Diary of a Recession Baby: Young job-seekers face tough haul ahead

Posted: 07 Jun 2010 09:17 PM PDT

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WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- He's been looking for a full-time job since February, but Carter Lavin's search is still going strong.

While hunting for a position, the 21-year old has been keeping busy. He recently returned from a week-long volunteering trip to Louisiana, providing relief to families hurt by the oil spill.

Young genius has idea to stop the oil leak

Alia Sabur pursued her Ph.D at the age of 14 and now at 21 years old she has an idea to stop the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. Video courtesy of Fox News.

"You should always be doing something, something to add to your experience and that makes you a better candidate," Lavin said. "I have a little bit of free time on my hands now, and it's an issue I care about, so I thought it would be a good experience to get in on the ground floor."

There's no doubt that Lavin and other young workers face a rough road ahead. The unemployment rate among 20- to 24-year olds is 14.7%, seasonally adjusted, compared with 9.7% for the general population. The market is even worse for younger job seekers -- the unemployment rate among 16- to 19-year olds is 26.4%. Read the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics figures.

To help his search, Lavin is trying to keep his options open. He recently graduated from Georgetown University and is particularly interested in renewable energy, working as an analyst or in marketing and communications.

"I started a job search narrowly on solar in D.C. As that has not been the most fruitful search I realize I need to widen my search to solar and wind," Lavin said. "While I haven't been having that much luck so far in finding the particular position that I want, I'm not going to shift entirely."

And Lavin is not just idly sitting and waiting for ideal employers to contact him. "It's your job to make sure you live the life you want to live," he said.

Start young

Teenage job-seekers may need to keep at their search for an extended period, but positions are available, experts said. Renee Ward, founder of Teens4Hire.org, said young workers should look for jobs that are close to their professional goals. Try a little introspection, she said.

"They have to have a starting point, the starting point is something close to home," Ward said. "By the time they are 14, 15 and 16 they do have a sense of their likes and dislikes."

Given Ward's advice, when I think of my own work history, I am somewhat embarrassed by the fact that as a teenager -- I'm 32 now -- I didn't pursue an entry-level position that could have fed into a long-term career path. Frankly, between bouts of bad hair dye, school work and friends, it just didn't occur to me that I should be thinking longer term.

As a teenager and into my early 20s I took on a wide range of jobs: trash collector, cocktail waitress, apple-pie maker, cashier, record producer assistant. And silently, as I made choices or allowed them to be made for me, doors of opportunity closed, many forever.

Still, while these jobs didn't directly inform my future career, they provided cash and showed employers that I was willing and able to work.

And eventually I was introduced to journalism, taking an elective my last semester of college. With only a few months to go until graduation I fell in love with reporting and writing, and have been in the field for almost a decade now.

Be aggressive

While Ward told me that I probably would have been better off, as a younger worker, taking jobs in the same area as my career, she said that simply having a job at that age is important. "Employers respect that kind of moxie," she said.

Jesse Harriott, chief knowledge officer at Monster Worldwide, said students should be very aggressive about getting an internship and practical experience that will help them land a spot after graduation.

"If you are among the thousands of graduates who don't have experience it's going to be much tougher to get that job," Harriott said. "The ones who wait until graduation will have a much more difficult time than those that have experience, even if it's volunteer."

Just about any job is better than no job, Harriott said.

"It's important that graduates find work experience even if it's something not related to their dream job," Harriott said. "Find something that shows they are serious about entering the world of work."

Work without pay?

It can be tough for younger workers to figure out whether to take an unpaid internship that might advance their career or to wait until they find work at a job that pays the bills.

Teens who are working out of necessity may need to take just about any paying gig, whether or not it's in their desired field. Teens who don't need the cash should pursue an internship in an interesting field, even if it's unpaid, Ward said.

However, even the market for unpaid spots is tough for younger workers, said Mike Erwin, senior career adviser for CareerBuilder.com.

"They are not only competing with each other for jobs, they are also competing with people who have been out of the workforce," Erwin said. "We are hearing about people going for internships who are mature workers."

He said that a full-time position can allow younger workers to "own a job, and have responsibility to tout in a résumé, whereas in a paid internship you are really not necessarily having a set role every single day."

Ruth Mantell is a MarketWatch reporter based in Washington.

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