For a rising college junior, lifeguarding is not a “real” summer job/internship, right?

[Anonymous]

I mean, I am 40 so take this with a grain of salt, but I regret abandoning summer lifeguarding jobs for internships in an office as quickly as I did. She has her whole life to work in an office!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She is in good company. HS age kids can’t get lifeguarding jobs at our MoCo neighborhood job because the college student lifeguards have taken the spots because they have experience and get hired over HS kids.

I noticed this too. Older college kids and foreigners on visas taking lifeguard jobs local teens used to rely on.

No, companies needed to hire out because our kids were too good for these jobs. Like OP's kids.

No. Some pool management companies hire foreign labor because they can pay these kids substandard wages. It is really awful, actually. I don't know how it is even legal.

What? No. Most international lifeguards are here on the J1 SWT program. Businesses have to pay their J1 lifeguards as much as American lifeguards, and at least minimum wage.

Pool management companies hire J1s because they usually can work the entire season: US high schools and colleges start and end before Labor Day/after Memorial Day. Add in vacations, and HS sports/marching band practices that start the first week of August, and local pools have a hard time staffing using local kids. And that’s before the conversation about if local kids are too lazy to work and, unable to pass the life guarding certification, or are holding out for an internship.

International students have different calendars that allow them to be in the US and working during that time (plus their 30 days of “travel” after the pool closes). So the international life guards provide the labor “base” for the full three months, supplemented by local kids who may only be able to work for six weeks or so before they go back to school or fall sports.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is why Jewish, Asian, and Indian kids are kicking American kids’ butts. Too many dumbass American parents watch Fox News and think any job is good enough. When you’re paying a fortune for college, your kid can’t piss summers away flipping burgers or blowing the whistle for potty breaks.

This book was published in 2014 but it’s more relevant than ever.

The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America

by Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Having a lifeguard job does help on the resume. There are plenty of ways to spin it. You may not know how to spin it, but kids certainly do.

This is where clubs and activities help beef up the resume.

+1. Can spin and b.s. your way into a 100% commission entry level role with Northwestern Mutual. Have fun selling life insurance to your contact list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Real internships require networking, career fairs, cover letters and resume, certain GPA, certain skill set, interview prep, letters of recommendation, references, rounds of interviewing, facing rejection. If you get an offer, you have to find a place to live, plan all the logistics, get outside your comfort zone.

The same hometown lazy gig summer after summer requires nothing besides showing up in a bathing suit. This girl is going to be a university upperclassman with no skills and zero real world experience.

Oh please. So many internships are family and friend connections and the parents throw money at any roadblock. Believe it or not you actually have to be qualified to be a lifeguard. There are zero places that will hire a lifeguard who hasn't interviewed, passed training to be a certified lifeguard, and at some places passed a drug test.

If the lifeguard was hired back the following summer then it is a guarantee that the person showed up on time, can get along with others, think quickly, are not afraid of the unexpected AND most importantly (and this can't be emphasized enough) stayed off their phone during their shift. In my office exactly zero interns last summer and the previous one had the ability to do these things despite attending top ranked schools.

This is likely fiction from one of the chip on their shoulder persons spamming this thread.

But still revealing in that they confess “top ranked school” students make up all of his or her corporate interns. And no matter how worthless PP claims they are, they have the experience on their resumes, made professional contacts and references, learned some new skills, can narrow their professional path and city they want to begin a career in, and they are the pipeline FT job offers.

Nobody in PP’s human resources dept is frantically hunting down summer lifeguards, nannies, and golf cart girls who’ve never left their hometown.

+1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, so much sniping about summer jobs vs internships.

Yes, internships are important
And also, internships are really hard to get
The most important summer for an internship is rising senior.
What helps you get that first internship? Any real work experience.

Both my kids did regular summer jobs for two summers, got good internships as rising seniors. DC1 now works FT for his internship company. DC2 is interning this summer.

I hire interns for my team. We never hire anyone younger than rising senior. And I never interview anyone who doesn't have a basic summer job on their resume.

On what planet do you live on that “any summer job” makes you a strong candidate for a competitive rising senior internship? That’s basically like saying having a pulse. Every ambitious college kid has summer jobs and internships. By senior year, the resumes without serious and relevant work experience are immediately discarded by recruiting software. Spare us this boomer coded old timey bulls*** that recruiters ignore all the strivers with office internships and perfectly curated resumes to hire the raw lifeguard with a firm handshake and good eye contact.

back at you. Obviously, a summer job alone is insufficient. Strong academics, research, industry-relevant projects, leadership in campus organizations, jobs on campus that are relevant to your field also build the resume. But, I'm also never hiring a kid whose only "work" experience appears to be hanging around an office where Daddy's friend got him a job. I'm in a heavy client-service team and I want to know you can show up every day reliably, deal with difficult people, and do the non-glamorous stuff. FWIW, my VP's top choice is always going to be the kid who was an RA, the ultimate dealing-with-difficult-people job.

