As the school year is coming to an end, students, tasked with mindlessly spending their time in front of a television set or lounging down at Lake Goodwin, will turn to work to fill their weekdays. Whether this is pressure from parents or out of their own will, I teach the tips and tricks to nailing those interviews from top to bottom. By no means am I an expert on this. 

RESUME

The first resume I ever wrote was in Ms. Douglas’s Career and Foundations class my freshman year, and I had no experience. The only thing I had underneath work experience was babysitting over the summer, which I soon realized wasn’t impressive. As I started to accumulate more work experience through working for my friend’s dad and volunteering over the summer at NOAH, it became easier to find information to put under each category. The internet was a great tool for establishing a clean, inviting resume. From my knowledge, a lot of people put information that it isn’t necessarily true by exaggerating the truth. Whether or not you want to do this is a personal choice.

INTERVIEW

1. Knowing your audience is important. You clearly don’t want to call your boys with lofty terms like “man,” “dude,” and names similar to that. It shows you’re not quite ready to enter the adult world, and some places you can’t use that type of language with customers at all. For example, I work at Bonefish Grill in Smokey Point, and it was a part of our training not to use words like “guys,” and this was a big change from the previous places I had worked at where everything was informal.
2. Be modest about your skill set; you’re not the best. There are people working the job who have been there for years.
3. Don’t bash on any old employers or talk ill of people in general. That will reflect poorly on your character.
4. Don’t mention you’re only there for the summer, even if you are. Why would they hire you if you’re only going to be there for a little while?
5. Connections are an important part of any job, especially when you’re just starting out in the work world. My first job was doing yard work for my friend’s dad. My second job was dishwashing at Ellie’s, which my neighbors happened to work for. By the time I wanted to go for a different job, I had the experience to get me there.

APPEARANCE
You want to dress nice. Girls, I would opt for modest clothing. Normally, I wear nice black slacks and clean, ironed blouse. Have hair pulled back into a nice professional bun or style.

Don’t wear your sneakers. Boys, I would suggest wearing a clean, ironed button-up shirt and black slacks or khaki dress pants. Don’t wear sneakers. Have your hair neat, not messy.

CALL-BACKS / REVISITING

You want to check up on your application to ensure they know how dedicated you are to this business. Wait roughly 2-3 days before calling or coming back in. When I went to Olive Garden, it turned out they hadn’t even gotten my application to go through, so it was a nice refresher to walk in and hand them my resume. I got an interview on the spot and finished the interview process within three days of that initial interview. The appearance code applies here if you’re going in to follow up. Also, you don’t want to go during their busiest hours. I went at 1:45 when it was virtually empty, which is how I was so fortunate.