Austin's Thoughts

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Great quote!
2007-11-21 23:30:00
"Looking back you never forget the person who helped you get your first job." Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, Chicago Sun-Times, April 12, 1969 We're honored to be in the business of helping people get their first jobs. We know that putting people to work is an important task, and are eager to take it on. Hopefully other local business owners will realize the importance, and benefits, of hiring teens and start posting their jobs on myfirstpaycheck.com. Thanks Erin!
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Holiday hiring not expected to be generous
2007-11-20 23:31:00
This article from MSNBC is titled, Holiday hiring not expected to be generous. But I think there is a lot of good inspiring information in there." Central Ohio-based major retailers, such as Abercrombie & Fitch Co., Limited Brands Inc., Big Lots Inc. and Tween Brands Inc., have said holiday hiring is business as usual - so far. Jennifer Ortiz Brown, Limited Brands spokeswoman, said the company began hiring for seasonal positions in October and has not yet determined whether it is a good market ...Ortiz Brown said the company plans to add 60,000 employees for the holiday season, which accounts for 43 percent of the total annual staffing for the company." This article also makes the point that companies know that teens are great employees. Go out there and start applying to the jobs you see on our listing page today
More About: Hiring , Generous , Enero

Thanks Jane!
2007-11-09 21:10:00
Another great shout out from another great blog, check it out!
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Check out this great blog post
2007-11-07 17:50:00
George's 'EmploymentBlawg' always provides useful and interesting job information, but I think they have a particularly brilliant link today, check it out! Thanks for your help George.Would anybody else like me to guest post?
More About: Post , Blog , Great , Check

CEOs' First Jobs - Forbes.com
2007-11-05 17:59:00
No matter how they started out, part of what makes business leaders successful is their ability to learn something at every step. A great article about first jobs of CEO's and what they gained from them. The most important thing to take from this article is, "All of them--and arguably all CEOs, no matter the size of their companies--learned at least some of the leadership skills they employ today from their more humble beginnings."read more | digg story
More About: Jobs , Forbes

HELPING TEENS BUCK TRENDS - Topix
2007-11-02 21:45:00
A great story about a program at the Eatonville Boys & Girls Club in Fl. created to help disadvantaged youth find outlets for their ambition. An interesting quote from Economics professor Patrick Mason, director of African-American studies at Florida State University, says "Research on how people find a job showed that lower-income people tend to search the help-wanted ads, which is the least efficient way of finding employment." The most efficient? "Know somebody who is already at the place where you want to work." Help-wanted ads are tough because they are so broad, one of the great things about myfirstpaycheck.com is that employers are targeting a specific demographic, but networking is important, and once you find a job, make sure to help others in the position that you were.read more | digg story
More About: Teens , Trends , Buck , Topix

myfirstpaycheck.com's new resume builder!
2007-10-31 04:18:00
Check the upper right hand corner! Please forward on to anybody you know trying to make their first resume! What do you think?
More About: Resume , Builder

Seven Deadly Interview Sins from Forbes.com
2007-10-29 16:29:00
Forbes.com recently published Seven Deadly Interview Sins . Most of this advice is aimed at people applying for higher level jobs, but the information is still applicable. I particularly like this part, "One of the most popular reasons for a quick rejection is cursing. "The F-bomb gets dropped regularly when I ask candidates about their former supervisors," says Campbell's Massey. Meghan Lantier, an account supervisor at the public relations firm Bliss, Gouverneur and Associates, sympathizes with Massey. When she interviewed a recent graduate of an Ivy League university for an entry-level position two years ago, she asked a typical question: Tell me what it was like working at your most recent internship. "He started talking about a former boss and said, 'That fu**ing guy I was working with … ' "My mouth dropped open and I couldn't believe this was happening. It was like an episode out of The Office."" I hope you know not to curse, but also, don't ever, ever, ever badmou...
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2007 Finalists: Best Young Entrepreneurs
2007-10-26 22:38:00
Hopefully next year, you'll find us on this list!
More About: Finalists , Young , Entrepreneurs , Rene

