Job Applications

Summer is coming (although you wouldn't know it by the 30 degree weather and snow), so we have started getting applications from teens looking for summer jobs. We typically hire four or five teens over the summer, and receive several dozen applications. Below are several tips that I wish that someone, somewhere, had shared with our intrepid job hunters.

1) When applying for a job, it is generally a good idea to put your full name on the application. This does not mean your "street" name, but the name that your mother gave you the day you were born.

2) If you have neither a phone number nor an email address, it is very difficult for me to contact you for an interview.

3) If I have kicked you out repeatedly for swearing at other patrons and looking at pornography, it seems unlikely that I will now hire you.

4) The correct spelling of our place of business is "library."

5) "Because I need money" is not a good response to the question "Describe why you want to work here or why you love libraries."

6) Just because you have been arrested, it doesn't mean I won't hire you. If, however, your arrest was for stealing from the library, your chances of getting hired may be slightly lower.

7) If you're old enough to have a job, you're old enough to fill out the application yourself. Sending your mother in to do it does not impress me.

8) "Because my boss sucked" is not an appropriate answer to the question "Why did you leave your last job?"

9) If you are 15 with no job experience, no one is going to pay you $10.00/hour.