It is a major step towards adulthood when your child starts to look for their first job or for work experience. This might only be a summer job or part-time weekend work, or it might be a full-time school leaver post, graduate job, or degree apprenticeship. Whatever the level, their desire for a job suggests that they are thinking about earning their living—an important part of adulthood.

There is, however, a practical problem. Schools are often very good at helping young people prepare personal statements for university or college applications. They might even provide some advice about generic CVs. However, very few give much practical help and support with specific job applications, or explain how to tailor an application. You may therefore need to provide help and advice. This page explains how you can do so to give them the best chance of success, without taking over and doing it for them.

A Word of Warning

It is worth starting with a word of warning.

The internet of full of stories about parents or grandparents who told young people what to do with job applications, based on their own experience.

The problem is that the world of recruitment has changed—a lot.

Experience from 30, 20 or even 10 years ago is not necessarily relevant.

• Yes, the importance of tailoring a CV and covering letter has not changed.

• Yes, CVs need to be coherent, without spelling or grammatical errors.

• No, people will not be impressed that someone has bothered to print out their CV and submit it by hand, especially if the business specifies an online application process.

Don’t assume that your young adult will have the same experience as you, or that what worked for you will work for them.

It is also worth being clear: this is their job search, not yours.

Supporting the Job Hunt

The first, and probably most important way that you can help your young adult to start looking for work is to help them to identify what type of work they want.

Many job-seekers, especially those looking for a short-term or part-time job, tend to say that they will do ‘anything’. This makes it much harder to target applications sensibly.

One of the best ways that you can support your young person is to help them to identify what type of work would best suit them by asking them some practical questions:

• Do they want to work daytimes, evenings or weekends? Some jobs are not available at particular times. For example, if you can only work in the evenings, shop work is probably not going to be viable. If you struggle to get out of bed in the morning, it is going to be hard to work in a café that serves breakfast to construction workers.

• What are their skills and attributes, and how might they suit (or not) particular types of work? Some types of work are better suited to particular types of people, or people with particular skills. You need to be able to talk to people if you are going to do a customer-facing job. However, warehouse or kitchen work involves less contact with people.

• What are their interests? What would they actually like to do at work? It is not always possible to do a job that interests you—but it might help if you agreed with the company’s aims or felt like you were getting something out of the job other than money (and our page on Self-Motivation explains more about this).

The second way that you can provide support is to help them to identify suitable companies or organisations.

This might include taking them to careers fairs or events, helping them to find job- or careers-based websites, or pointing them towards resources at their school or college.

Hopefully these activities will give them an idea of the type of work that they want, and some places where they might apply.

The next stage is for them to start making applications.

Supporting Job Applications

The main way in which your young adult child is likely to need help with job applications is in writing them. However, they may also like you to review them for sense, or help them to identify potential referees.

Our page on Applying for a Job may be helpful if it has been a while since you last applied for work, and you want a reminder of the process. It may also be a useful starting point for your young person.

First, encourage your young person to create a first draft of any application before coming to you for help.

This applies whether you are talking about a CV and covering letter, or a stand-alone application form supplied by the company. If they get their views down first, you are less likely to be ‘driving’ the process.

Encourage them to use the job advertisement and the company’s website to tailor their application. They should be aiming to show how their skills and experience fit the requirements of the job.

You can then help them to refine their application in two main ways:

• Tailoring the application more closely to the skills in the job advertisement; and

• Refining the application to focus on what they did, and the results achieved.

Check to make sure that they have name-checked every essential skill, and provided a good example of a time when they have shown that skill. If the example given does not seem very good, it is reasonable to help them to think of a better one.

The next step is to help them to reduce the amount of background provided for each example. They should focus on what they did in the situation, and the outcomes achieved. They should also mention how they knew that these outcomes were achieved.

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Supporting with Interviews

If your young person is invited for interview, they may want you to help them to prepare.

Our page on Interview Skills may be helpful here in ensuring that they and you know what to expect.

Encourage them to research the company or organisation thoroughly. Talk to them about the company and encourage them to tell you what they have learned about it. Talk about how the company ethos or values might affect how they approach interviews and employment.

You should also encourage your young person to think of some new examples of how they have demonstrated the skills required for the job. Finally, you might help them to think of some questions to ask at the end of the interview.

The second area of support is in transporting them to the interview.

You might help them to work out how they are going to get there by public transport, and when they will need to leave to get there in time. Alternatively, you might take them to their interview, especially if it is the first one and some distance away from home.

Finally, you might be required to advise them on what to wear.

If the interview invitation states a dress code, they should follow that. However, if nothing has been said, then a suit is almost always appropriate. Men should usually also wear a tie.

Helping Your Young Adult Child to Manage Rejection

It is in the nature of job-hunting—especially for first full-time jobs—that many applications will be unsuccessful.

There are almost always more applications than posts available, and that means that several people will miss out. Many people experience making multiple applications without even getting responses—not even rejections. Others find that all their first set of applications are rejected outright.

This can be very hard to manage, especially when it is the first time that you have experienced it.

Your young adult child has most likely seen you, your friends, and their friends’ parents in settled jobs. They probably haven’t seen or heard about the challenges of finding a new job. They are therefore unprepared for the reality of the job market, especially at school leaver or graduate job level.

It feels very personal if nobody wants to employ you.

For many young people, especially high-flyers, this may be their first experience of what feels like failure. It may be complicated by seeing many of their friends receive multiple college offers, or go into established career paths without apparent difficulty.

Your job as a parent is to help your young adult to navigate these feelings without giving up.

There are several ways that you can help:

• Validate their disappointment. It is normal and natural to be disappointed by a rejection. Make clear that their feelings are valid, but also that they cannot afford to get ‘stuck’ in disappointment.

• Focus on reality. Remind them that there will have been many other people applying, and the rejection is nothing personal.

• Encourage them to seek feedback. Suggest that they send a polite email to the recruiter, asking for any feedback on the process. This is particularly important if they have been interviewed, because it will help them to improve their interview technique. However, it should be routine for any rejection.

• Help them to interpret any feedback. Application feedback is usually couched in very polite and neutral terms. It may therefore take a bit of interpretation.

• Help them to use the feedback to improve their applications or interviews. You may need to explain how they can use the feedback about their application or interview to improve for next time. This will also help to ensure that they move beyond feeling rejected, and towards thinking about the next application.

• Celebrate small wins. Help them to see that getting an interview is a win, even if they didn’t get the job. Feedback that their application was strong, but others were stronger, is also good, because it means that they are not doing anything wrong.

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A Final Thought

The most important thing for you as a parent to remember is:

This isn’t about you.

This is your child’s job application. It needs to reflect them, not you. Your role is to help them present themselves, not do it for them.

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