Working Advice
2007-10-26 21:03:00
Thanks for the suggestions! We posted the first edition of our working advice here, also check out our new newsroom. What do you think?
More About: Advice , Working , Workin

More advice from myfirstpaycheck.com
2007-10-23 20:22:00
We're currently putting together advice for young adults on what to do when they actually enter the workforce to go with the advice we currently have posted about finding a job.Any ideas?
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A new way for undergrads to find jobs!
2007-10-21 23:12:00
Thanks Matt for the great write-up.... While Austin Lavin may fight with his younger 16 year old sister, it's probably over something having to do with the new web business they started together, http://www.myfirstpaycheck.com/. This job posting site for high school and college students is a valuable resource for students looking for part-time work.read more | digg story
More About: Jobs , Find

Twentysomething: Preparing for life without health insurance
2007-10-19 19:20:00
A good story about a twenty-somethings decision to start his own business and figure out health insurance. An important issue to think about whatever your career path...read more | digg story
More About: Health , Life , Insurance , Health Insurance , Went

A new blog to read about working
2007-10-18 21:12:00
I stumbled upon this blog Ihateyourjob.com and think they have some great posts about working, check this one if you're reading this blog bored at work. Thanks Chuck
More About: Blog , Read , Working , Workin

more first jobs
2007-10-17 03:15:00
From Forbes.com"Thomas Edison famously said that genius is "1% inspiration and 99% perspiration," but he just as easily could have been talking about getting rich. For the many self-made members of the Forbes Four Hundred Richest in America list, amassing a great fortune has nearly always gone hand-in-hand with decades of hard work. We asked five self-made members of this year's list to reflect on their first jobs and what they've learned."An interesting feature, and more good reasons to go out and get your first job!
More About: Jobs

myfirstpaycheck.com improvements
2007-10-16 16:28:00
Watch for some basic improvements to myfirstpaycheck.com coming soon thanks to the great work of our designer Valerie Blassey. Please let me know if you have any suggestions... and thanks!
More About: Improv , Prove

From Victor
2007-10-09 21:01:00
"Austin, I just read an article in the Wall Street Journal today about the job finding industry.  They talked about how it is a 5.2 billion dollar industry and will continue to grow to a 9 billion dollar industry by 2011.  They also talked about how despite the larger companies like Monster and Careerbuilder have a large market share, it is the webpages that are specializing in something that are showing the most growth.  I am trying to remember what webpages they were but the ones that i can remember were Dice.com for engineers (I looked at that place when looking for a job last year) and another was something along the lines of heathcarecareers.com. I just want to say you are going in the right direction with this webpage.  Hope that gives you a bigger ego than you already have (jk) and gives you extra confidence to believe in yourself."Thanks buddy
More About: Victor

Take a Bite - Will Mon's Blog
2007-10-08 16:56:00
Will is a friend of mine from college who has a great blog called 'Take a Bite ,' that covers a lot of interesting tech topics. But this weekend, Will wrote about myfirstpaycheck.com!Check it out!Also, check out this Etch-a-Sketch thing he did, pretty neat huh?
More About: Blog

Power By The Hour - Forbes.com
2007-10-07 17:57:00
More than half of working Americans get paid by the hour. Snagajob.com and myfirstpaycheck.com are among Web sites changing the face of online recruitment for that market. Snagajob.com has a head start, but myfirstpaycheck.com is a better site. read more | digg story
More About: Power , Forbes , Hour

Intern Memo
2007-10-05 23:23:00
Have you guys heard of Intern Memo ? My friend just sent it to me and I thought I'd pass it along.  It's a newsletter about the life and trials of interns, that comes with lots of tips on how to get great internships, I particularly like this piece of advice about starting early.

Comparing job boards
2007-10-05 17:58:00
According to Craigslist... Applicants per Job Ad (Yahoo Finance, november 2006)                   1. careerbuilder           69 replies                     2. craigslist           51 replies                   3. monster           7 replies                   4. hotjobs           2 replies If this is really true, we're doing really well for a company that just got started!

