My company has a special day once a year where employees volunteer their time to do outside projects to help different organizations. I’ll be at a local HS helping the students prep for their first job and going over interview skills. After reading over the suggested list of questions we must ask the students as a mock interviewer I find the questions are a misrepresentation of what a real-world interview is all about. I don’t really see how they will benefit the student in finding a job. Then they tell us to be “gentle” on them because, after all they are HS students. Well unfortunately the real world isn’t going to be gentle on them. If anything, they will have to learn how to handle rejection and learn how to learn from each situation and use it to their advantage to make the next interview better. I mean the truth is not many employers are willing to hire HS students for any job outside of fast food or retail, which there’s nothing wrong with that, if they get some type of work experience but getting the job and keeping it are two different things. They also need to learn how to develop people skills and get along with others and not whine when things don’t their way. If I was to suggest anything to these kids it would be continue to college with a purpose. Stay focused on your goals and know that nothing in life is guaranteed. Just because you have a college education, doesn’t always guarantee you will get the job, but it certainly in most cases puts you above the person who doesn’t have one, unless that person has more work experience, which if I was an employer I would hire first. I would also suggest to these students to investigate enrolling in a trade school or technical school for computers or web design and maybe programming. It might cost more, but in most cases, you are in and out in 2 years with something tangible and with the option to continue with a 4-year program. You get out of school hopefully land a fairly good job with accompany and work your way up, but you have some type of future. A company that offers benefits, 401k plan and retirement. Many kids today are lazy and / or snowflakes and want everything handed to them. Their parents buy them everything and they don’t have to work for it and have no idea the value of a dollar. So really the parents are responsible for the way they are and many of schools don’t teach them anything. They need real world classes, but that’s probably not in the school’s budget. It’s sad to see how things are today and how our next generation of young adults are growing up with nothing to their advantage but maybe a high score on their X-Box 360 game.
