Young Job Seekers Adapting to Tough Economy

Many high school upperclassmen and college students spend their summer vacation working at either restaurants, retail stores, or internships. Unfortunately for this demographic, with the recent economic troubles and job competition, it has been harder for these young workers to find a three-month summer position.

Despite these tough times, some youngsters from the Manchester area have adapted to the competitive job market, learning how to acquire that precious summer job. Other students are still on the unemployment list, but they have learned from their mistakes, which they say will help in the future.

Evan Rear, 20, attends Manchester Community College, and he will be working at the Dairy Queen in Cromwell this summer. The East Hampton native said that job seekers need to be persistent with their search.

“If you look hard enough and try hard enough, you can find one [a job],” Rear said. “Just about all my friends have been able to find one.”

Rear, who is studying philosophy at MCC, emphasized that it’s always hard to find a good job. However, he said finding a simple job at a restaurant or clothing store is not as hard as people would expect, even in this economy.

“Just don’t quit with it,” he said. “Eventually you will get one of them.”

In addition to working at Dairy Queen this summer, Rear will also be giving music lessons. He teaches guitar and composition, acquiring customers by word of mouth.

“If you are sick of searching for a job, just make your own job,” he said.

Then there is Autumn Henry, 16, who attends Great Path Academy and takes a few courses at MCC. The Manchester resident will be working this summer at the new Sonic restaurant in town.

Unlike Rear, she said persistence wasn’t exactly the key with attaining the job. Henry said she succeeded by jumping on top of the job opportunity and being ahead of the other applicants.

“Sonic was only the second place I applied for,” Henry said. “I just applied early enough. It was really good timing. I’m pretty sure they wanted to hire as many people as they could, so I was also lucky.”

Henry will be a senior at Great Path this fall and hopes to study forensic psychology in college. She said being enthusiastic at the Sonic interview definitely helped her obtain the job.

“People really want you to have energy,” Henry, who will be taking orders at the fast-food chain, said. “You need to be contagious, in a good way.”

Unfortunately for Brian McCormick, 21, he was not as fortunate at finding a summer job. The film and photography student at Ithaca College came home for the summer and did not have the same success as Rear and Henry at acquiring a position.

McCormick was looking for an internship rather than a restaurant or retail job. He found that the internship landscape is tougher than the food or clothing industry.

“I didn’t want to do a typical summer job. I really wanted to do something related to my major,” McCormick said. “I sent out e-mails but didn’t really hear back from anyone. People are flaky. It seems like no one has open arms.”

McCormick will hopefully be heading back up to Ithaca in the next few weeks and working “odd-jobs” there. He wants to do production-oriented work, and he said there are more opportunities up there for that. However, there is no guarantee he will get any work there since he banked on working at home for the summer.

Even though his summer has gotten off to a rough start, McCormick said he can take some positives away from not landing an internship.

“I didn’t really ask ahead of time,” he said. “I need to be quicker next time. I should also get to know potential employees and be aware of deadlines."

“I should have built a resume specific to these employers, a resume specific to that job,” McCormick continued. “I could have also gone in-person to talk with them.”

McCormick could have also used some help from a career services office. Beth Settje is the Internship Resources Manager at University of Connecticut’s Department of Career Services. Settje and the career services office help students with developing resumes, writing cover letters, interviewing skills, and learning how to locate jobs.

“We make connections and cultivate relationships, but we are not a placement office,” Settje said. “We give advice to students, but we don’t place them in a position. We teach them how to do that."

“We want the students to develop skills, so they are less intimidated by a full-time search later on,” she continued. “We are teaching them to feel comfortable and confident with their decisions.”

Settje said there are fewer students getting internships this summer; as of now, fewer students have signed up for the college’s internship course this year compared to 2009. This could be for various reasons, she said, including some employers being unsure of their needs until after the semester, students not having enough time in the summer, or students learning too late about the internship.

Despite fewer internships this summer, Settje is optimistic about the internship landscape this time next year.

“The numbers should be up,” she said. “There are going to be more opportunities for them.”

Meanwhile, Settje advised that students should get organized, conduct research, make connections, explore social media, and lastly utilize career services.

“You need to have a plan,” she said. “Don’t just respond to an opening. Go straight to human resources, ask directly, and write a well-crafted letter. Find opportunities on Twitter and Facebook. Students should work with career services, so we can bring attention to that opportunity.”