Tips To Land Your First Summer Job
There comes a time when you realise summer can be spent earning yourself some dollah dollah bills (well, Euro, but you get what we mean…) Finding your first summer job can be a daunting task. It often feels like people are looking for you to have a lot of experience in the job, but you need the job to get said experience. A vicious cycle if there ever was one! But never fear, we’re here to help you land that first summer job with these tips and tricks!
1. Put Together a CV
First things first, you need a CV. This should include your personal details, your education history, and any relevant experience or qualifications you may have. If you did TY, you should defo pop down whatever job you undertook as part of your work experience. Any sports, activities, and computer skills should also be listed. If you’ve volunteered doing any charity projects pop that down too, it always looks great on a CV.
It’s important to include a brief “About Me” section on your CV, it not only gives the hiring manager a sense of your personality, but if you don’t have much experience it bulks things out a bit. Keep things short and sweet when composing your CV, 2 A4 pages is the recommended amount. You’re one step closer to landing that summer job!
Canva offer a great CV builder, with loads of different designs you can personalise to suit your tastes. This is a great way to get creative, and convey your personality to an employer! And did we mention that its free?
2. The Search
Searching for your first summer job can seem a very long and dull task. Websites and Apps like indeed make searching a whole lot easier. With most of these sites you can tailor your search to suit your needs by entering a title and location. It’s possible to sort jobs by the relevance or date posted, or distance from your location. It’s also possible to create job alerts. You’ll receive an email informing you of any relevant summer jobs that have been posted.
3. It’s Not What You Know, But Who You Know (Sometimes)
Often, landing you first summer job is through some kind of connection. Your aunty’s best friend has a nephew looking for wait staff, you get the gist. Put some feelers out amongst family and friends saying you’re looking for a summer job and you could find that you’ll be inundated with potential jobs.
4. The Interview
Possibly the most exciting thing about summer job hunting, the email (or phone call) arriving asking if you’re available to interview! You say yes, arrange a time and date, hang up and… panic! “What do I say?” “What do I wear?!” Take a deep breath, calm yourself, Missy is here to help.
You want to ensure you exude confidence. Interviews can be daunting, but when you think about it, it’s basically a discussion about yourself, and what do you know better than you? Walk into the room with a friendly smile, a polite greeting and an extended hand (the handshake is always very important, seems a pretty strange outdated thing but just roll with it…).
Don’t forget to read our tips on building confidence!
Make sure you’ve done some research into the role and the company. Even your local café has some history to it so ask around and see if you can suss out when it was established, who owns it, get to know the menu a little bit. All this info will impress the interviewer and show you’re a fast learner with a keen interest.
If they ask about experience and you don’t have any pertaining exactly to the role play up any skills you have. For example, if you play sports you’re a great team player. If you’ve volunteered highlight any project or leadership skills you may have acquired. It might seem irrelevant in your head but you’d be surprised the lessons you’ve picked up along you life so far and how they can come in handy, helping you adapt to the work environment!
5. You did it!
Congratulations on your new job! It can be a bit of a shock to the system adapting to working life, but rest assured you’ll get the hang of it no time. Go in with an open mind and a can do attitude and you’ll fly it! You’re also now a taxpayer.. (not so yay…)! This can seem overwhelming at first, but Revenue have a great source of information on their site about registering your first job and how you’ll be taxed etc.
Good luck on your adventure to being a #GirlBoss!