Spring turns to Summer Quickly so it’s Time to Work!
Students what are you doing this summer? This is an important question, but even more so for sophomores and juniors. Why, because these summer weeks are very valuable for adding to your resume and getting a lot done for your college preparation.
Many have been busy making plans…applying to programs, booking travel abroad, signing up for community service projects through school, or even applying to a summer session at a college.
Is there one thing that is better than another? Well, having a paying job is impressive. It is nice to volunteer, but it is also very responsible to have a job. Taking the initiative to earn some money, be part of an enterprise that requires you to be punctual, take direction, follow through on tasks, and report to someone are all valuable actions in terms of your resume. If you have any free time, not yet booked, please start to look for summer employment. Typically camp jobs and such are grandfathered and people who worked the year before are welcomed back quickly. But think outside the box…look for something in a field that you are interested. If you like cooking, for example, can you get a job at a restaurant, or perhaps, you can find out about culinary education offered locally, and get a job as support staff.
Years ago, I had a student who loved watching cooking shows. Since I live in a suburb of New York City, the headquarters of many of these shows is nearby. I told she should try to see if she could get a job working on one of the shows. She took the train into the city and found where the networks were located. In the first floor of one, there was a grand food marketplace. She had a resume with her, and she stopped at all the stalls and asked how she might go about finding a summer job. One or two gave her some suggestions. She went back quite often and made herself known by some she frequented. One day that spring of sophomore year, one of the cooking show chefs was there in the marketplace, and vendors she had befriended took her hand and introduced her to the chef. He went on and on about how she was a culinary enthusiast and how she would love an opportunity to contribute. That chef gave her a business card and told her to call the office to see what might be available for a summer temporary assignment.
One week later she went into the meet the office manager and the manager of the prep kitchens. She was offered a job helping to clean up and organize the kitchen after show tapings. She was delighted. She worked and watched, and sometimes a prep cook would ask her to contribute some time and effort to food preparation. She learned a lot. The next summer she was offered a better position as an assistant to a prep cook. She continued her relationship with the show and the kitchen through her second year in college. She finished college, and with all her recommendations and support, she went onto culinary school.
It is a sweet story about someone who had a passion, explored the most menial possibilities of a position to help, and ended up with a whole new found respect from people in the industry.
So although you have a lot of possibilities for the summer, and I encourage ALL, whether community service, further education, and travel; I also implore you to consider actual employment. The benefits of having a job and learning about work, accountability, responsibility, and money are looked upon as very mature and quite favorable when choosing a candidate for college.
Don’t be shy, think about what you are interested in or would like to learn about first. Look in your local media want ads. Identify a couple of places that do what you are looking to do. Build a resume. Then do it the old fashioned way, go to the location, resume in hand, and introduce yourself. Ask if you can apply for a position for the summer, if there are any. If they do not formally have a position, ask if there might be something you could to do help out on a part-time basis for some of the summer. Be bold. You might be surprised with what you end up getting or who you end up meeting. The relationship might garner you something quite more somewhere down the line.
If you would like a free resume template, do not hesitate, contact us!