The good news is that if you just turned 18 years old, you will now be able to get a job as an unarmed security guard. The bad news is that you have to be 21 in most states to get a job as an armed guard.

There are not any federal regulations for security guards so you have to check with your state to find out what you need to do in order to become one. Some states are more strict than others and will require you to pass more tests than others.

Security guards most often need to be trained and there are schools in each state you can go to that will train you. A certificate from one of them should be all you need in order to get your first job. But how do you find those schools and where can you find official information online about what you have do do?

The best thing to do is to go online and search first for information about your states laws and then about where you can get trained. Remember, sites that end in .gov are official government websites so if you can find information on a .gov site, you will know it is legitimate.

All other domain endings such as .com, .net, .org, etc are NOT government websites and the information on those websites could be false. Before trusting any one of those sites please do your homework and investigate as much as possible.

Summer 2012 is fast approaching and now is the time to find summer jobs for 18 year olds. Whether it be your full time job after high school or just a summer job before college, you need to start looking NOW!

If you are looking for jobs for 18 year olds, you should check out their website here. It says that last year about 1/2 of the people they hired during this time period were able to stay with the company with permanent jobs. This is a great opportunity for 18 and 19 year olds to get a job now as many of those jobs will most likely require very little previous experience.

In this economy it is great news to hear that a major company is hiring and 70,000 is a huge number. Most likely the store near you will be participating in this recruiting push so get out there with your resume and apply!

1) Get your resume up on the major job sites like Snagajob, Job.com, and Monster. HOWEVER if you have already had one up there for awhile, you might want to take it down for a week or two. Then put it back up. You see, you want things to look new and fresh and an old resume that has been on those job boards for months may be overlooked by recruiters who are only looking for “just posted” resumes.

2) If you can’t find a paying job, get a part time volunteer job. Spend half of your day looking for a paying job and the other half volunteering. That way, you can add your volunteer work to your resume and that will show that you are being productive even if you don’t have a “real” job.

3) Make sure you are applying to jobs that are in in demand and will be there in the future. The economy is tumultuous now and jobs are being shipped overseas and becoming extinct due to new technology. Do some research to find out which types of jobs are strong and will still be around in 20 years. There is no use in going after a job if it is in a dying field.

4) Talk to everyone and find out as much information as you can. Even if you get turned down for a job, ask questions about why you got turned down and what they would suggest. The more knowledge you can get about the job climate and what employers are looking for, the better off you will be.

5) Do something productive with your time while you search for a job. If you don’t volunteer then take a class or learn a new skill. Don’t just sit around complaining! Always try to better yourself so that you will have more to offer down the road to an employer. It is up to you to become the most hire-able you can so that you have the best chance of finding work.

6) And finally, make sure you clean up your Facebook, Twitter, and any other social network accounts you might have. Employers do look at those these days and they use them to find out who they are hiring. Having things that are professionally questionable is just plain stupid because it gives an employer a clear reason NOT to hire you.

But is that really the case?

While college is important for many careers and it is beneficial if you can afford it, a degree is NOT a necessity for you to succeed in life. Especially with college tuitions being so high these days, some students are probably better off not going. After all, a degree that comes with graduating deep in debt like some students are experiencing can end up hurting them for years.

Good Paying Jobs For 18 Year Olds

For those that don’t go to college, what types of jobs and careers can be found with JUST a high school degree? Don’t misunderstand, all of the jobs (careers) listed below will require training and years of learning. You will have to start at the bottom and work your way up because you you won’t just walk up and be able to qualify. However, you CAN get accepted in the companies and programs that have these types of jobs if you have a high school degree. How hard you work and train after that will be up to you.

For more information about each job type including the range of salary and what each job is like please go here.

1) Aircraft pilot
2) Software developer
3) Construction manager
4) Police chief
5) Nuclear power plant operator
6) Web developers
7) Elevator installers
8- Detective
9) Casino gaming manager
10) Water vessel pilots and captains

First and foremost, you should ALWAYS follow the EXACT instructions on a job posting if you are going to apply. If you don’t follow what they tell you to do, you may automatically be passed over. Think about it: if the job ad tells you to apply online and you apply in some other way, that tells the company that you don’t follow instructions. That is enough right there to get you disqualified.

Times are difficult now and there are usually many applicants for each job. Most employers won’t bother dealing with people who don’t follow instructions or people who think they know better. In today’s world, you need to show that you are qualified, ready to work, and know how to take orders. The application process is the first order.

What should you do then when you aren’t applying to a specific job listing? If you are looking for jobs for 18 year olds in  a small retail shop or restaurant, it might be okay to stop in yourself and inquire about work. You might get lucky and talk to the owner or a manager and be able to personally hand them your resume. They don’t have layers of people around them and stopping by yourself is often a good choice.

However, the bigger the company is, the more wary you should be about just “stopping by”. Whenever you give a resume to someone at the front desk or to a receptionist at a company, you have no idea whether your piece of paper will make it to the right person. If they have a way of applying to jobs online, you should assume that method is the preferred method. Companies are now getting very used to recruiting online and will have their systems set up so all emails and resumes go to the right person.

The one thing you should know by now is that jobs are SUPER hard to find and high school really doesn’t prepare you for any of what you will be facing.

High school helps more with going to college and continuing your studies, not with finding and keeping a job. When you are in school you don’t have much exposure to the outside: you pretty much live in your own isolated world where you and all your friends rarely venture out. Your goal is to graduate and that is all that really matters.

