You’ve worked hard to become financially sound and built a career path that has navigated some unpleasant detours around bad bosses and glass ceilings. Though your family doesn’t really need the money, your teenage daughter wants to apply for a minimum-wage restaurant job. She sees extra cash; you envision dangerous night work and ogling supervisors. But teenagers’ work experience can mean just as much to college recruiters as a stint in student government or the French club, experts say.
“We believe work, in moderation and properly monitored by parents, should be seen as a positive experience” for teens, said Jeffrey Newman, president of the National Child Labor Committee, a New York agency that fights child-labor-law abuses. While much of the work available to youngsters under 19 is not intellectually challenging, it does build valuable skills, he said.
“They still have to deal with customers, dress properly, show up on time and work in teams,” said Newman. As long as the work isn’t dangerous and doesn’t exceed 18 hours a week during the school year and 30 hours during summer, just about any job is valuable, he said.
In large part, college admissions directors agree. But there are some caveats. Many schools’ admissions policies look first at test scores and class rank, said Walker Allen, admissions director for Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. So if a job cuts too deeply into study time and grades, your child’s application could be disqualified before recruiters consider her work experience. Also, it is in extracurricular activities like team sports or student government where young people form lasting friendships that lead to valuable career contacts later in life.
“It’s a very complex mix, but in general working no more than 15 hours a week is probably beneficial” to her college application, said Allen.
To protect your child from the darker side of work, visit her workplace as a customer and check out the atmosphere, Newman suggested.
“You can tell a lot about a place just by visiting,” he said, noting that observing a manager dealing with employees in front of customers shows a lot about the work environment without risking your child’s wrath by grilling the manager directly. By visiting at night, you can observe safety measures and the establishment’s usual clientele.
Recently, a group of young McDonald’s workers in Cleveland, helped by an International Brotherhood of Teamsters local, staged a “strike” over what they called unfair labor practices. Because of a tight labor market, the restaurant was paying new hires more than the existing workers who trained them, and a supervisor was “verbally abusive” to line workers, said Dominic Tocco, president of the Teamsters local. Tocco helped the workers negotiate their own deal with management, which includes paid vacations and a sliding pay scale that rises for everyone if entry pay accelerates.
Lateefah Field, a purchasing supervisor for a utility company in Cleveland, watched proudly as her son, Jamal Nickens, led the McDonald’s workers’ negotiations. Nickens, 20, has been working since age 13 and holds three jobs in addition to taking a full load of college courses. Field began working at age 11.
“It’s just the way of life,” she said. “It would be nice if he didn’t have to work so hard, but when he gets in the workforce, he’ll be prepared. I’ve spent the last two years going through a restructuring myself, working a lot of hours. He knows that’s the way it’s going to be.”
College recruiters know the difference between kids who’ve worked to pay for school or help with household expenses and those who wanted extra money, said Jim Conroy, chair of New Trier High School’s post-graduation counseling department.
If you’re a wealthy executive whose kids don’t need income, encourage them to take volunteer jobs that teach people skills and work ethic, Conroy and Allen suggested. If you’re a middle-class parent who could use income from your child’s work to offset college expenses, put a cap on that contribution so she doesn’t go overboard. What starts as a means to college tuition can quickly lure kids into a car payment or other debt. Above all, don’t counsel your child to work or volunteer because it will look good on an application, but encourage her to do it for the experience itself, Conroy said.