A society page write-up
2007-10-04 16:09:00
Thanks Exponent! " To get a good job, get a good education? How about combining them both with a great payoff. That's what Celeste, 16 and a soph at Lower Merion High School, and bro Austin Lavin, 23, have done by creating myfirstpaycheck.com, listed as a "job-posting Web site for teens by teens." Good work -- really, good work -- if you can get it, and these two got it!"
More About: Society , Write , Page

Seven Secrets To The First 10 Minutes Of The Job Interview
2007-10-02 21:31:00
First impressions are lasting and can be the difference in you successfully landing your dream job. Learn the strategies that will help place you in a positive light in the first ten minutes of an interview. You can not afford to overlook these seven tips in preparing for your next job interview. read more | digg story
More About: Interview , Secrets , Minutes , Utes

From College Athlete to Multimillionaire
2007-10-02 04:16:00
You've been treading water in the same job for years, and finally the position of your dreams opens up. In walks a 21-year-old kid with no college diploma and takes it. To add insult to injury, the new recruit gets a salary of $10 million or more —higher than almost anyone else in the entire industry. Not a bad first job right?read more | digg story
More About: College , Athlete , Coll

We've expanded to DC!
2007-09-30 16:03:00
Check out http://www.myfirstpaycheck.com/joblisting s_dc/ We're now in Philly, New York, and DC, but are looking for people to help us grow. If you would like to intern for myfirstpaycheck.com, shoot me an email here.

We're growing
2007-09-27 15:37:00
Check out Myfirstpaycheck.com's job listings in New York! And coming soon, Washington D.C. Do you have any suggestions for where we should expand next?
More About: Growing

Alternatives/funding for Philadelphia's Youth Violence Reduction Partnershi
2007-09-24 16:25:00
It seems that an important part of Philadelphia's Youth Violence Reduction Partnership is the focus on keeping teenagers busy, particularly having them work. I hope that we are able to continue to fund the program, and expand it, but there are other programs in the city that have similar teens to work programs including the The Philadelphia Workforce Investment Board which just received some extra funding from Gov. Rendell.
More About: Funding , Alternatives , Alter

More on Philadelphia's Youth Violence Reduction Partnership
2007-09-22 03:16:00
I went searching for more information about Philadelphia's Youth Viol ence Reduction Partnership but, it doesn't seem like they have a website, but maybe I'm wrong (does anybody have a link to an official site?) I did find this link from an online article by 1060 KYW. It comes from a white house organization called Helping America's Youth and it ranks our program as a level 3. I have to look more into this, but it says, " Evaluation The evaluation relied on monitoring data collected from January 2000 to July 2003. To determine whether YVRP Police Districts experienced change in their levels of violence, evaluators collected the homicide data of the 24th and 25th Police Districts from 1994 to September 2003. The evaluation team analyzed monthly statistics on each participant and the holding of semi-annual interviews with street workers, police, and probation officers. The evaluators followed street workers closely to learn about their relationships with participants and sha...

Philadelphia's Youth Violence Reduction Partnership
2007-09-21 21:15:00
I don't know too much about Philadelphia's Youth Viol ence Reduction Partnership program, but it seems like a great example of what the government can do when they pay attention and keep kids busy. Basically, the program "identifies at-risk people between ages 14 and 24 and assigns each a street worker who works with police and probation officers to try to keep them out of trouble and connect them with education, employment and other positive influences," according to the Daily News.This seems like one of the few bright spots in Philadelphia's fight against crime, but apparently it's funding has been cut. Jeremy Nowak and W. Wilson Goode Sr. have a great piece in the Inky today about the importance of this program. They note that State Rep. Dwight Evans (D., Phila.) and Mayor Street are fighting to save this program, and hopefully expand it, but they go on to write, "As cochairs of the Philadelphia Children's Commission, we applaud these efforts, yet we also urge leaders at all ...

Check in on teens’ jobs during school year
2007-09-14 19:13:00
An interesting article by Colleen Gengler about working during the school year. She worries that working too much during the school year can be overwhelming to most teens and suggests that parents closely monitor their children and the hours they work.I think this is a valid point, but I feel that Colleen is overstating the risks. I always worked in school, as long as you remember that your first priority is school work and act accordingly. I think you'll be ok.
More About: Jobs , School , Check , Year