Once high school is over though, it is REALLY over and that is a shock to many. If you have spent most of your life in school, it is hard to suddenly be let go. Your life will change overnight and many of your friends will all go in different directions. Some will try to get jobs while others will go on to various colleges so everyone will split up.

Finding a job in 2011 is going to be as difficult as ever and that is going to make things hard on you. The unemployment rate for 16 to 24 year olds with no college education is over 20% according to the Labor Department. OVER 20%, which is more than double that of the national average of about 9%. They probably don’t tell you things like that in high school and there is no class that teaches you how to cope with getting rejected for a job.

Not everyone goes on to college and it is just fine if that is not your thing. But be prepared for some difficult times and don’t expect to find a job right away. You should expect to NOT find a job for a while and then if you get lucky and do find something, that will be a big bonus. It would be smart to apply to all sorts of different jobs and hope that you will get accepted for something. At least give Snagajob a try now as it is free and they will have job openings in your city that high school graduates qualify for.

With unemployment holding steady at about 9%, jobs for 18 year old high school graduates are NOT easy to find. If you are not going to be going to college, you need to start thinking about getting a job right now, before you graduate.

Being in high school means you are sheltered and in your own world. That is what high school is: it’s own world where you interact with a finite group of friends and you all are there for the one goal of graduating. It’s a fun time and one you will remember for the rest of your life. But when it is over, you will be thrust out into the real world and on your own. IT ISN’T PRETTY OUT THERE AS YOU WILL SOON FIND OUT!

Many high school graduates looking for work underestimate just how difficult it is to get a job in this terrible economy. If they are willing to work they ASSUME there is someone out there willing to hire them. But that is just not the case and in 2011, finding a job might be the most difficult thing you will ever have had to do.

Before you graduate make sure you go to your high school’s career counselor. You should be going there now and not next month. You should be asking questions about what you need to do to to give yourself the best chance of landing some sort of job once you graduate.

You need to start planning and networking with as many people you can who might be able to help you find work. Most importantly, you need to understand that this is NOT the time to hold out for that better job that you really want. Your first priority should be to get a decent job and from there you can look into getting a better one.

It used to be that factory work was one of the jobs for 18 year olds that you could get right out of high school. Of course there were tons of jobs like this in Detroit during the automobile boom years and factory workers were paid quite well. Manufacturing and factory jobs have always been a good option for 18 year olds who didn’t want to go to college wanted a job right away.

But time are changing and the way things are made has changed as well. Whenever possible, businesses are replacing people with computers and machines because they don’t tire and break down like people do. Machines can give a business a much higher productivity rate at the fraction of the cost.

What this means is that the job of factory workers have changed. There are fewer workers actually putting the product together and more workers who are needed to manage, control, and operate the computers and machines. Business need factory workers who know how to use computers and how to keep them running. In many cases, this means they need workers who have more than just a high school degree!

Factory workers today that know how to operate these advanced computers and machinery will get paid more than the workers of yesterday who just did manual labor. This is because they have special training and can be a great benefit to the business that hire them.

Going to college is not for everyone but it is going to be harder and harder to find jobs if you don’t have some sort of training beyond what you get in high school. That is why you should think about what you want to do for a job and then perhaps apply to a trade school in that area. Trade schools and vocational schools are a viable option for anyone that doesn’t want to go to college but does want to get a decent job.

You can always get a job flipping burgers at your local fast food hangout but do you really want to do that for the rest of your life? If you are 18 years old and about to graduate high school, you might look into factory jobs but you need to realize that the more skills you have, the more you can make even at a factory job.

Well this article lists 200 jobs in 2011 that you can get and ranks them by several criteria including the workplace environment, stress level, the physical demands, approximate income, and the hiring outlook for each kind of job in the future. You will notice that most of the jobs that are toward the top of the list will require some sort of education after high school. The further down the list you go you will find that the jobs decrease in pay and they also decrease in qualifications and education required.

There are lots of good job ideas on that list and for anyone that is 18 years old it should be a real eye opener that they need to get more education. Yes, you can go out and get a bartender job, cashier job, or a guard job but what type of future will that leave you with? I think it is clear that at some point you will need to get additional training for a real career or go to school to get a college degree or a technical degree.

The next debt crises in America is going to be all the student debt that is being carried and it is no wonder with the absolutely outrageous cost of getting a college degree. How can anyone justify borrowing $10,000 to $50,000 a year for 4 years just to get a college degree?

For doctors and lawyers who might be able to make enough to pay it back maybe it is okay. But for the average student with an English major, Communications major, History major, or any other kind of major what kind of job are they going to get that will pay them enough to ever pay that much back? And now with the unemployment rate near 10%, no college graduate is guaranteed of getting a job at all anyway.

This is a SERIOUS problem for anyone who is 18 years old and trying to figure out what to do. On one hand they may want a college degree but on the other hand they don’t want to be in debt much of their lives just to get it. At some price, and we may already be at that price, a college degree is a BAD choice!

Jobs for 18 year olds are not easy to find and anyone who has been looking knows that. It is no secret that jobs for college graduates aren’t easy to get either and many of the people trying to get them are heavily in debt from all their college loans.

College is important only if you can afford it because even with a degree nothing is guaranteed. Many, many people have no degree and have been VERY successful in business and their jobs. So, it might be better to be looking for work with zero debt than already being buried in it just like so many college students and graduates are now days.

If you are 18  or 19 years old and looking for a job, keep looking and be glad you don’t have big loans to pay off. It might not be fun to be having so much rejection on the job front but at least you don’t have that pernicious debt to pay off!