How to land your first job (even as a teen)

You're shopping at the mall when you spot a pair of sneakers you've always wanted to buy. But once you pick it up to look at the price tag, you realize it's a bit out of your budget. Well, what about a new jacket? Still out of your budget. What about a new t-shirt? Also out of your budget. So you go home, pull out your laptop, and start applying to jobs. But there's one problem. You don't know how to do that. Welcome to episode 1 of Stuff They Should Have Taught You in School. Today's episode, how to land your first job. So this piece of paper right here is the key to employment. Can you guess what it is? I'm going to turn it around in 3 seconds. 3, 2, 1. It's your resume. This is your sales pitch, and the stuff you put on this paper has to convince an employer that you are qualified for a job. But what do you put on it? Information about your education, prior work experience, and skills. But I can already imagine what you're thinking. Gohar, I'm only 17. I don't really have any work experience. Plus, the only skills that I have are procrastinating on my homework. Look, employers aren't dumb. They're not expecting 17-year-olds to have years of work experience or any experience at all. That's why your resume will instead highlight your extracurricular activities. For example, things like club, sports, or community service. No employer is expecting you to know how to use a cash register or serve customers. If you have relevant experience, great. But for your first job, all you have to do is convince the employer that you have the traits, not necessarily the skills. In other words, prove that you're responsible, organized, and work well on teams, because chances are you will learn everything else on the job. Now, don't go crazy with your resume. I know you might feel tempted to list down every single club you've been part of throughout your high school career. But look, unless you're Bill Gates, Elon Musk, or Sam Altman, there is absolutely no reason your resume should be more than one page long. Now, 16-year-old Gohar had a hard time internalizing this. I remember the first resume I made was about two pages long. Maybe it was even three. It was rough. Okay, but how should you format your resume? Instead of yapping away, let me show you an example from none other than Harvard University. I will also link this template in the description below. So the typical student resume consists of four sections. Education, experience, activities, and skills. At the top, you're going to list your name, your contact information, and your website, if you have one. It's nice to make one just in case. In the education section, list the high school or college you attend, along with your GPA and maybe even your SAT or ACT score. Now, the experience and activity sections are structured pretty much identically. If you don't have any experiences, that's fine. Just get rid of this section and fill out the activity section. So for each activity, you're going to list the organization name, your position, the location, and the duration. Underneath this, you're going to describe your activity. But how you describe it is critical because these descriptions can make or break your decision. But why? Okay, I need you to understand something very important. When you apply to a job, your resume goes to something called an applicant tracking system. This system automatically scans your resume to see if you're a good fit for the position. If it thinks you're not, it's going to discard your resume even before it ever reaches the employer. So your descriptions need to signal to the system that you are a good potential candidate. And here's how you're going to trick it. Well, not trick it, but convince it that that's the case. You're going to copy the job description, paste it into a word cloud generator, and observe which words are the most prominent. These are the words you need to highlight in your activity descriptions. And your descriptions must be clear and concise. Don't use full paragraphs. Don't even use full sentences. Use bullets that start with crisp action verbs that highlight your impact. And use numbers whenever you can. I'm actually going to include a link to some action verbs in the description of this video. But unfortunately, even with the right keywords, the ATS might turn your resume away. Another mistake many students make is misformatting or even designing their resumes. Maybe they'll add a headshot. Maybe they'll use fancy fonts and colors. But this just makes it harder for the ATS to parse their resumes. That's why I recommend that you also build a portfolio website. Now, a resume is great and all, but it's a little lifeless. If you want to stand out to employers, especially if you're applying to a fancier role, it's great to have a portfolio website. This is where you can bring in those headshots, those project demos, and even a gallery if you have creative work. But I know, you don't know how to code. So let me show you how you can set up a portfolio website in just a few clicks using Hostinger's AI website builder. Here's how it works. First, we're going to head to hostinger.com slash gohar. Now, if you click on claim deal, you'll