Summer holiday from Uni - where are the jobs?

[MrsClattenburg]

DS is now back from Uni for the (ridiculously long) summer holiday so will be back living here May-Sept.

He's trying to find a job and started looking before he came back home but hasn't been successful with any of his applications so far. Listening to Jeremy Vine discussing this now and it's so depressing... loads of people applying for just one job and so understandably, why would a business then want someone back from Uni for 4 months rather than someone who won't leave after the summer?

If your 18+ year olds have summer jobs, where are they working?

Has he applied for them or avoiding because he thinks it’s unlikely? I ask as I’ve seen that said in my town fb etc too and I always encourage them to apply as the numbers are exaggerated and as they do low hour contracts and temp ones, there’s a decent enough churn of people to stand a chance of getting in. Biggest thing he can do is tailoring his cv so that it mentions team work and customer service a lot (doesn’t have to be via a job, we’ve got new starters joining as they’re first job but they talked about football team stuff they did and team work involving that, customer service via volunteer/uni stuff etc on their cv).

Golf clubs, football clubs (that do hospitality), big sporting events (eg Wimbledon, Ascot racing), festivals, concert venues etc - if any of these are within reach worth a try to get on the books for casual work. Also contact local wedding venues and caterers as summer is their busiest time

My (current) dc stays at University and works in her job there over the Summer. She turns down requests to come and do shifts at various places she's worked, regularly.

My eldest picked up the job he was doing at home during 6th form

My middle one signed up with an agency that catered big events (International matches / Cheltenham Festival / Cricket matches / etc) and another agency that brought waiter / waitresses in for big functions from conferences to weddings to 'Annual Ball' type events. She also used to be asked to do lifeguarding shifts when home, which she'd done in 6th form.

Lots of DDs friends applied for McDonalds and got nowhere.

Actually @MrsClattenburg there are some really good suggestions on this thread.

I agree with those who say that things like supermarkets will probably not be keen, and swimming pools may be sorted for lifeguards (tho that’s a good one to train for).

But some of the kind of self-employed ideas are great:

• Babysitting
• Pet sitting
• Lawnmowing or carwashing
• Tutoring – that’s a great shout

I am thinking these are the kinds of things which will work best if you have a decent network of folks you know.

I agree btw that McDonald's and supermarkets are not easy at all. Ppl often say "Oh I'll work at McD’s" as tho it’s just a case of rock up there; but DS1 applied and didn't even get through the initial screening.

What is he studying? If it is maths or science, or even if he has A level in those, GCSE support tutoring is a really good idea. There will be a lot of take-up and since he isn't a teacher he will be cheaper which will appeal. I would say he could charge £20/hr and as long as he is open with ppl that he doesn't have QTS I bet he will have some takers, and if he uses his old GCSE notes/study guides he will know about the exams so will have great intel. My DD tutored English lit and lang for a while in sixth form.

If the 'summer break' was four weeks instead of four months then degree courses could be completed in two years instead of three, thus saving parents a shedload of money. And for that sort of money, I would expect at least two hours day tuition rather than two hours a week. A bit off topic but do other mumsnetters agree?

We all did factory work during uni summer hols. Boring as hell but taught me what I didn't want to do. Might that be an option?

No because the academics who teach the classes at university use the long holidays to work on their research and produce publications – which is vital IMHO.

Also many uni courses don't actually have four months off. An engineering UG I know has classes and exams until the middle of June and starts back halfway through Sept, so they only have two months off. Plus a lot of courses have a heavy reading load with the expectation that students will start in Sept having read most of the texts (certainly DD's Eng lit degree was like this; it would have been impossible I think to get the three years of reading done in two years with much shorter holidays).

And your evidence for this is? The youth unemployment figures from before the minimum wage and employers NI rises were even announced / a twinkle in someone's eye.

Care work, it's hard, but often with a great team, also can look good on a CV.

