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.

Whether you are looking for jobs for 17 year olds or jobs for 18 year olds, the important thing is to not quit. Too many teens hear their friends talking about how bad it is and then they hear about it in the news too. They assume they will not be able to find a job and so they never even try. Or, if they do try, they only give it a half hearted attempt because they know they are going to fail.

No One Who Gives Up Will Ever Find A Job

I bet many of you or your friends aren’t even bothering to look because you have given up before you ever start. If you never start or never really try, how can you be sure you wouldn’t have gotten a job?

The important thing to note here is that in life there are many challenges. There will be struggles with all sorts of things like passing tests, getting into and out of college, making enough money to live on and so forth. This may not be the only time in your life when finding a job is hard. So, if you give up now or never even start, you are not setting a good precedent for yourself.

Keep Trying For That Special Satisfaction

At this time here in the summer of 2010, you need to work extra hard to get that job and to show yourself you can do it. If you are successful here, it will give you lots of confidence in the future that you can do things that are hard. If you refuse to give up and are eventually successful in finding work, you will get a special satisfaction knowing that you kept trying when many others might have given up.

The harder you try now will help you understand what you need to do better next time. Many of you might be looking for the first time and are struggling with the interview process or what to say to potential employers. You need all the experience in that you can get and failing is just part of the process. In many cases you need to learn what not to do as well as what you should be doing. It is all part of the growing up process and looking and failing is much better than never trying at all. Good luck!

Once you turn seventeen, you can pretty much get any job (other than something that requires you to be 21 like in a bar) and that is good because it opens a lot more things up.

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NOTE: if you are looking for hourly or part time jobs in your area, you should look into signing up to Snagajob. It is FREE to sign up and they are the one job site online that specializes in the kind of employers and jobs that 17 and 18 year olds would be looking for.
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In years past, many teens got jobs because they WANTED them. They might have wanted more money than they got for their allowance or just had extra time and thought getting a job would be fun. Now though in 2010, teenagers are looking for jobs because they NEED them.

Many young adults have had their allowance stopped or cut back because their parents just don’t have the money. Many 17 year olds need a job just to help the family out when one or more of their parents gets laid off from work. Jobs for 17 year olds and 18 year olds are now something that older teens NEED instead of just WANT.

The bad economy affects everyone in one way or another and it doesn’t matter whether you are young or old, poor or rich, or educated or not educated. Companies are going out of business and even CEO’s are losing their jobs. When there aren’t enough jobs to go around that means there isn’t enough money to go around either and everyone suffers.

It is sad that seventeen and eighteen year olds are learning this the hard way when they are probably looking for a job for the very first time. Being unable to find your first job in life can be very discouraging and it will probably taint many kids views of the work place and of working for years.

Additionally, your first jobs are where you see what working is like and what it is all about. It is where you learn some discipline and figure out how to get along with a boss and co-workers. Without these first jobs for 17 and 18 year olds, the learning process is delayed and that will make an impact later on.

One of the biggest problems is that adults are now willing to take many of the jobs that they didn’t used to want. These jobs were the ones that eighteen year olds and older teens would traditionally take because they were part time or hourly. Entry level positions are also gobbled up by workers who sometimes have a lot of experience just because they can’t find anything else.

With older and more experienced workers taking the jobs that used to go to 18 year olds, what is left for them? In many cases the answer is nothing and that is why we are in such a crisis right now in this country. It is well known that the one thing that helps you get a job is experience and if you can’t get your first job to get that experience, where does that leave you?

Jobs for 17 year olds are crucial because that is the age that many teens go out into the marketplace and try to get their very first jobs. If they can’t find anything at seventeen, how can they ever get experience? Then they turn 18 and can’t get a job then either. We might have ten years or more where teens aren’t getting the jobs they need to then get better jobs later in life and that will be the beginning of a dangerous cycle.

There is a definite timeline in any persons working career and it all starts with being able to get those first couple of jobs. That is when you learn what it is like to have a boss and what is expected of you in the workplace. It is where young adults learn how to handle themselves and they learn responsibility. Older teens especially need jobs to begin this process that help them make a living for the rest of their lives.