You might have heard that the economy is not doing well and that translates to fewer jobs for all ages. But whether you try to find work this year or next year, chances are that the economy won’t be doing well and it will be super hard to find someone to hire you. What you need is some experience that will help you get hired ahead of all your classmates.

Volunteering at homeless shelters, animal shelters, churches, senior retirement homes, or anywhere else that will let you help out is something that you can do now that will pay off later. It will pay off because it shows all employers that you are willing to work and are not lazy. It shows them that you are a concerned citizen and a good person. Most of all, it shows them that you are the one they should hire when compared to all the other teenagers that have no work history and just sat at home playing video games all summer.

Possible Places To Volunteer:

1) Humane Society
2) Habitat For Humanity
3) Churches
4) Food banks
5) Senior centers
6) Red Cross
7) Libraries
8- Hospitals
9) Salvation Army
10) Political campaigns
11) Non profit organizations

Many cities have volunteer centers that might be able to help you find the perfect “job” for you. They have access to lots of different opportunities and will be able to cut down your search time. Alternatively, you might go online to http://www.volunteermatch.org/ for more ideas.

Remember, summer jobs for 15 year olds are never easy to find, mostly because few companies hire kids that young. If you can’t find anything, you need to do something that will give you a better chance when you turn 16 and that is some experience volunteering. Hiring managers love teenagers that are willing to work hard and have a record showing just that!

Flyers can be made for your baby sitting business, pet sitting business, lawn mowing business, or any other type of money making endeavor you want to try your hand at. Your flyer should have some personality and tell as much about you as it can. You need to advertise yourself and let people immediately know why you are the PERFECT person to help them with whatever service it is you provide. 

If you are wanting to take care of pets while people are away, your flier should cover what experience you have with animals and briefly go over the different things you can do (see flyer example below). If you are wanting to baby sit you should list your rates, explain where you live and where you can go, and also give the reader a good reason to call you. For any flyer you put up you need to be creative and SELL YOURSELF confidently without being too pushy.

DO WORK and if you can’t make one yourself on your computer, ask your parents to help you make one. It can be a fun project and together you can come up with an advertisement that, placed in the right places, will get your business off the ground!

                                    Photo curtesy of kids-in-biz.com

Take Care Of Your Neighbor’s Pets

One of the best things teenagers can do right now is start their own pet sitting and pet walking business. We all know that babysitting is a popular way to make money but it can be done for dogs and cats around your neighborhood as well.

If you live in an area that has lots of homes, chances are there are lots of families with dogs and cats. When they want to go on vacation, they either have to find someone to take care of their dog or take it to a kennel. Many people would much rather keep their pets at home if they can and would be very willing to pay a responsible teen to make sure the animal is fed and walked.

You Can Do This All Year

The good part about this gig is that it can be done year round as people go on vacation and leave town throughout the year and need their pets taken care of during those times. There might be more demand for it during the summer months but the more families you get to know, the more they will call you year round when they need your help. You can do this after school or whenever you have the time as long as you are able to do a good job feeding, walking, and playing with the animals you are taking care of.

How Do You Get Business?

Any teenager who likes animals can do this if they can find clients and the more friendly you are and the more people you get to know, the more business you will likely get. To find families who might use your pet sitting service, you can start out by periodically walking around your neighborhood. Remember, you need people who live near you so don’t go too far away. Talk to everyone walking their dog and tell them that you are available to help them out. Be friendly, pet their dogs, and make friends with them. Act as honest and responsible as possible because you want these people to call you back later and use you.

Having your own business cards to hand to them works very well so they can get in touch with you later on. You can get 500 Premium Business Cards for $3.99! through that link (you will have to get your parents to order them for you) and make sure you put all the important information on that card. Things like your name, address, phone number, and a brief description of what you can do to help them with their pets will do fine in most cases.

Many communities also have big mail boxes that hold many boxes in one. Make some nice fliers that describe your service and tape them to these boxes for added exposure. If you can find houses that have boxes that are not locked, you can put a flier in each box. Remember, make your fliers as professional as you can because you want people to be interested in calling you which they won’t be if you put up something that is poorly done.

What Should You Charge?

