Getting a summer job for dummies

June 21, 2015 5:35 PM

Hi, I'm a 20 year old trying to get a job this summer. Almost any job. Wendy's, Starbucks, anything. I live in NYC. I go to college and I'm off for the summer. I applied for like 12 jobs. I have a polished resume with some volunteer experience and one summer job in 2009.. I haven't heard anything back from where I applied and I'm getting discouraged already. What should I do so I can definitely (hopefully) have a successful search and job?
posted by starlybri to Work & Money (16 answers total)

Do any of your friends have jobs, or parents that would look for summer help? Ask them if any of those places are looking for another hand. Don't be shy about it.

Sadly, 12 applications really isn't very much for entry level. Quantity is going to be your friend.

I assume you've tried temp agencies, but after they bring you in for testing and give you a contact, call that contact at least once a week (sometimes temp agencies will give you a specific time to call - stick to that time). Be noisy. It's often uncomfortable, but it helps.

If you can lift things, movers are definitely needed during the summer months.
posted by dinty_moore at 5:50 PM on June 21, 2015 [5 favorites]

Apply to every craigslist posting asking for email applications for food service/retail, every day. Collect the locations of places asking you to apply in person and do the rounds every few days. Be unfailingly friendly to any current employees you interact with.

You'll have better luck if you have any experience at all in the jobs you're applying for, but don't expect to get a lot of response- not many places want to hire a college student for the summer when they're planning to leave basically as soon as they're done training. If you plan to stay after you start classes, you'll have better luck (and definitely mention that in your application).

Absolutely work your networks- boring office work for $10/hour or the local equivalent is a hell of a lot better than sweating in polyester at a Wendy's (although if you work for tips, you'll make more money, obviously).

Always follow application instructions to the letter, and don't follow up too aggressively. I work at a coffee shop and we vetoed an applicant because he was so overly aggressive about following up when he'd been told we weren't actively hiring and we'd let him know. Following up once is fine, maybe twice if you've had an interview, but don't be like this guy and call multiple times and show up in person multiple times (eek).
posted by MadamM at 6:02 PM on June 21, 2015

My son is your age and has struggled too. Here is what is going on. Retail / Fast food places prefer people with "open schedules." That means no school, no classes. no other job to schedule around, etc. They only want people that are available 40 hours a week. Entry level jobs are no longer a place to start to start when you have bigger plans. They are the end point for way too many people. Keep trying, but don't take it personally that you can't get an interview for a stupid fast food job. The fact that you are trying to better yourself with school is getting you passed over in many places.

Also , almost every place has centralized hiring at corporate via the web site. I told my son to skip the web site, dress nice, and show up in person and ask for the manager. Make it easy for them to hire you. Not one place would even take his resume. They aren't allowed. It all goes through the web site, and I'll bet not one of your resumes has even made it to the local stores, because of what I wrote in the first paragraph.

You might have better luck with smaller, non-corporate places. And ask your parents, parents of friends, anybody you know with a job, if they can help.
posted by COD at 6:12 PM on June 21, 2015 [8 favorites]

I assume you've tried temp agencies, but after they bring you in for testing and give you a contact, call that contact at least once a week (sometimes temp agencies will give you a specific time to call - stick to that time).

Oh gosh, it's been a long time since I temped, but when I did, I called in every morning. I'd get up, take a shower, put on my bathrobe, eat breakfast, call in at the designated time, and be ready to throw on some clothes and bolt out out the door if they had a gig for me. (It doesn't help to get dressed, because there were different levels of formality. The highest-paying jobs sometimes wanted a suit, which I owned and could put on if I was going to be paid some ungodly amount of money to wear it.) I really only had to do that for a little while, because after a while I got a reputation for being reliable, reasonably competent, and not weird, and then they called me and gave me longer assignments. I was also very clear that I was not looking for a permanent job and shouldn't be sent to temp-to-perm assignments, which they appreciated.

So anyway, if you're going to temp I recommend calling in every day, unless they explicitly tell you not to.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:32 PM on June 21, 2015 [4 favorites]

Seconding the idea of trying independent cafes/stores in addition to the chains. Dress nicely, walk in, and ask. Where in NYC are you?
posted by three_red_balloons at 6:58 PM on June 21, 2015

Walking around NYC, I sometimes notice signs in the window of small places -- e.g., local coffee shops that are not Starbucks -- saying they are looking to hire. These signs do not stay up for long, though. So maybe once in a while you can just hit the streets of Manhattan, looking for those signs. Ask friends and relatives to be on the lookout for you, and to let you know when they see these openings.

I'm afraid it's too late now, but for next summer, if you are still in the city, try Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP). My 23-year-old college-student daughter got a six-week summer job there that starts in a couple weeks. The application deadline for the program was back in April, though, I believe.
posted by merejane at 7:21 PM on June 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

Twelve applications is nothing and won't get you a job, unless we're talking about a time frame of a week or two. For reference, I was recently unemployed, shot out over sixty resumes/cover letters in two months, and didn't start hearing back on my earliest applications until the 40 day mark. You need to be crawling Indeed and LinkedIn for jobs and shooting as many apps off as you can.

Unfortunately, you're also looking at not a whole lot of summer left; it's almost July. If you're at all hinting on your app that you'll be gone by mid-August, your chances are slim. When I was in college five years ago, getting a summer job started in March, at the very latest, sorry to say.

