I live in NYC, and i am looking for jobs. However, i noticed that when it coms to work experience, I have none. Does anyone have any suggestions on what type of work me, a 16 year old, can volunteer for so my applications look more impressive?
I’ve been there before man,Volunteer work will help but just go out and apply.Places like Mcdonalds might be a good start for u,i say just go where ur comfortable.Sometimes places won’t call back but keep looking and don’t give up.Also its about WHO you know and not WHAT you know.Good luck man!
Grocery Store, fast food, volunteer, meet the right folks, ask friends and relatives, make up plausible experience (not recommended)
What are you planning to do? Medicine? Engineering? Law? It really depends on what you’re goals are.
Man, finding a job is HARD. I’m 20 years old, and NOWHERE near me is hiring. I can’t get hired at Walmart 
I would suggest just applying everywhere. Maybe volunteer at some kind of soup kitchen/somewhere similar to put that on your resume?
I noticed you’re 16 years old which means you might be in 11th grade or something. It will benefit to pursue a good education.
Apply anywhere and everywhere whether they’re hiring or not and be persistent about it. If a place doesn’t call you back after a a few days call them and let them know you’re waiting to hear from them.
When you are 16, you are limited to what you can do to get money. So don’t be a bitch, and be open to salt some french fries, wash cars, clean bathrooms, etc. I was assembling burgers and shit when I was your age, my friend got lucky and had a sweet gig doing oil changes at a shop. And of course you won’t have any experience, no one at your age will.
Honestly there are many things that can be said. I would say, do your best with what you got. If you really want something, then this will translate into some sort of action conducive to your goal.
Always focus on seasonal jobs and accept them. They’re the quickest way to get experience and companies usually hire you right on the spot if the demand is great enough. Retail is tough to get into this time of year because consumers aren’t buying a shitload of items after coming off a busy holiday season, which means they will start downsizing and keeping workers who can multitask effectively.
I worked in pizza places from 16-21 y/o. Once you turn 18, you can deliver pizza and make some decent bank (just work at one in a good area and not the ghetto so you don’t get stabbed).
Getting stabbed builds character.
And I guess he could use his time in intensive care as medical experience. Can you say win-win?
But seriously, the most fun I ever had was back at my job delivering pizzas. Easy, mindless work. I have a car with GREAT mpg, cruisin’ around listening to music all day, almost no stress bc it’s not something i took seriously. Good times.
Does anyone have a first job where they don’t get cut, burnt, electrocuted, or clean up shit? Thought that was the whole point so you would look for an upgrade as quick as possible.
How about instead of actually looking for a place that really doesn’t give a **** about you, you put your entire effort into your high school education and then get into a good college where there will be many good internship opportunities from which you can advance into a good high pay full time position.
By high school education, I mean if you’re not in a good high school, then you should be focusing on surpassing your high school and scoring higher than everyone in your high school on all national exams.
I’m also from NYC by the way, which field are you focusing on or interested in?
Computer science and business. I currently own 2 books on c++ and I own the program. I am looking into studying business and finance because I suppose that its good for a software developer to know about the market. I want to be an intern to a software developer or a business man. Getting out in the real world and getting some work experience is just as important as an education. I am just looking for something else to study to get a nice job while I am trying to get my own business started.
Man if you plan on becoming an engineer, scientist or any type of technical work than don’t apply for McDonalds and fast food. They do nothing for you if Exxon/Fluor/Schlumberger is looking at your application. You might want to try volunteering/interning for your city at your age.
EDIT: I just read that you are interested in Comp Sci and Business. In that case, I have no $0.02 on that. Just read the books and try publishing some of your own products on the android market (if you’re really ambitious and good). I think if you apply for a tech company and they saw that you actually tried writing code, they’ll be very impressed.
C++ is a good start, practice using C++ as a problem solving tool, most books are outdated/useless and you should be familiar with using the MSDN library for reference. Starting a business or playing the market is great but the barrier to entry is high since you need money to make money and carries risk. I recommend getting into computer security.
Get familiar with basic threats (INSECURE17):
Password Brute Force
Buffer Overflow
Canonicalization
Cross-Site Scripting
Cryptanalysis Attack
Denial of Service
Forceful Browsing
Format-String Attacks
HTTP Replay Attacks
Integer Overflows
LDAP Injection
Man-in-the-Middle
Network Eavesdropping
One-Click/Session Riding/CSRF
Repudiation Attack
Response Splitting
Server-Side Code Injection
Session Hijacking
SQL Injection
XML Injection
^
That’s only a few from an old list.
Since you’re 16, you should already know Calculus. From there I recommend learning discrete mathematics. I’m talking about the real discrete mathematics, not the math class they teach in community colleges like Brooklyn College or Baruch College where they teach you 5th grade statistics and call it a class, I’m talking with regard to the computer science background which includes material such as: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_computation (Focus on Computational complexity theory). Speaking of statistics, you should take a good statistics course. You need calculus for any real statistics so if you don’t see calculus as a prereq for that statistics class then it’s a huge warning sign that you can expect a community college level class where they teach you material that you can teach yourself from various online resources. Knowledge of assembly language is a must. I recommend having a computer dedicated to security where you can run unix/linux and do C programming and assembly. Test stuff in vmware. Get familiar with metasploit, scapy, etc. Don’t dedicate too much time to writing assembly language, you just need a strong understanding to recognize malicious code and to be able to write exploits. Strong network knowledge is a requirement, get familiar with: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSI_model and if you want to jump into computer security by reading then I recommend Hacking The Art of Exploitation which is good for beginners.
In 2-4 years, if you fully understand the material and you don’t have a job you can contact me.
I do not know how bad things are in NY but here in California if you are young and applying for a job you will almost be guaranteed NOT to get the job due to desperate adults applying. When I was 16 I delivered newspapers cuz it was easy as hell and you surprisingly get a lot of money.
Here’s a big tip that helped me a lot… Now I have a full-time career, helping professors learn technology.
Look into things that you do, and pull experience out of your fucking ass
What does that mean?
I called a student worker job in a computer lab “Public Relations” and “Customer Service” - It was volunteer work at high school.
My job from when I was 14-19 years old, being a bus boy was “Customer Service” and "Hard worker"
Helping my dad build model planes in his woodshop when I was a kid = "Able to analyze diagrams and coordinate tutorials"
I applied for a few scholarships in college… = “Grant writing experience”
BAM motherfucker, you’re not lying… but they make your shit look like gold.
Also: