who are polite and respectful and not people who are overly confident or intent on telling the world how great they are.

These are some interview guidelines for all 16 year olds to follow when interviewing for a job. No matter what type of job it is, these general rules will help serve you well in any job interview.  You will most likely not be the only one trying to get the job so you must do your best to give the employer good reasons to hire you rather than reasons NOT to hire you. Jobs for 16 year olds are in demand now and if you are lucky to get an interview, you will hepefully do your best to give a good first impression.

Jobs are extremely difficult to find right now and the chances are you have been looking for awhile. The job situation in the United States is that many employers have had to cut back jobs and are trying to get by with fewer employees. This also means less jobs for 16 year olds and until the economy starts to turn around, nothing is going to change.

If you have been trying to get a job for a while and never seem to get called back, maybe you need to look at some of the things you are doing (or not doing) in the job interview. Remember, only the best teenagers are going to be hired because employers have a lot of job applicants to choose from. They are only going to choose the best ones and so you have to make sure you are doing the best you can in the job interview and presenting yourself well.

During a job interview you should be paying attention to some of the following things. It doesn’t matter whether you are interviewing for a car wash or a busboy position, it is always important to do these things:

1) You must show up on time for the interview. If you show up late, the employer will assume you are going to show up late to your job as well. You really should show up at least ten minutes early just in case they are ready for you and then wait patiently until it is your turn.

2) Don’t dress up like a kid. Although you still are a kid, you want to wear some nice clothes that make you look respectable. Remember, if you get hired you will be working for and representing the company that hires you and you don’t want to make it look like you don’t care about the way you look. Make sure your clothes are neat, clean, and worn properly.

3) In the interview you must act as much like an adult as you can. Don’t ask dumb questions that make you look foolish. Interviewers are looking for the best candidates and asking a lot of silly questions in the interview does not make a good impression.

4) Don’t complain about anything and most of all don’t complain about how hard it is to find a job and how long you have been looking etc.. Employers don’t want to hire whiners and complainers. They want to hire enthusiastic, cheerful, and competent 16 year olds that can do the job and are glad to be working.

5) Don’t pretend to be someone you are not or brag about how great you are. You need to come across as a real person who is willing to work hard at the job and not someone who is fake. Interviews for jobs for 16 year olds can see right through someone who is not being honest and trying to pretend they are better than they really are.

6) Act confident but not too confident that you can do the job. Again, you want to present yourself as a good choice to be hired because you can do the job but you don’t want to act like it will be too easy. Overconvidence is not something that will help you get a job in most cases.

These interview tips are something you should look at to evaluate how you are doing. If you haven’t been able to get a job, it may be because of some of the things you may be doing wrong in your interviews. Employers are always going to hire the people they think will do the best job and your interview is the ONLY thing they have to go by.

Good job advice for 16 year olds is to keep looking for a job (never give up) and to keep getting better at your interview skills. The more times you get interviewed, the easier it should be to not be nervous and to conduct yourself in a way that any employer will like. ]]> http://jobsfor16yearolds.net/2009/10/17/job-advice-for-16-year-olds/feed/ 4 http://jobsfor16yearolds.net/2009/09/04/how-to-make-some-extra-cash-from-home/ http://jobsfor16yearolds.net/2009/09/04/how-to-make-some-extra-cash-from-home/#comments Fri, 04 Sep 2009 01:16:41 +0000 Job Guy http://jobsfor16yearolds.net/?p=47 Finding jobs for 16 year olds is tough whether you are looking for a part time job, a winter job, or any other kind of job. Some of you got lucky this summer and were able to find jobs and others were not so lucky. If you are looking for a job you should keep looking and don’t give up. Eventually you will find one.

However, there is a way to make some extra cash on the side right from your home while you look for that job. CashCrate is a site that is FREE to join and will NEVER ask you for any money. You have to be 13 and older and you can make some good money as you can see from my check below. Now I got the check pictured below from doing offers, surveys, and referring people through my blogs so your check won’t be big like that until you learn how to refer other people.

 

When you sign up to  you need to first look at the FAQ’s and watch the tutorial. You also need to read the tutorials in the forum and join the forum as it is a friendly place with many people willing to help you.

Many of the people who join CashCrate are just like you in that they are young and looking for ways to make extra money. There are lots of 15 and 16 year olds trying to make money and you can join them for free. There is a very long thread in the forum showing all the checks people have gotten and it is NOT A SCAM. I have been paid EVERY month since I joined over two years ago.

Again, this is NOT A JOB but it is a good way to bring in some extra cash that you can use for video games or  Christmas or whatever you want. CashCrate automatically sends a check to your house when you reach the $20.00 mark (your check will be for more if you go over) and so you should always give accurate information if you want to get paid.