see that they offer two options. Both are fairly priced, but the main difference is that the business plan offers you AI tools like the AI writer, which can help populate your website. For the resume, it's definitely up to you. I'm going to pick the business plan for the sake of this demo. Now, you'll also have to pick the length. I recommend going with 12 months minimum, so you can also get a free domain. Next, you need to add your details. And if you add code gohar, you'll get an extra 10% off. Now, once you click on build a website with AI, all you have to do is select the website type. In this case, we'll choose portfolio. Then we'll enter our name and describe the kind of website we're trying to build. Now, this is where you can mention specific pages, fonts, and colors. Once we click generate, the AI starts writing content, picking images, choosing a layout. And look, we already have a full-fledged website. And customizing our portfolio is a breeze. Click on edit site to update anything on the website, including text, colors, and images. You can even enhance your portfolio using hosting your suite of AI tools. For example, we can use the AI page generator to add an about me page that highlights your background and hobbies. Or you can generate an extracurriculars page that highlights the different clubs that you're part of. Once you're happy with your website, go ahead and click on go live. Oh, but that's not all. The business plan also comes with a free domain name and a free email. So now you can have a really professional email address, like contact at gohardcon.com. That is not my email, by the way. And if you run into any technical issues or need help upgrading your website, Hostinger provides 24-7 support. If you want to get started, I recommend you check out their business website builder, which only costs $3.99 a month and comes with two months free. And again, use code gohard for 10% off on all yearly plans. I've seen quite a few recruiters say that a personal website really moved the needle for them when making a decision. And this is especially the case for a marketing role as it shows how well you can sell your personal brand. Thanks again to Hostinger for sponsoring and now back to the video. All right, so now you've got your resume and your portfolio website ready to go. Now it's time to actually start searching for jobs. Now, this is the super, super fun part. Not really, but I'm going to try to make it as easy as possible for you. For this, you're going to use a website like LinkedIn or Indeed to search for jobs. And if you're a student, you're most likely going to narrow your search to one of two categories, fast food or retail. Think places like McDonald's, Taco Bell, Chipotle, or Walmart, Target, and Staples. Now as you're hunting for these jobs, be mindful of three things. First, look at distance. Because trust me, if you're in high school, you do not want to commute more than 15 to 25 minutes to work. Maybe 30 at max. But commuting 45 minutes or an hour is completely unreasonable unless you're working a full-time job. Even in that case, it's kind of unreasonable. Second, pay attention to the responsibilities. Yes, money is nice, but don't fling yourself at any job opportunity that you can find. Make sure it's something that you're okay with doing. Just make sure the role is not something completely against your personality or your preferences. For example, if you're super shy and introverted, you don't want a job where you're talking to people all the time. Or if you want something more active and where you're moving around, a secretary job is probably going to bore you out of your mind. And ideally, now this won't happen for most students, but if you can find a job that aligns with your intended major or your academic interest, that is a huge plus. Because when you apply to college, you are going to list the jobs that you did in high school. And if these jobs are unrelated to your intended major, that's fine. Ultimately, colleges are more interested in the characteristics these jobs highlight. So things like responsibility, leadership, and teamwork. Well, let's say you're interested in medicine and find a job as a secretary at a clinic. Or better yet, maybe you get the opportunity to job shadow an actual doctor. That's probably going to help your college application just a bit more than becoming a lifeguard or a babysitter. And finally, I want you to look at the hours. If you're an underclassman, sure, maybe you can dedicate 10 to 15 hours a week to a part-time job, especially if you're working longer shifts on the weekends. But if you're a junior and you're dealing with college essays and extracurriculars and standardized tests, be very mindful of work-school balance. Your academics should be priority number one, followed by extracurriculars, and then your work. Of course, for some students, depending on their financial situation, this may vary. But this is what I think it should be for most students. Alright, once you have searched for jobs, the next stage is applying for jobs. Now, this is the most time-consuming part, because you might have to apply to dozens of different roles until you land something. I'm not going to walk