Now the first thing I want to ask you is why are you actually looking for a job? Because the truth is you have the rest of your life to work and make money unless you're in dire needs and you absolutely need to make money,I don't really recommend working at all as a teenager.
I would recommend focusing on school,figuring out what you want to do with your life,maybe get some hobbies or if you have the idea of starting a business. If you're entrepreneurial, I would always recommend focusing on something that you're doing yourself even if it's a small business or just a project to work on before working a part-time job but if you're dead set on working a job,you want to make some extra money these are the five jobs I would recommend to you.
The first job that i think is well suited for teens is working at a coffee shop. This is something my sister did for about four or five years. She worked at a coffee shop near my house and while you're likely going to make minimum wage you will actually do pretty well with tips especially if you're personable and you have a nice smile and you're friendly with people. She would usually make her base hourly rate which was minimum wage at the time but depending on the day she would usually do about three to four dollars per hour in tips and so the actual rate you're getting paid is a lot better than minimum wage because you are making money from those tips.
When it comes to getting a job as a high schooler or a teenager,one of the biggest things I focus on is the perks of those jobs. You can get jobs out there that have a lot of perks where you're getting a benefit completely free. Just like my sister, she got a huge benefit working at a coffee shop is because they also served food. She would get a free lunch whenever she worked and she could also take home whenever pastries or sandwiches they had left over at the end of the night. So she was getting probably 15 to 20 dollars a day and free food on top of making her minimum wage pay and those tips she's getting from people,so the amount she was actually making from this job was quite a bit when you factor in the free perks you're getting as well.
Whether it's coffee or beverages or snacks whatever it is so I would recommend looking at a job like that we are also going to be getting food out of it you know that counts towards your pay as well just to purchase with that job. But the other reason why I recommend working at a coffee shop as a teenager is for the networking opportunities. There are tons of people going in and out of these coffee shops on a daily basis and my sister alone had some interesting opportunities just meeting people working there. She ended up getting some side work doing babysitting just meeting people at this coffee shop.
If you're looking to you know start a business or you're looking to learn more about anything in general you are going to meet a lot of people coming in and you can make some interesting connections and just for the networking opportunities alone I think it's well worth it to get a job at a coffee shop and it's actually been something I've always wanted to do.I've never done it before and if it ever gets to a point in my life where I'm bored and I don't really have a lot going on and I want to just meet some people I'll either be spending more time at coffee shops or maybe I'll pick up a few hours working out,one just for fun as kind of a hobby and it's kind of being a bartender without having to worry about the drunk and so that's my number one recommendation-working as a bartender.
Number two on my list of great jobs for teens is working at a fitness center. I'm not recommending this for the pay,you're probably going to make somewhere around minimum wage but I'm recommending this job for two reasons. First of all, working at a fitness center is going to encourage having a healthy lifestyle. Typically speaking, the people who work at gyms are in pretty good shape and so working at a gym and being exposed to those people I think is a benefit in itself and you're also going to be around a good group of people,typically people who are focused on benefiting their lives in their business are also focusing on benefiting their physical health and so you might make some interesting connections as well working at a fitness center.
Secondly, most people who work at a gym end up getting a free membership so if you're somebody who wants to work out and you want a gym membership rather than paying 20 or 30 dollars a month for that,maybe you're going to work there part-time,get that free membership also make decent money in the process and make some interesting connections while you work there. So my second pick is working at a fitness center.
Number three is one that I did in the past and that is working at a retail clothing store. I think everyone out there should work retail even if it's just for one holiday season just to understand the chaos that goes on and you'll have a much greater appreciation for these retail workers out there. Primarily, in these clothing stores I can remember nights when I would be folding a table of shirts or clothes at 9:15pm and we close at 9:30pm and you'd have a customer come through there and yank shirts from the bottom of your pile and you would have to start all over again in just the amount of time spent folding insurance in with the up keeping in,helping customers who are not satisfied with their purchases,it's really going to benefit you with your customer service skills and just your relations with people.
So that's the primary reason why I recommend working that job,it's to get those people skills as those are very valuable skills for you later on in life,knowing how to deal with people. Primarily, unhappy customers and then the other reason why I recommend this job is because there may be other perks associated with this. You may also have the option to get paid with some kind of commission based on the sales you're doing in that store. Sometimes if you work for like a boutique or a local clothing store, they may have some kind of commission based payment structure where you're making more money based on the sales you're bringing in for that store. Then the other final perk I have for a clothing store and this can actually be a problem if you're not careful about they usually offer you a pretty decent employee discount I know mine most 25 percent it was 20 or 25 I can't remember exactly but it was a really good discount, sometimes you are tempted to be buying a lot of new clothes, a lot of new gadgets and so you have to be careful with that because you can end up leaving a lot of your paycheck at that store if you get sucked in and you take advantage of that employee discount and spend too much money on merchandise from the store. But if you're disciplined and you just use it for your essentials and also gifts for family members, that also is a great perk to working at a some kind of clothing store.
Number four my list is actually something my brother did for a long time,three or four seasons. He was a lifeguard. I'm not recommending this job for the pay he made about a dollar or two over minimum wage but he really enjoyed this line of work for two reasons. First of all, you have a sense of authority as a lifeguard and you could potentially be in a position where you could save someone's live or even give people first aid. He would have a lot of kids falling and scuffing their knees and he really enjoyed that being able to help people and have that sense of authority and power. It's an interesting thing to be a lifeguard but also it is a great community of people and so you can make a lot of great friends in that line of work.
It's usually a very close-knit or tight-knit community. You do need to get certified in order to be a lifeguard but typically this is offered through your high school,that's how he did it, he went through the lifeguard certification classes and took his tests. The other final perk I have for this job is that it encourages you to stay in shape because every two weeks he would have to do a swimming test and make sure he passed it just to make sure he would be able to save someone's life or get into that water and hold his own if there was an emergency.
The fifth and final jobs for teens is what I believe might be the best option depending on your situation. It's being a paid tutor. A lot of people don't think about doing this, but if you are really good at a certain subject in school and you have fellow classmates or friends that are not doing too well and maybe their parents want them to do better in school, their parents might be interested in paying someone to tutor their kid and get them to have better grades in school and rather than going to an outside tutoring company which is going to be a lot more expensive,they might be interested in having you help them as a paid tutor.
You could really make anywhere from 15 to 20 dollars an hour, maybe even more under the table as a paid tutor. If that's something you're interested in doing, you're going to have to obviously find work on your own. Maybe put ads out on Craigslist but again be very careful.
In conclusion,those are my top five recommendations for high school students and teenagers regarding jobs.
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