Look at retailers, not just fast food and Starbucks. Supermarkets almost always need cashiers and stockers. Check out gas stations and server work at restaurants too, maybe. Good luck!
posted by coast99 at 7:24 PM on June 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

Oh man, getting an entry level summer job is a roll of the dice. I agree with others that the biggest part of success will be turning in a lot of applications at a lot of places. The thing that worked for me, when I got a similar job in high school was turning in an application at a place that was actively hiring and then calling back a few days later. It was a franchise with a private owner who had received something like 30 applications for the same job, all of us equally inexperienced, and he didn't have any logical way of choosing who to call back for an interview. When I called back and got him on the phone it made his job much easier - he could simply say "yes, come in on Tuesday" and the hiring process was basically done. Turn in applications at all of the retailers, fast food, cafes, etc. that are hiring and then follow up with the person in charge of hiring.
posted by exutima at 7:49 PM on June 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thank you all for the suggestions. I'll definitely apply a lot more and go to temp agencies. As far as following up with the hiring manager, what do I say to them when I call on the phone?
posted by starlybri at 8:15 PM on June 21, 2015

Are you willing to live in the opposite of NYC? Try coolworks.com
posted by aniola at 8:18 PM on June 21, 2015

Talk to your parents' friends and your friends' parents. See if anyone needs some extra help in their office for the summer. Maybe the receptionist is out at an office for the summer and they need someone to answer the phone. Or another office is buried in paperwork and needs filing. Etc. This is how I got all my early jobs.
posted by radioamy at 8:43 PM on June 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

I told my son to skip the web site, dress nice, and show up in person and ask for the manager.

I hire for exactly the type of job you are applying for and please for the love of god do not ever ever ever do this. It shows that you are completely out of touch with modern hiring practices and is awkward for everyone involved. I don't have any sort of system for paper resumes and I don't want to be responsible for your personal information floating around on a piece of paper (which I am worried about accidentally putting down somewhere on the sales floor as I help customers/answer the phone/supervise staff).

As a Manager agrees with me: The best way to apply for a job is the way the company has told you to do it. And that usually means applying online.

We do hire students and we do hire people without open availability, but we don't hire people who are just available for the summer. If I knew you were going to be available the summer and Christmas, maybe. Otherwise you're going to be leaving just as you've gotten trained.

If you know someone that works somewhere you would like to work (or used to work there!), it's great if they will agree to be your referral. Otherwise, yes, you really do just have to send out a lot of applications.
posted by Violet Hour at 11:24 PM on June 21, 2015 [8 favorites]

Does your college have any kind of career services program, student job center, or employment office? Often times on-campus jobs will be advertised at a place like the above, and those sorts of jobs generally prefer or require that the person they hire be a student at the school, which improves your chances a lot.
posted by phoenixy at 12:52 AM on June 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

The money isn't great but try Lyft, Uber, TaskRabbit, Mechanical Turk, Odesk anywhere that hires people and pays tiny amounts for short term projects. Given your short time frame starting a low paying job (like 3$/he low) will probably be more efficient than continuing to look for medium-paying jobs.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:29 AM on June 22, 2015

Do you have any experience in waitressing, retail, etc? Anything from your volunteer work that you can make sound like that? Because places like Wendys, etc want to see that you've done that kind of work before and weren't a jerk about it (not that you are like this, but those places get tons of college students whose attitude is "ugh I GUESS I'll work at Wendy's..." unsurpisingly they are not often great employees.


Dress nicely, walk into places, and ask. (Don't ask for the manager - just ask if they're hiring; if you get lucky, they will be and the manager will appear right then because they just want a body. This has happened to me.)

Fill out the application. After about a week, call and ask if you can talk to the hiring manager, and just say "I'm calling to let you know I'm still interested and would love an interview".

DO NOT say that you're going back to school in the fall. Nobody wants to hire someone for 12 weeks. Don't bring it up and if they ask, I would honestly just say you're going to school part time, or you're still wanting to work in the fall, even if you're not.
Food service jobs have such high turnover that I don't think you need to feel guilty about that.
posted by nakedmolerats at 5:52 AM on June 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

A few pieces of advice from someone who has never not had a job in 18 years:

Do
- apply everywhere, in person if possible
- dress nice when you do apply, business casual (khakis and a button up or polo, no tie for men, nice pants and button up or nice shirt for ladies) basically dress as you would if they were going to interview you immediately, because they just might.
- bring a pen with you and fill out the app right then and there
- never ask if they're hiring, that gives them the opportunity to say no. Just ask for an application, they'll almost always give you one.
- when you're done with the app, ask to see the manager and give the app directly to them if possible. If not, get a card or name and number of the hiring manager
- call back within 48 hours to "check on your application"
- call back 7 days later to "check on the status of your application"
- at the 7 day check in, you will either have an interview or know they don't want you.

Don't
- ask if they're hiring
- wear jeans and a t-shirt
- bother with a resume, just fill out the app as given, use volunteer work as prior work experience
- tell them you'll be gone after the summer, save that for the interview and only if they ask. It may seem immoral to some, but you need a job and they need an employee

If you are applying at restaurants for serving work or coffee shops go in between 2 and 4, for hotels, check between 1 and 3.

If you want any more info, feel free to PM me. This is my foolproof method that has worked for every customer service job I've ever had.
posted by ThaBombShelterSmith at 7:31 AM on June 22, 2015 [1 favorite]