A good way to figure out how much to charge would be to go online and find out how much it would cost people to put their pets in a kennel. You want to then charge LESS than that so that the highest number of people will be interested in using you. People may have all sorts of requests including feeding, walking, playing with, and just looking in on their pets while they are away so you could have different rates for different services as well.

You might have to play around with a dollar rate for a while before you settle on something firm as you get feedback from people on how much they would be willing to pay. You could charge by the hour or by the day or some combination of the two. It doesn’t matter as long as your clients are happy, you are making money, and you are able to do get the job done.

The bottom line is that jobs for 15 year olds are mostly impossible to find right now and starting your own pet care business is something any responsible teenager can do. . If you do well on your first couple of jobs, the families may recommend you to their friends and you may start to get calls from other families. It can work out quite well and turn into a small business for you where you both have fun and make money!

One of the jobs for 15 year olds that is real that they can actually get paid for is shoveling snow. So rather than sitting indoors all day playing video games, teenagers everywhere should be outside (now that the storm has passed) trying to find people willing to pay them for clearing their driveways, walkways, and snowdrifts around their houses.

This is NOT the time to be lazy and some real good money can be made if you go out with your shovel and try to find work. Most schools are off and most businesses are closed down so that means most people are at home stranded and waiting for things to settle down with the weather.

All sorts of people will need snow shoveling help and will most likely be willing to pay for it. Most homeowners probably don’t have snow blowing machines that can take care of this quantity of snow and good old elbow grease from a 15 year old is what they need.

So get out there and take advantage of the situation!

If you want to become a life guard it requires specialized training so you can become certified.  Also, certification only lasts a certain amount of time and then you need to take a re-certification course, which is usually cheaper and not as long as the original course. If you think this may be the type of job you are interested in, please see the information below on how to make it a reality.

Lifeguard information sites:

There are a number of places to get information on becoming a life guard.  The two key places I recommend are: The American Lifeguard Association or The American Red Cross Lifeguard Training websites.

Requirements:

To become a lifeguard you must be at least 15 years of age and successfully complete a lifeguard training course which is 30 – 37 hours in length depending on the type of lifeguard certification you are wanting to earn.
The four types of lifeguarding are:
1. Traditional lifeguard – lifeguard working at traditional pools
2. Waterfront lifeguard – lifeguards at non-surf, open water areas like lakes, rivers, and traditional pools
3. Waterpark lifeguard – lifeguards at water parks, multi-attraction facilities, and traditional pools
4. Shallow Water Attendant – lifeguard that only work in areas with water that is up to 4 feet deep.

Certification:

Lifeguard certification is usually valid for 3 years.  At that time you will need to take re-rcertification course.
Most lifeguards usually also need to take a first aid/CPR or first aid/CPR/AED course.  This may be included in some of the lifeguard certification courses.  However, these certificates usually last only 2 years.

It is important to stay up on the different types of certification and expiration dates, since they are not all the same.

Once you have your lifeguard certification you can also look into these other jobs:

1) When you turn 16 years of age you can become certified to teach swimming lessons or become a swim coach.

2) When you are 17 and have a basic lifeguarding certificate you can take classes to become a lifeguarding instructor.

The bad news is that jobs for 15 year olds are still going to be very hard to get because most retailers and restaurants have a policy that you have to be 16 to work for them. It can depend on where you live because in some states 15 year olds can get jobs at places like Subway and McDonalds but in other states you need to be 16.

Grocery stores across the nation are a good bet to hire 15 year olds to pack grocery’s and gather carts. With all the holiday parties and festivities, grocery stores will see an increase of business and should be hiring. Get out there now and start asking your local grocery store if they need part time help.

Private businesses might hire 15 year olds but you would have to find them one by one. In other words they wouldn’t be national chain stores or restaurants but they would be family businesses. So, you would have to physically go around your town or city looking for them and going into each one to ask about a Christmas season job. You probably won’t find any help online to get a job in a family run business.

There could be holiday season jobs you can get around your neighborhood like putting up lights and decorations on houses. Lots of people have lights for the house and yard but they hate putting them up. That is something you could offer to do for pay. Remember that the price you negotiate should include you taking all the lights down after Christmas as well. Don’t forget to charge for that!

