you're shopping at the mall when you spot a pair of sneakers you've always wanted to buy but once you pick it up to look at the price tag you realize it's a bit out of your budget well what about a new jacket still out of your budget what about a new t-shirt also out of your budget so you go home pull out your laptop and start applying to jobs but there's one problem you don't know how to do that welcome to episode one of stuff they should have taught you in school today's episode how to land your first job so this piece of paper right here is the key to employment can you guess what it is is I'm going to turn it around in 3 seconds 3 2 1 it's your resume this is your sales pitch and the stuff you put on this paper has to convince an employer that you are qualified for a job but what do you put on it information about your education prior work experience and skills but I can already imagine what you're thinking gohart I'm only 17 I don't really have any work experience plus the only skills that I have are procrastinating on my homework look employers aren't dumb they're not expecting 17-year-olds to have years of work experience or any experience at all that's why your resume will instead highlight your extracurricular activities for example things like club sports or community service no employer is expecting you to know how to use a cash register or serve customers if you have relevant experience great but for your first job all you have to do is convince the employer that you have the traits not necessarily the skills in other words prove that you're responsible organized and work well on teams because chances are you will learn everything else on the the job now don't go crazy with your resume I know you might feel tempted to list down every single Club you've been part of throughout your high school career but look unless you're Bill Gates Elon Musk or Sam Alman there is absolutely no reason your resume should be more than one page long now 16-year-old goar had a hard time internalizing this I remember the first resume I made was about two pages long maybe it was even three it was it was rough okay but how should you format your resume instead of yapping away let me show you an example from none other than harv University I will also link this template in the description below so the typical student resume consists of four sections education experience activities and skills at the top you're going to list your name your contact information and your website if you have one it's nice to make one just in case and the education section list the high school or college you attend along with your GPA and maybe even your sat or ACT score now the experience and activity sections are structured pretty much identically if you don't have any experiences that's fine just get rid of the section and fill out the activity section so for each activity you're going to list the organization name your position the location and the duration underneath this you're going to describe your activity but how you describe it is critical because these descriptions can make or break your decision but why okay I need you to understand something very important when you apply to a job your resume goes to something called an applicant tracking system this system automatically scans your resume to see if you're a good fit for the position if it thinks you're not it's going to discard your resume even before it ever reaches the employer so your descriptions need to signal to the system that you are a good potential candidate and here's how you're going to trick it well not trick it but convince it that that's the case you're going to copy the job description paste it into a word cloud generator and observe which words are the most prominent these are the words you need to highlight in your activity descriptions and your descriptions must be clear and concise don't use full paragraphs don't even useful sentences use bullets that start with crisp action verbs that highlight your impact and use numbers whenever you can I'm actually going to include a link to some action verbs in the description of this video but unfortunately even with the right keywords the ATS might turn your resumé away another mistake many students make is Mis formatting or even designing their résumés maybe they'll add a head shot maybe they'll use fancy fonts and colors but this just makes it harder for the ATS to parse the resumés that's why I recommend that you also build a portfolio website now a resume is great and all but it's a little lifeless if you want to stand out to employers especially if you're applying to a fancier role it's great to have a portfolio website this is where you can bring in those head shots those project demos and even a gallery if you have creative work but I know you don't know how to code so let me show you how you can set up a portfolio website in just a few clicks using hostinger's AI website builder here's how it works first we're going to head to hostinger.com goar now if you click on claim deal you'll see that they offer two options both are fairly priced but the main difference is that the business plan offers you AI tools like the AI writer which can help populate your website for the resume it's definitely up to you I'm going to pick the business plan for the sake of this demo now you'll also have to pick the length I recommend going with 12 months minimum so you can also get a free domain next you need to add your details and if you add code gohar you'll get an extra 10% off now once you click on build a website with AI all you have to do is select the website type in this case we'll choose portfolio then we'll enter our name and describe the kind of website we're trying to build now this is where you can mention specific Pages fonts and colors once we click generate the AI starts writing content picking images choosing a layout and look we already have a full-fledged website and customizing our portfolio is a breeze click on edit site to update anything on the website including text colors and images you can even enhance your portfolio using hosting or Suite of AI tools for example we can use the AI page generator to add an about me page that highlights your background and hobbies or you can generate an extracurriculars page that highlights the different clubs that you're part of once happy with your website go ahead and click on go live oh but that's not all the business plan also comes with a free domain name and a free email so now you can have a really professional email address like contact goar.com that is not my email by the way and if you run into any technical issues or need help upgrading your website hostinger provides 24/7 support if you want to get started I recommend you check out their Business website builder which only cost $3.99 a month and comes with 2 months free and again use code goart for 10% off off on all yearly plans I've seen quite a few recruiters say that a personal website really moved the needle for them when making a decision and this is especially the case for a marketing role as it shows how well you can sell your personal brand thanks again to hostinger for sponsoring and now back to the video all right so now you've got your resume and your portfolio website ready to go now it's time to actually start searching for jobs now this is the super super fun part not really but I'm going to try to make it as easy as possible for you for this you're going to use a website like LinkedIn or indeed to search for jobs and if you're a student you're most likely going to narrow your search to one of two categories fast food or retail