What employers are really looking for in teen workers
By Jennie Withers
Author of Hey, Get A Job!
There’s a common list of skills and requirements for employees. This section discusses the traits that make a great employee and those that are sure ways to get fired. These are true not only for teens, but for all workers young and old in any field. After reading through this section, the things your teachers are teaching you in school might make more sense.
Hardworking - This would seem obvious, but people are fired for not working all the time.
Anne was a lazy student in school. When she passed a class, it was barely. Anne promised herself when she got a job her lazy ways would change. Anne was lucky enough to interview with an employer that didn’t ask about her GPA. She got and started the job, but she and her employer discovered habits are extremely hard to break. She was fired because she didn’t have a good work ethic.
Dependability - Most often this is tied to lateness and absences without good reason. Attendance issues are one of the top things people are fired for in this country. Businesses are strict, much stricter than your school when it comes to attendance. In order for an employer to benefit from your work, you have to be there.
Scott couldn’t seem to make it to work on time. He was never more than 3 minutes late, but the company he worked for had a very strict policy. A note went into his file after he was late two times, which meant he received no holiday bonus. After his 4th, he was fired.
If you don’t already use a planner, you need to start. Don’t depend on memory to keep track of school, work schedules and all your other activities. It will get to be too much. As a part-time worker, your schedule could be different from week to week. To avoid costly mistakes, write things down.
Dependability also has to do with doing what you said you would, when you said you would do it. As you mature, more and more people will depend on you. If you want to have value, you can’t check out physically or mentally and leave people hangin’.
Responsible - Self-motivated people are mature people. They are also the people who can make decisions and stand behind those decisions, good or bad. It’s like life rule #6 - If you screw up, it’s not your parents’ (or anybody else’s) fault so don’t whine about your mistakes. Learn from them.
Barbara’s employer knew his young employees would make mistakes. What he didn’t expect was his inability to discuss those mistakes with Barbara. Each time he tried to teach her something about her job she interrupted him to explain why her mistake was someone else’s fault. This grated on the nerves of her employer and her fellow employees until he was forced to let Barbara go.
In school, being responsible is really a suggestion. There’s truthfully not a lot educators can do if you decide to do nothing. In the world of work, employees must be responsible. If you cannot meet that expectation, you will not have a job.
Honesty and integrity - If these are not two of your qualities, then please don’t get a job because you give all teenagers a bad name.
Flexibility and willingness - Adapting to new situations and things you are asked to do is important. You are going into an entry-level position, which means you will do some things you don’t like to do. We’ve all been there. Ask your parents about their first jobs. Have the ability to be willing and flexible in your job. Do the things you don’t want to, pay your dues, and someday you won’t be at the bottom. As life rule #5 says, Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping; they called it opportunity.
Jared was hired as a receptionist in a dentist’s office. He wasn’t told when he was hired that one of his responsibilities was to clean the bathroom. Jared refused when his boss told him to grab a toilet brush and get busy. He stated, “That’s not what I was hired to do.“ Jared quit that job, but found that no matter where he went to work, he was expected to do tasks he didn’t necessarily care for.
Respectful - Without respect for others, you can’t get along in the workplace. This inability to demonstrate respect shares the top spot with dependability for the reason people are fired. All jobs require you to be a member of a team. It can only be a team if there is respect between its members. And as you’ve probably been told a number of times, you can’t get respect until you give it.
Chris knew copy machines very well. When his employer gave Chris and his fellow employees a big project to do, he emphasized the need to work as a team in order to meet the deadline. Chris didn’t have respect for the others’ ability to get things done. Chris tried to take over the project himself, ignoring another employee when she pointed out a typo to Chris. He was fired when he printed ten thousand business cards with a mistake on them.
Positive attitude - You can’t be depressed, mad or moody while you are at work. Many of you will be working with customers who expect a positive attitude - not to mention your fellow employees have to be around you too. A negative attitude in the workplace is like cancer in the body: it spreads. In order to return to health, the cancer has to be eliminated, just as the employee has to be fired.
Kara was having a lot of problems at home. Instead of embracing the time at work as a time to be away and think about something else, she stewed about the issues. Kara snapped at customers and her coworkers, and generally made everyone around her tired of her attitude. When her mood became so destructive that customers began to complain about her rude behavior, her employer fired her.
What it really comes down to is remaining an optimist rather than a pessimist. This is not an easy thing to do, particularly if there are negative things going on in your life. There are several choices you get to make on a daily basis; your attitude is one of them. For the sake of remaining employed, choose to have a positive attitude.
Life-long learner - If you’ve ever read your school’s mission statement, it probably includes something about creating life-long learners. What this means is that you are willing and able to learn new things throughout your life. In other words, just because you get a diploma doesn’t mean you’re done learning. Jobs are going to require you to keep training and keep learning. Otherwise you cannot advance within your company, or in some cases, even keep your job. My job as a teacher, at least as I see it, is not to cram information into a kid’s head as much as it is to teach them to learn without me.
Focus - Having ADD or ADHD will not work as an excuse at a job. Employers need you to be able to focus and pay attention to detail. Not only is this needed for quality in your work, but it’s for your safety as well. Work accidents happen when employees lose focus.
Lee was not known for his ability to listen. He tended to daydream instead. He was doing just that when his boss was explaining the company’s filing system to him. When she finished, she left Lee to file a stack of documents. He completed the task, but did it wrong. Needless to say, Lee’s inability to focus lost him a job.
Focusing, like a lot of things, has to do with habits. What are you used to doing? Are you used to listening when being spoken to? Are you in the habit of completing tasks, or do you quit when you lose interest? If you want to experience success in life in general, you must form good habits.
Read more in Jennie Withers’ book for teens, “Hey, Get a Job!“
Find more info on teen jobs on SnagAJob.com