Fran Hendrick wrote the following great piece in The Cincinnati Enquirer about the benefits of summer jobs. Fran writes, a “real job” can benefit teens by helping them develop the ability to say, “This is who I am, and this is what I can do,” working alongside others gives teens a sense of their own [...]

People generally feel pretty strongly about the domain name, myfirstpaycheck.com - they either love it or hate it. We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it (I actually bought it when I was 16) and the lovers far outweigh the haters so were sticking with it, but it’s an interesting issue to revisit every [...]

Unfortunately, myfirstpaycheck.com doesn’t yet have jobs listings nationwide so there are lots of teens (and their parents) who email us asking for us to find them jobs. We’re happy to help and flattered that people come to us to find their first job.

Below is a sample of the type of emails we get, what do you think?

The sour economy is threatening local summer job programs for city teenagers, a decades-old safety net designed to keep youth off the streets and prevent violence during the bloodiest months of the year.
This is bad news for a great program, and this news  from Aaron Tanimoto, the agency’s program director that a lot of work [...]

Frankie Darcell from Mix 92.3 in Detroit interviewed me Friday about teens jobs for her radio show.
Frankie Darcell is mother, lecturer, businesswoman, author, talk show host and one of metropolitan Detroits most prominent radio personalities. She has been spokeswoman for women tackling real issues, while combining lively listener interaction along with Detroits strongest songs, for [...]

I found this list of 14 summer businesses on YoungEntrepreneur.com and wanted to share because I think they have some really good suggestions.
While we are always trying to get more job listings on myfirstpaycheck.com, sometimes you just cant find something that youre looking for, but it doesn’t mean give up. If you are looking for [...]

Interesting article about the summer jobs search for teens in Jackson, Michigan where it seems to be harder to get jobs now because of the economy. I think the most important thing to take away from this article is this advice from Michael Neece, chief strategy officer at Pongoresume.com who said that teens tend to [...]

I came across StartUpers! a fun site that helps start-ups fill their employment needs… check out their cool design. As myfirstpaycheck.com grows we are starting to look for strategic partners to help us get to the next level. Please contact us if interested, or else check Startupers! where we will probably post soon.

Much to my surprise, there was another prompt about teenage employment in my state-wide standardized testing. This time the focus was on should teens get jobs or not. The argument against it was that it took time away from school work and extracurriculars, and the argument for it being employment builds character, teaches responsibility, fills [...]

In my state-wide standardize testing this week, one prompt was about resume and cover letter writing for teens. Quelle coincidence! This of course was a topic I knew a lot about already, but I was very surprised to see certain wording in the description of the cover letter (CL). The prompt repeatedly said that the [...]