Be Creative About Summer Jobs

It’s that time again, the season where suddenly everybody wants to find a summer job if they are old enough to need money. If your teen (or even pre-teen) is asking about ways to earn some cash around the house, use this summer as a foundation for developing creative skills that come in handy their entire working career.
Look For What Someone Will Pay For
Challenge your kids to be entrepreneurs and create their own jobs. I know a kid who very carefully surveyed his siblings about which candy bars they liked and invested in a stash of their favorites — which he sold at a profit to his family members when they got the urge to snack. This is how a lot of jobs are created because it’s the essence of business.
Look For What Fills A Need
Again, this is the foundation of many entrepreneurial startups. Does a neighbor need help with yard work? Can they take over making dinner, or shopping? Is there a big project around the place that could use them? Is this a one-time need or an ongoing need? Sometimes a kid can earn some cash by doing these jobs, other times it is volunteer service but this leads to the next point…
Look For The Skills You Will Learn
The ability to see what needs to be done and do it is a skill that must be learned and practiced or your quality of life suffers. The ability to keep doing what isn’t fun anymore just because you said you would is part of being a responsible person. Keeping track of any money you earn, knowing how you spent it, and possibly saving some is a good idea at any age. Learning how to make change, for instance, will probably be in most entry-level summer jobs in the real world.
When a teen is ready to go out into the job market for their first summer jobs, having done some things that developed basic job skills really can make a difference in what their first ‘real’ job is like. Imagine two teens: one has never done anything to earn money or volunteered any service anywhere. The second teen has regularly done volunteer community service with a club and did odd jobs on the side. Which one would you want to hire?