you through the actual application process, because it varies by job, plus it's pretty straightforward. They're probably just going to ask for your resume, maybe a brief cover letter, and maybe even some references. A cover letter is usually a one-page document that explains to an employer why you are a good fit for the job. And you can think of a reference as someone that can vouch for you. It's someone who can provide a potential employer with more information about your work and your characteristics. And this, for example, can be a former employer, a teacher, a coach, and so on. Now, once you've submitted your applications, I recommend keeping track of them in Google Sheets, so you can see where you've applied and where you're waiting to hear back from. I've included a template in the description of this video. And then you wait. Most places will just email you your decision, but some might throw in an extra step, the interview. Job interviews aren't that stressful, or at least they shouldn't be. The goal isn't to grill you on technical skills or your knowledge. Again, this is assuming you're applying to your first job and not a place like Google. The interview is just a way for a potential employer to get a sense of your personality, how many hours you can work, and it also gives you the chance to ask any questions. Now, just to make sure you leave the best impression possible, let me give you some tips. First, show up 10 to 15 minutes early. It is a terrible, terrible look if you are just pulling up and running in two minutes before the interview, or even worse, after it has already started. Though I trust none of you are gonna make that mistake. Dress business casual. No need to put on a suit or a tie. Wear something nice, like a polo or a button-up, or if you're a girl, just a nice dress. And once you're at the interview, maintain a friendly and energetic composure. You don't want to be too laid-back and chill to the point where it seems like you don't care about the role, but you don't want to be too formal and rigid either. Just be relaxed, maintain good posture, eye contact, and open and confident body language. Now, once the interview begins, chances are the first question you're gonna get is, On the screen now, you'll see an example structure that you can follow. And at some point in the interview, they're probably gonna ask you about a challenge or some time that you had to demonstrate leadership. Answering these questions sounds tricky, but it's not as hard as you think. Use the STAR method. Let me give you a breakdown. So, STAR is an acronym. S stands for situation, T stands for task, A stands for action, and R stands for result. You want to start off with S, the situation. Provide the interviewer with background and help them understand the details surrounding the event. Then you want to transition into the task. Bring up what you had to do to address the situation. Then, talk about your actions. Highlight what you actually did. And finally, weave that into the result. Talk about the impact that you left and whether or not you succeeded. And throw in some numbers if you can. As you're preparing these responses, I recommend that you do some mock interviews with family members. Just practice answering these questions a few times over and over, so you get into the general rhythm and feel comfortable by the time the interview rolls around. Alright, and the next part of this process is landing the position. After the interview, it's time for you to go home and wait months and months and months for a response. Just kidding. Sometimes you'll get a response back within the same day, but usually you'll hear back within a week or two. But if you don't hear back two weeks after you've applied, be sure to follow up. Give them a call. Just ask about the status of your application and reiterate your excitement. But I'm gonna let you in on a harsh truth. If you don't end up hearing back a couple weeks after the interview, chances are you might have gotten rejected. But don't let that get you down. Job rejections are extremely, extremely common. There is not a single person who gets more job acceptances than rejections. Well, that's probably a lie, but you get my point. Back in college, for example, I had a few friends who had to apply to dozens and dozens of roles until they landed something. Just keep pushing through and I promise you will eventually find the role that's right for you and make enough money to buy that pair of sneakers. Of course, don't blow all of that money into clothes and sneakers. You want to put some of it into savings and investments as well, which I have talked about in a couple shorts of mine. Let me know if you want a part two of this. I can go ahead and talk about how to open up a bank account next and how to do some basic investing and even cover the differences between debit cards and credit cards. I'm happy to dive into those money tips, but I just want to hear from you first and see if it's something that you're interested in. But with that, we have wrapped up today's video. I hope this video helps you get the job that you want. I believe in you. You got this. Subscribe if you haven't already and I'll see you again next week.