How to snag a summer job

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With the weather still cool, you may not be thinking about finding a summer job. In fact, we often times see job seekers waiting until the last minute to search for summer jobs, and by then most of them have been filled. But, employers have told us they are already searching for employees for the summer.

In fact, we surveyed many of our summer employers to see what they are looking for in their hire and how you can stand out from the competition. Here’s what they told us:

Start looking now

74 percent of the open positions will be filled by May, which means employers started searching in early April for their best candidates.

The best quality to have

When asked about what’s most important to them when interviewing candidates, our employers picked a positive attitude over everything else…including previous experience. So, don’t stress so much if you are looking for your first job. Just make sure you show them how enthusiastic you are and what a great employee you could make.

How much will I be making?

Good news! The average wage reported by employers will be $10.39 an hour. That’s 29 cents more than the recently proposed federal minimum wage increase!

The competition

Almost 80 percent of the jobs will be filled by new employees, meaning that 20 percent will be filled by those who previously held those positions. This is great for seekers looking for their first job or ones that have been out of the game for awhile and are looking for an opportunity to get back to working.

Getting social

Almost half of the employers we surveyed admit that they look at a candidate’s social media pages before deciding if they will give them a call. So, give yourself a social media audit and make sure everything you have up there is either private or professional. If you wouldn’t want your mom to see it, don’t publish it.

If you’re ready to get started, check out all of the summer jobs we have on our site!