Two tips for university students looking for summer jobs

As we welcome many university students home for the summer, we find many that are having trouble finding employment for the next couple of months.

Less positions are posted and many of the non-co-op students struggle to find experience that will assist their career development.

Here is some advice.

When specifically targeting companies and industries of interest, it is important for students to be able to clearly articulate what they are looking for as well as how they can bring value to the company that they are approaching.

There is a strong correlation between students knowing what they want and what they can provide, to students that land positions. One of the most common comments that I hear from executives regarding summer student positions is that their companies often have the funds to hire students, but that they usually do not hire any because they do not want to assume the responsibility of managing the students, or making sure that they have enough work for the summer.

If a student can make a business case for what they can do, and how they can help, (creating their own job description) it is often enough to persuade many executives into making room for them for the summer.

If a student is still struggling to find appropriate work, there is another option that I recommend. That is to form a combination of a retail position and a volunteer position to fill ones summer.

The volunteer experience will assist with developing specific hard skills and create networks for future contact, and the retail position will provide the discipline, the service experience and the financial requirements.

As many have noticed ,the retail industry in Canada is very active, and many believe that industry growth will continue.

Many believe that service industries will continue to drive the economy in Canada and that Canada may never return to previous manufacturing levels.

Retail experience provides tremendous opportunity to understand consumer behavior and the importance of customer service.

It is incredible how many successful executives tell me that some of their best learning's in business occurred while they were working in retail.

Processes that they learned, observations that they made that helped them later, understanding consumer behavior, and developing "street smarts" at a grass roots level are some of the discoveries that are often made within a retail environment.

Farewell,

Mike