In terms of only 4 weeks off in the summer for uni students: Exactly when would the lecturers have the time to mark the exams? When would the students have time to do their independent research? When would the lecturers have time to do their independent research? If it's just about delivering content / downloading it into young peoples' brains without a care in the world for academic rigour, you might as well just give them an online course or textbook and tell them to get on with it. I mean, it won't be an actual degree, but hey ho, at least it'll keep them busy and off the unemployment statistics for a couple of years.

DDs deadline for her course work was 8th May, I guess she'll go back mid September. Mid June-mid September in my mind is 3 months....although none of that is relevant to getting a job.
The year she did A levels, DD printed a leaflet and posted that she'd do baby sitting, pet sitting, dog walking and plant watering for people in our road, she earned a decent amount...but there are a lot of slightly younger teens in the road now offering the same!

My DD worked the bar at a local festival.

Having read the thread, the suggestion of getting his DBS during the holidays is good and will stand him in good stead. Also is there a UK equivalent of Responsible Serving of Alcohol certificate to get the OP's son ahead of the game? Ditto serving coffee certs?

I second the person that said volunteering.

My 17 year old volunteered for a local park last summer and was employed by them fairly quickly.

My eldest has been home from uni for less than a week and is now volunteering at the same place until he finds something paid. It gets him up and out and great for his CV.

We’re hoping he too will pick up some paid shifts soon.

Also, going into places can help too. When my eldest was at college he applied for a job via email (restaurant) like the advert said, but didn’t get a response. He went in a few days later to ask face to face and got a job.

Join your local Facebook groups too and follow your local restaurants, bars etc. Where I live, this is where they advertise for staff.

Good luck!

Both mine have had jobs for years, started at 14, mixture of hospitality ( bar work, waiting, kitchen porter, under chef), local joiners workshop, cleaning, stable work, milking cows and freelancing in future career area. Both have made advances in person initially if appropriate, but have also responded to job advertisements on occasion. We are in a very rural yet touristy area so neither has had any difficulty in finding part time work although initially it meant a lot of running around on our part!

@BitterTits What factories? They don’t exist here. Plus why train someone for 3 months when an employee might stay 3 years?

I am a boomer. I got a summer job every year from 'O' levels to leaving university with the local council. It was so much easier then.

If you couldn't find a summer job, you could just sign on and get supplementary benefit. My Dad didn't like the idea of us getting benefits, so he made sure we got a job.

Tbh DS ended up giving up on finding a summer job end of first year uni.
Brushed up his applications and skills and found a summer internship second year uni.

Employers didn’t seem to mind his lack of a summer job, he drew upon his society stuff at uni, grades, courses, projects etc.

My summer jobs were jobs I had worked at previously I could easily come back to- one was a touristy restaurant and the other was care work. I would pick up shifts for event days and to cover permanent staff .holiday.

If you were just looking for the summer holidays, maybe some kind of kids holiday camp might be looking?

Do you have any chain pubs near you? It's mainly Greene King around here, and I've known two of their pubs have taken students on during the holidays - admittedly it was in the kitchen, but one of them actually stayed on after leaving uni as she enjoyed it.

The Milburn report today is laying out the depth of the problem. He won’t criticise Labour policies but not supporting employers makes it worse.

If there are any Youth Hostels they can travel to, try there. Most team member jobs are seasonal there and end in October. Some are even Live In so that saves on travel. Look at the YHA website

It’s worth him popping in personally and asking in farm shops, garden centres, local hotels. I’ve also seen people asking on the local community fb page and getting some response.

At this stage it might be worth advertising himself on Facebook if he’s willing to do general jobs for people locally e.g. cutting grass, weeding, washing cars, general labouring etc. My DS did this very successfully one Summer and teamed up with a mate for some jobs, they charged less than professionals would obviously and were very popular once word got round! My 17 year old is doing work for me in the garden (paid) as he’s struggling to find anything.

Well he could have gone to Europe for jobs, sadly because of Brexit that's no longer possible. Pay him £20 a fortnight to wash the windows and mow the lawn is my suggestion.