Perhaps one of the most jarring things that a young adult may experience is entering the full-time job market for the first time. I'm not talking about jobs during high school, like mowing lawns in the summer, working at McDonald's, or the like.
No, this is showing up at work each day on time, in which you're immersed in a culture you surely don't understand at first, and the rules aren't clear. Some young people appear to get it right away; others don't. The lack of structure and confusion about expectations of you is a big factor.
So I applaud those who would recognize the issue and do something about it. And so it was that I attended my second professional interview day at Allen Park High School yesterday. The deal was that high school students, at best one or two with an interest in my current journalism career, would show me their resume, and I would ask questions to see whether they were prepared and qualified.
I met those with a clear-eyed vision of where they wanted to go and what they wanted to do - teach, become a doctor, go into the military - and others who had interests that they considered doing as a career, but the path from A to B wasn't entirely clear to them. All of them planned to go to college, a couple to a nearby community college.
We were in the gym, at separate tables, and the juniors would approach us, introduce themselves, and we'd get started. The dress code was all over the map: from suits and ties to casual work dress to shorts and t-shirts.
I spoke with one young man yesterday who said on his resume that, after a neighbor moved away and the house was left empty for a few months, that he took care of their lawn. There was no compensation; the owners were gone.
Why? I asked. "I just wanted to be a good neighbor," he said. From the resume, the kid had a GPA well above 3.0. I want that kid on my team.
On other resumes, words were misspelled, and I corrected the words.
I often asked about the last book they had read. Evidently, these juniors had just finished reading "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens in English Class, so I began to ask the last book they had read outside class. One young man told me he liked to read history books, and he shared them with his Dad.
When the students were ushered into the gym, before they approached us for interviews, they sat on the bleachers, talking with each other, looking at us from across the gym. Their appearance, their demeanor was so refreshing: so thin! so relaxed! so, well, young!
I wish them the best, and I commend the APHS staff for the idea and its execution. Well done.
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