Make Yourself Memorable - Tips for today's job-hunting teen
E247: Tell the story only you can, when economics, demographics, and technology seem to conspire against you
Students today are caught in a Catch-22:
Educational institutions and employers want to see a proven track record, ideally through work history.
However, there are fewer and fewer jobs available, and … even fewer for 16- to 18-year-olds. Fewer opportunities to gain that experience.
What can a teenager today do about it?
How can you get yourself noticed?
Here’s the punchline: Create the opportunities for people to see you clearly - who you are, who you are becoming, and who you want to be in this world - so you stand out in a sheaf of 700 resumes, amid 100 university application essays, or at the end of a day of 20 interviews.
The students who land the opportunities are not always the ones with the highest GPA or the biggest successes - they are the memorable ones with an authentic story.
Make Yourself Memorable
Today’s message started with this WhatsApp message from Tilt tribe member Dr Dan Zhou1, a friend since 2016 as we explored the business models we wanted to build respectively alongside each other. I guess she remembered my constant conversations on “Future Proof”ing.
And that is the point of this article. Make Yourself Memorable.
I am placing a link to the ABC clip “Teen summer jobs hit historic lows as fewer employers hire seasonal workers” from Good Morning America in the footnotes.2
Interestingly, David Dvorkin (CEO of Hire Cause3) had asked for my thoughts on this same conundrum in January. I host a monthly roundtable learning conversation with NYC school teachers, and David felt that this very topic was top-of-mind for students, teachers and parents alike: How do you create opportunities where none seem to exist? The teachers agreed.
By now, many of us are aware of the stats:
It is rare, today, to get a job by walking in with a paper resume in your hand.
Fewer teenagers are doing summer jobs nowadays. Some of it is competition with their grandparents - yes, five generations in the workplace is a real thing. Many jobs are asking for ‘experience’ for simple tasks - something a 68-year-old who needs to supplement their pension easily offers over a 16-year-old teenager. And then there is that technically awkward human phase of teens who’d prefer to text it in!
Employers using automation tools like self-checkout, home delivery, and loading robots have all taken jobs away from young students.
Not every student has access to their parent’s Rolodex of contacts (yes, purposely using an aged-out technology reference!). They may not be able to work at Uncle Josh’s cupcake bakery, or neighbour Diane’s hedge fund.
Basic math: When I graduated high school, there were only 4.5 billion people on earth, and a lot more manual entry-level jobs. The competition today is upside-down.
So, then, what CAN the average teenager do this summer? Not everyone can win the Earth Prize or cure cancer.
But we each have to learn to tell a good story - a story about ourselves. And for that, I suggest each student spends this summer creating and gathering material:
An interviewer - college or job - wants to know a few essential things:
Persistence & resilience: If I hire you / give you one of the precious admission seats in my college and train you, you won’t bug out a month later, leaving me to start all over again.
Communication: You can get on with others in the environment, understand instructions, and make your own thoughts known.
Teachable: Are you willing and able to acquire and assimilate new information and skills? Are you adaptable? Are you curious and tenacious?
Most of their questions are spun to find the answers to these basic concerns. Make yourself memorable. Tell them stories — that are identifiably non-AI — they will remember when they leave that room and have to advocate for you versus the 5, 20, 100 other applicants who also pitched for this position.
Can those of us who dream of being 16 again help? I think mentorship is the biggest gift. Create learning opportunities for the teen in your neighbourhood - simple weather queries that segue to career conversations, ask them to do your lawn, rake the leaves, babysit, plan and host a neighbourhood barbecue, or bigger. Collectively, we are looking to raise good citizens - people who will vote, consume and care for each other regardless of the technology of the day.
Let us create some openings for them to step up their game.
Why this matters - the bigger picture
What happens when we do not have an on-ramp into the world of work? What does the “Future” of Work potentially look like? I came across this recent article
“notes on AI, labor and China” which Jasmine Sun published to augment her Opinion piece in the New York Times “Silicon Valley is Bracing for a Permanent Underclass”.4
I do recommend reading it. Because it also showcases the opportunity in investing in manual skills alongside knowledge skills. Many of these circumstances and much of this math predate the heavy launch of AI. It is interesting to see how countries like China are addressing the situation. For our teens, too many formal doors are closing before pathways to the informal ones become evident.
In previous essays, I reminded us that revolutions have accompanied previous shifts in Eras. If we want to understand how the future could rhyme with history and tilt the future in a positive direction for humanity instead, we should understand our exposure.
Which brings me back from macro to micro: we cannot control the Era we come of age in, or the speed of technical advances. But if you are a student today, you can control what you can make visible this summer. And also explains why - as individuals - working on the Lego building-blocks of our own life enables us to tell an authentic story in the future as we continue to search for new opportunities.
We often talk about heirloom skills in this newsletter - “heirloom” handed down from one generation to the next; hard-won; the more often they are used, the better the burnish. Skills that have an intergenerational life, over the decaying half-life of our constantly changing technical skills.
Your turn “}…{`
Want to know how to date yourself? My first job experience was micro-fiching contracts! A daily diet of unstapling the paperwork, feeding the sheets through a giant copier, confirming the quality, restapling and archiving the original. Then retrieving requests for departments like Legal and Collections. What was your first job?
And if, like Dan, you have something to share with me, please send it over! It may be a good essay to share.
Did you know I keynote on Future of Work and 21st-century skills?
Invite me to speak at your next conference, round table discussion, or podcast.
A warm welcome to our new members!
Here, in Tribe Tilt, we believe in the best of humanity - connecting people, sharing ideas, and respectfully exploring thoughts, knowing that a great idea can come from anyone, anywhere, at any time. Thank you for joining us. You have self-selected into a powerful, group committed to making a difference to the people and places that are precious to us.
Stay healthy. From there, all else becomes possible.
And I’ll see you again next week
Related essays:
![Mind the [].. Generation ..[] Gap](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Hu3I!,w_140,h_140,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2e47cfa5-9392-4b24-a70c-c1ace7bd6388_6000x2536.jpeg)
Dr. Dan Zhou is an energy healer, and one of my first introductions for this straight-laced STEM grad into the very “woo”! But I have since learned to accommodate these concepts alongside my own. Discover more about her at Radiant Health
Link to the ABC clip “Teen summer jobs hit historic lows as fewer employers hire seasonal workers” from Good Morning America
What is Hire Cause and who is David Dvorkin? Hire Cause offers experiential learning programs that bridge the skills gap, allowing companies and students to connect around projects, while having a social impact. Meet David Dvorkin E39
Contact me for a link if the guest link to this article from Ms. Sun’s post does not launch:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/30/opinion/ai-labor-work-force-silicon-valley.html