Summer work for students
May. 6th, 2017 03:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtbcMy son soon turns sixteen and now he has been revising and taking examinations my thoughts have moved to summer work that he could do. I had it fairly easy: through my mother's professional contacts as a book-keeper I got basic clerical work and even some computer consulting for businesses quite early on: it was later when I was an undergraduate that my summer jobs had actually been advertised vacancies. I don't have commensurately useful contacts.
In some initial searching online, compromised somewhat by the awful search interfaces of many sites, I find it hard to find plausible opportunities. I know he's helpful, polite, learns technical detail well, and is numerate and computer-literate, so theoretically he should be sufficiently useful to somebody, especially as minimum wage for sixteen-year-olds is like just £4 or somesuch. We can get him to Perth or Dundee on a regular basis. However, I find it hard to identify vacancies that fit high school students looking for temporary work; it would be nice to not have to fall back to McDonald's or its ilk.
Maybe we actually have to go in and talk to people. Had I planned slightly better we could have stopped in at the Jobcentre Plus in Dundee's lovely Wellgate Shopping Centre this afternoon though perhaps an appointment is required. I wonder if we should have been looking into this matter weeks ago or if word of mouth is key. I should have him talk to his school careers people too: they already find students work experience placements. Our landlord back in Cambridge, England, knew pretty much all the local businesses: I am sure he would have been a great help.
In some initial searching online, compromised somewhat by the awful search interfaces of many sites, I find it hard to find plausible opportunities. I know he's helpful, polite, learns technical detail well, and is numerate and computer-literate, so theoretically he should be sufficiently useful to somebody, especially as minimum wage for sixteen-year-olds is like just £4 or somesuch. We can get him to Perth or Dundee on a regular basis. However, I find it hard to identify vacancies that fit high school students looking for temporary work; it would be nice to not have to fall back to McDonald's or its ilk.
Maybe we actually have to go in and talk to people. Had I planned slightly better we could have stopped in at the Jobcentre Plus in Dundee's lovely Wellgate Shopping Centre this afternoon though perhaps an appointment is required. I wonder if we should have been looking into this matter weeks ago or if word of mouth is key. I should have him talk to his school careers people too: they already find students work experience placements. Our landlord back in Cambridge, England, knew pretty much all the local businesses: I am sure he would have been a great help.
