So pissed off my dd cant get a partime job with good grades while others can without any.

[alfiethekittycat]

I need to moan lol

I feel so bad for my dd(17) she is desperatly trying to get herself a pt job and has applied for at least a hundred since she finished her gcse's last year, she is currently going into her second year in sixth form and has brilliant grades,

She was so upset last night as yet another of her friends had on her facebook that she has landed herself a pt job in a local supermarket that dd had applied for but was not even considered for interview, This girl is in sith form with my daughter but hardly ever turns up for lessons and just scrapped by getting there in the first place,

All she wants is the chance to earn a bit of extra money while she is studying but has only had one interview in the last year (wilkinsons at xmas) they didnt even bother to tell her she didn.t get the job even though they told her they would let her know in writing either way.

We both applied for a pt job in Greggs the bakers, she was told she wasnt suitable whilst I have an interview on monday,(I am going back to work after 18 years, have no qualifications)

So many of her friends who left school after their gcse's have landed jobs she has applied for she is beginingg to wonder what is the point of trying hard to get better qualifications cos the don't seem to count for anything.

Ok rant over, just woke up remembering how upset she was last night,

I was going to suggest hotels. They usually want someone bright and presentable for front of house. You do need to be flexible with regards to availability for work, however.

The thing about being overqualified is very true. Even going back to the 1980s, if they knew you had good qualifications then you had NO chance of getting certain jobs.
At the time I just wanted a menial job to bring in some money and have time to study, it was going to be early morning hotel work.
Nah! Did not like the fact that I had O levels

The best way to fill in an application form is to see if you can sell yourself to yourself!
If you were a shop manager, what would you be looking for?
When applying for jobs, you need to tone down the qualifications or ommit some of them and then at interview stage, dress well, minimal amount of jewelry, no perfume (only deo) and if possible dress in the colours of the company you are working for, this will give out subconscious signals to the interviwer.
Good luck!

I think if you can show lots of great extra-curricular(!) activities then that will help enormously. Shows you can fit other things in as well as studying and are a balanced kind of person. TBH grades on their own, even if fabulous don't really mean too much, just another application form which won't mark you out as being different.

Some good tips from Ripeberry.

Maybe it depends partly on where in the country you are too; I used to do interviewing in a shop in central London and we honestly used to get about 80-100 cv's per day. We would wade through them, rejecting immediately those with obvious spelling mistakes etc. Qualifications weren't a major factor tbh as shop work doesn't require certain qualifications. However, the most impoprtant thing was how they presented themselves and their social skills, after all those who were really shy and timid were unlikely to be as successful at selling to people.

Another thing, we used to get an awful lot of mums coming in with their dd/ds and the mum would say "my dd is looking for a job" ... immediately they would be rejected as if they can't speak for themselves then how hould they speak to the public and sell?

Other posters have mentioned the flexibility hing and that was major; even if someone was iideal in all other areas, if their flexibility wasn't very good then they were rejected. I know it sounds ruthless but we had that many applicants that we could be tthat selective.

I hope your dd gets something soon as it must be very demoralising. I agree about the voluntary / charity work, stuff like that really separates someone from other youngsters, good luck!

I had this when i was younger and still get it now. My advice to your DD is to go for local shops and what people consider higher class shops, their usually looking for higher qualifications as a sign of a hard worker.

Alot of places won't even touch people they think are overqualified.

Would she think of something else? I have employed 17 year olds before to help me out (taking severely autistic ds1 and his NT brothers swimming). TBH I tend to go for graduates now because I need people who have a lot of initiative but one of the best people I ever employed started at 16 as an ABA tutor.

Employers of ABA tutors (who are usually parents) would pay an interest in grades as well as keenness and reliability. She could have a look at the ABA-UK list or various autism therapy sites and look for a job that way.

Babysitting as well. But honestly if she gets confident in working with SN (perhaps volunteer somewhere if she can fit it in) she will be in demand (and able to charge more). And it's not rocket science, experience, initiative and willingness to learn the important features.

get her to be proactive then

dog-walking - pet-sitting - babysitting are all lucrative

a few cards in shop windows and libararies - a few words with friends

sorry only read op

Has she tried turning up at the local supermarket customer service desk and asking to speak to the duty manager and just explaining she's trying to find a job. Personal contact is much better than a piece of paper. It shows initiative and the ability to get to the place of work too?

Mme she is not planning university

Most supermarket jobs are generally online. To free managers up from having to deal with enquiries. Keep checking online. They'll only direct you there.

Going to the local supermarket customer service desk will do her no good whatsoever-they all do it! There simply are too many people chasing too few jobs. Supermarket jobs are like gold dust. Our local one had 2 Saturday positions recently and over 60 applications-I bet most of them were more than suitable. My DS tried a pizza chain-when he dropped in to ask about his application he was told they were wading through over 100 applications and would let him know. He tried a seasonal Christmas job and had a group interview with initiative type tests (over 20 at this interview)and he got through that but failed at the next interview-there were only 2 jobs.
It is purely luck to get one. She isn't doing anything wrong.

temp agencies, we use loads of temps as our recruitment process takes ages (retail/mobiles) they often get taken on if they are good, we use them as we can't commit to a proper contract and this lets us try before we buy and the persuade senior management that they are needed permanent.

The days of handing your CV in, on spec., is sadly over for the large multi-nationals. Everything is done online now, they won't even accept them.