If it snows this winter where you live you might be able to make money shoveling snow or doing other things that need to be done in the cold weather. Be creative and think what you can do that other people might want to pay you for. The more ideas you have, the more things you can ask people if they need done.

That is why you should be looking for money making opportunities that you can get involved with instead of a job. One of those opportunities is on Fiverr.com where any 15 year old with some imagination might be able to make make money and even start their own mini business.

Fiverr is a website where people offer to do all sorts of things for five dollars. You can find people who are willing to do some pretty amazing things for $5 and your imagination is the limit. One thing that a 15 year old can offer on Fiverr that I think there would be demand for is testimonials and voice recordings. You see, online entrepreneurs and  businesses need the voice or the look of kids to advertise their products.

Please see the ad below to see how a father is working with his 11 year old son to offer camera testimonials from the son for anyone that need a youngster to promote their product. The good thing about this ad is that it is getting a lot of business!

On Fiverr.com there are hardly any other kids offering this type of service. I checked and tried to find other kids and only found a few. You will need a PayPal account to be able to get paid and PayPal does have student accounts for anyone older than 13 so you can probably do this without the help of your parents. It is possible though that you might need your parents help somewhere along the line to set things up on Fiverr or on PayPal.

What is great about Fiverr is that you can tried to get paid $5.00 for almost anything you can do for someone else. Go through some of the listing to see what others are doing and that will help you figure out what you can do that others might need. Real jobs for 15 year olds are nearly impossible to get but with some good ideas, you might be able to put your services up for sale on Fiverr. I know $5 isn’t a lot of money but that is why you need to come up with a great idea that lots of people will want you to do and suddenly you will see that the money ads up quickly.

If you want one of the new iPads, the only way you are going to be able to get one is to find a job. Yet jobs are tough to find and they are especially hard for 15 year olds.

This is why you need to be creative in your jobs search and be willing to do lots of different things. You can start by going to Snagajob and looking for jobs there but many employers only hire kids 16 and older. So, that means you need to get out of the house and talk to people.

Find out from your neighbors and people in your local area if there is anything you can do to earn money. Fall is coming and that means people are going to have yards full of leaves that need to be raked. Find out if anyone will pay you to rake their leaves or if they have any other yard related job. Winter will also soon be here and that gives you the opportunity to shovel snow if you live in a cold area of the country. People will pay for things like this and all you need to do is get out and find them.

To pay for iPads for kids you might also ask your parents if there are any jobs you can do (in addition to your normal chores) that they will pay you money for. Things like cleaning out a garage, painting, washing windows and other things like that where you can help out above and beyond what is normally expected of you.

Another way you can make money for an iPad is to clean out your drawers and see if there is anything you can sell on Ebay. Old video games, DVD’s, clothes you have never worn and other things you have lying around may be good sellers on Ebay. You probably won’t make a lot that way but every little bit counts.

Finally, you can sign up for a site called CashCrate and earn some money that way. You can read more about my review of CashCrate HERE and anyone older than 13 can sign up for FREE.

The second poll is about Snagajob which is probably the best online job site for teenagers of all ages to find jobs for the summer. That is because their specialty is companies that hire out on a part time and/or hourly basis which is what most 15 year olds are looking for.

This very second there are lots of teenagers who are trying to find work this summer and they are trying to find the same jobs you are. It is smart to go around town, look online, talk to friends, make contacts, and do anything else you can think of to get that summer job lined up right now.

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One place to start looking online for a job is at Snagajob where they specialize in part time and summer jobs – just what you are looking for! It is totally free to sign up and search but only do it if you are serious and are really interested in finding a job.
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This summer is going to be no different from last summer: it will be VERY hard to find a job as the economy has not gotten any better. If you are 15 years old, you may be looking for a job for the first time and not remember what last year was like. Talk to your older friends to find out!

The bad economy means that there are more teenagers (and adults) looking for jobs than there are jobs to be filled. Not a good situation! Additionally many employers would like you to have job experience and if this will be your first job, obviously you don’t have any. That is why it is important to start looking right now so that you give yourself more time to find one.

It may be hard to find job for a 15 year old this summer but they are out there and the more you look and the harder you try, the better your chances will be of getting one. But you need to start looking right now before all the good jobs get taken!