think places like McDonald's Taco Bell Chipotle or Walmart Target and Staples now as you're hunting for these jobs be mindful of three things first look at distance because trust me if you're in high school you do not want to commute more than 15 to 25 minutes to work maybe 30 at Max but commuting 45 minutes or an hour is completely unreasonable unless you're working a full-time job even in that case it's kind of reasonable second pay attention to the responsibilities yes money is nice but don't fling yourself at any job opportunity that you can find make sure it's something that you're okay with doing just make sure the role is not something completely against your personality or your preferences for example if you're super shy and introverted you don't want a job where you're talking to people all the time or if you want something more active and where you're moving around a secretary job is probably going to bore you out of your mind and ideally now this won't happen for most students but if you can find a job that aligns with your intended major or or your academic interest that is a huge plus because when you apply to college you are going to list the jobs that you did in high school and if these jobs are unrelated to your intended major that's fine ultimately colleges are more interested in the characteristics these jobs highlight so things like responsibility leadership and teamwork but let's say you're interested in medicine and find a job as a secretary at a clinic or better yet maybe you get the opportunity to job shadow an actual doctor that's probably going to help your college application just a bit more than becoming a lifeguard or a babysitter and finally I want you to look at the hours if you're an underclassman sure maybe you can dedicate 10 to 15 hours a week to a part-time job especially if you're working longer shifts on the weekends but if you're a junior and you're dealing with college essays and extracurriculars and standardized tests be very mindful of work school balance your academics should be priority number one followed by extracurriculars and then your work of course for some students depending on their financial situation this may vary but this is what I think it should be for most students all right once you have search for jobs the next stage is applying for jobs now this is the most timeconsuming part because you might have to apply to dozens of different roles until you land something I'm not going to walk you through the actual application process because it varies by job plus it's pretty straightforward they're probably just going to ask for your resume maybe a brief cover letter and maybe even some references a cover letter is usually a one-page document that explains to an employer why you are a good fit for the job and you can think of a reference as someone that can vouch for you it's someone who can provide a potential employer with more information about your work and your characteristics and this for example can be a former employer a teacher a coach and so on now once You' submitted your applications I recommend keeping track of them in Google Sheets so you can see where you've applied and where you're waiting to hear back from I've included a template in the description of this video and then you wait most places will just email you your decision but some might throw in an extra step the interview job interviews aren't that stressful or at least they shouldn't be the goal isn't to grill you on technical skills or your knowledge again this is assuming you're applying to your first job and not a place like Google the interview is just a way for a potential employer to get a sense of your personality how many hours you can work and it also gives you the chance to ask any questions now just to make sure you leave the best impression possible let me give you some tips first show up 10 to 15 minutes early it is a terrible terrible look if you are just pulling up and running in 2 minutes before the interview or even worse after it has already started though I trust none of you are going to make that mistake dress business casual no need to put on a suit or a tie wear something nice like a polo or a buttonup or if you're a girl just a nice dress and once you're at the interview maintain a friendly and energetic composure you don't want to be too laid-back and chill to the point where it seems like you don't care about the role but you don't want to be too formal and rigid either just be relaxed maintain good posture eye contact and open and confident body language now once the interview begins chances are the first question you're going to get is tell me about yourself prepare your answer beforehand on the screen now you'll see an example structure that you can follow and at some point in the inter interview they're probably going to ask you about a challenge or some time that you had to demonstrate leadership answering these questions sounds tricky but it's not as hard as you think use the star method let me give you a breakdown so star is an acronym s stands for situation T stands for task a stands for action and R stands for result you want to start off with s the situation provide the interviewer with background and help them understand the details surrounding the event then you want to transition into the task bring up what you had to do to address the situation then talk about your actions hi highlight what you actually did and finally weave that into the result talk about the impact that you left and whether or not you succeeded and throw in some numbers if you can as you're preparing these responses I recommend that you do some mock interviews with family members just practice answering these questions a few times over and over so you get into the general Rhythm and feel comfortable by the time the interview rolls around all right and the next part of this process is landing the position after the interview it's time for you to go home and wait months and months and months for a response just kidding sometimes you'll get a response back within the same day but usually you'll hear back within a week or two but if you don't hear back 2 weeks after you've applied be sure to follow up give them a call just ask about the status of your application and reiterate your excitement but I'm going to let you in on a harsh truth if you don't end up hearing back a couple weeks after the interview chances are you might have gotten rejected but don't let that get you down job rejections are extremely extremely common there is not a single person who gets more job acceptances than rejections well that's probably a lie but you get my point back in college for example I had had a few friends who had to apply to dozens and dozens of roles until they landed something just keep pushing through and I promise you will eventually find the role that's right for you and make enough money to buy that pair of sneakers of course don't blow all of that money into clothes and sneakers you want to put some of it into savings and Investments as well which I have talked about in a couple shorts of mine let me know if you want a part two of this I can go ahead and talk about how to open up a bank account next and how to do some basic investing and even cover the differences between debit cards and credit cards I'm happy to dive into those money tips but I just want to hear from you first and see if it's something that you're interested in but with that we have wrapped up today's video I hope this video helps you get the job that you want I believe in you you got this subscribe if you haven't already and I'll see you again next week