The Job Hunt: For Beginners

Virtually everybody has had that first job, usually as a teenager. You’re so proud, you’re finally contributing to the community and society in a real way. You’re important, you’re free! That is... once you finally find someone willing to hire a 14-year-old with no experience.

I was unusually young when I first tried my hand at the job market. I was around 12-13 when I filled out my first few applications - typical jobs that you’d expect at that age: ice cream shops, grocery stores, tourist shops downtown, etc. It turned out to be a lot harder than I’d expected. Gone was the era of stopping by businesses and asking to hand your resume to the manager like I’d been taught. Even the “mom & pop” shops referred me to their corporate website and refused to talk to me. But, I kept trying. I didn’t have the connections to start up a lawn-mowing business or a lemonade stand, just family members as references and a determined attitude.

After the first few summers went by without any luck, I started getting discouraged. All of the kids my age in movies and television shows have these cool summer jobs! Making friends, earning money on the side, embarking on classic summer job shenanigans, why couldn’t I find anything? Well, child labor laws are largely to blame for that. Don’t get me wrong, child labor laws are necessary. But the unfortunate downside is that very few people would bother to hire someone under 18, let alone 14. Most laws put strict and often backwards limits on the hours we could work and the tasks we could do. For example, I could work until 11pm on a school night, but I wasn’t allowed to take out the trash. I was in charge of the welfare of children, but I couldn’t work more than 4 hours straight. So why would someone hire a person with all of these restrictions, even if they are allowed to pay them substantially less than minimum wage? Don’t even get me started there. Most places would happen upon my age and reject me right then and there, sometimes in the middle of an interview.

The places that did interview me? Most of them were nuts. You don’t have any experience to go off of when you’re hiring young people, so most of them put candidates through odd personality exercises to see if they “fit the brand.” This ice cream shop I interviewed at asked me to sing Row Row Row Your Boat as loudly as I could in a shop full of people. I guess I wasn’t eccentric enough to serve ice cream, so I didn’t get that job.

Finally, at 16 I landed a job at a resort water park as a lifeguard, which still took 2 rounds of interviews. And let me tell you, I was not qualified to administer first aid, serve as a first-responder, or watch over small children's lives at 16. I was terrified most of the time. Also, 16-year-old girls in Baywatch style red one-pieces and creepy, middle-aged dads did not mix well. I would have preferred to work at a mall store or a smoothie stand, something with less responsibility and baggier clothes. But alas, that’s the only job I could get at that young age, and I was grateful.

Your first job is always rough, and at some level it’s supposed to be! It builds grit and maturity, and it’s a great starting point for jobs later on. But between stringent corporate policies and nutty managers, it’s a lot harder than it looks in the movies. These days even small, kid-friendly businesses like dog walking are dominated by apps that require you to be 18+, so what are they to do? Stick to your allowance, and ignore the casual “when I was your age I worked in a steel mill” stories from your relatives. That was a different time, and they’re to blame for the crazy child labor laws anyways, so the fault is on them. ;)