+1 my son got a great data science internship as a rising senior. He'd worked retail and camp counselor jobs since high school. But he'd also spent two years working with his college's data consulting team, working with a few different professors across disciplines on challenging data acquisition, cleaning, and analysis projects. He said that was what the hiring managers mainly wanted to talk about. But they were also interested in his summers that he'd been lead counselor for a group of 5-6 year old boys. He can deal with chaos and keep his cool in any situation.

+2 It's a hard economy to get a paying job. Lifeguarding shows the kid is employable, physically healthy and has people skills. She can supplement with other skills development during the year. The narrow-minded people who are saying that the niece is doomed without having an "internship," aren't recognizing that some of the things labeled internship are unpaid (and may not require producing actual work the way a paid job does) or involve unskilled drudge work. It's the quality of the job and the performance of the student that matters--not that they ticked the box at something called "internship."

[Anonymous]

Lifeguard may be the most AI-resistant jobs out there. Claude sure isn't going to fish your kid out of the rip current. Good for her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, I would rather hire someone who has actually worked than have a fluffy internship.

It's possible that she now has more responsiblities - maybe she also manages scheduling, or training, or also the snack shack.

And kids have 40 years to work a more traditional job. Maybe she loves being a lifeguard and wants to keep doing it until the "real world" intervenes.

Sheesh.

Came here to say this. Super skeptical of cushy internships. I have seen two good interns my entire career. The rest have been clueless.

I’ll always go for the applicant who’s had to punch the proverbial time card and show up for shifts.

[Anonymous]

It is a job that pays that’s not illegal or immoral.

Who are we to judge what’s a “real job”? How many of you criticizing his job is a heart surgeon or F100 CEO? You’re on here picking on kids so I know you’re not curing cancer in your real job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is a job that pays that’s not illegal or immoral.

Who are we to judge what’s a “real job”? How many of you criticizing his job is a heart surgeon or F100 CEO? You’re on here picking on kids so I know you’re not curing cancer in your real job.

Exactly. Here are grown adults, tearing apart young people who actually have paying jobs. Shame on them, and shame on OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe she worked up to being a manager. This position can give her excellent skills (leadership, conflict resolution, scheduling, delegating tasks) and references. My rising college senior got a lot interviews for internships, but did not get one. He will work at his summer restaurant job again this summer. The internships are few, and much harder to come by.

Good for him.

My DS did this before entering college this year, and made a lot more than most of his peers. I wouldn’t be surprised if he does it again if other opportunities aren’t available. He goes to school in a large city and the work pays pretty well, making it a possible fall back if he has trouble getting a job related to his studies after graduation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, I would rather hire someone who has actually worked than have a fluffy internship.

It's possible that she now has more responsiblities - maybe she also manages scheduling, or training, or also the snack shack.

And kids have 40 years to work a more traditional job. Maybe she loves being a lifeguard and wants to keep doing it until the "real world" intervenes.

Sheesh.

Came here to say this. Super skeptical of cushy internships. I have seen two good interns my entire career. The rest have been clueless.

I’ll always go for the applicant who’s had to punch the proverbial time card and show up for shifts.

No one is discounting the value of retail or other service-related jobs. Most agree they are an incredibly important introduction to the real world - particularly for high school students. But working as a lifeguard for 5 years (well into college) is simply a waste of time, unless all efforts to secure an internship fall short.

And please don’t conflate cushy “nepo jobs” with actual competitive summer internships. They aren’t even in the same universe, and HR departments recognize this when hiring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:First of all, it is noe of your business. Secondly, having a lifeguarding job is better than no job. I work with college students looking for jobs every day, and it is a very tough market, even for rising seniors. She has a job, which is the main thing. I see too many students looking for jobs who didn't do anything before trying to find an internship summer before senior year and THAT is a bad look, not working as a life guard.

Agree with this. I have a rising junior who applied for close to 50 internships this summer with no luck. She has gone back to lifeguard at the pool b/c it gives her the flexibility to get a free/PT internship if an opportunity pops up.

[Anonymous]

A lot of lifeguards make 140k a year plus great benefits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lifeguard may be the most AI-resistant jobs out there. Claude sure isn't going to fish your kid out of the rip current. Good for her.

It’s also a job that’s often available to 15 year olds.