[Need Advice] Helping Little Brother (College Dropout) Find a Job

Good luck with your brother.

 

thinking twice about it I dont think I would leave my own brother out in the cold. Just make sure to push his ass to do something with his life, which I'm sure you are.

 

Just say he spent the last 15 months in Africa helping out with aids prevention/awareness.

Employers will eat that **** up.

 

Wait...what? You flunked kindergarten!!!!!!



Good luck with little brother. I'm not sure the job he gets is as important as breaking out of the rut he's in now. Maybe finance just isn't his thing? I agree with the volunteer thing. Peace corps? Apply his credits to some non-finance degree? Go 'undeclared' for a bit? He needs to:

1) get out of his current funk
2) figure out what he wants to do
3) do it!

You get to encourage and support him without pushing him to the point he tunes you out. Not an easy task for a guy who couldn't get through kindergarten the first time 'round .

He's still freaking young. The 'break' shouldn't be that big a deal -- and he shouldn't be stuck in one type of career yet just because he put so much into it before. Just encourage him to get off his ass.

 

I believe you can substitute teach with a certain amount of hours of college. I doubt its alot of money but better than min wage.

Bartending can be okay money but that might be a mistake if hes immature...

I think sales was mentioned there's some gigs out there that will pay a low hourly wage + comission so there might be some opportunity. (cars/conn's/bestbuy stuff like that)

Anything that is 100% comission definitely do let him do if hes not motivated he will make 0 money and he can give an excuse that he is working....


For the employment gap I'd really just make something up. These are all going to be pretty quick hiring processes I doubt theyll look into a mention that he was a busboy for the school cafteteria for 15 hours a week.

 

1. Buy him a prostitute.
2. Explain they cost money.
3. Problem: solved.

Actually, sorry. There's some really good advice in here.

Does your company have any internships, or even grunt jobs (making copies, filing, etc.), that you could put a word in for? It will be an office/cubicle job, which beats Burger King, and looks better on the resume.

If he's smart, your coworkers will appreciate that their work is no longer being done by an airhead. He'll get a little money, some socialization away from XBox Live. And he'll tire of it pretty quickly, and appreciate that he can do a lot better for himself, and want to go back to school.

If it doesn't work out, as long as you make it clear to your boss/HR ahead of time that you're not sticking your neck out for him if he does poorly, everyone at your office will appreciate you're trying to help out a family member.

Win/win.

I had a relative help me out through a rough patch when I was younger, similar to your brother's, and I'll never be able to repay. And yeah, does sound like depression may be a factor.

 

1) Foreign Service and Civil Service Exam

2) Commission sales with private client brokerage (Morgan Stanley/Merrill), local firm (First Southwest), financial planning (Edward Jones/First Investors) or insurance firm.

3) Entry-level Operations Analyst for small retail electric company, Account Rep for one of the bigger ones or a chemical/fuel distributor like Suncoast Resources.

4) Computer classes/certification training at New Horizons.

5) Unpaid internship at a radio/TV station, advertising firm or non-profit (remind him that Benefit Concerts, College Bowls and Golf Tourneys can be non-profit orgs as well).

6) Retail management or even a buyer would have been a given twenty years ago, but so many more kids are going to college now that they can require a degree and be fully staffed by the Spring Career Fair.

If he doesn't at least try for #1 or #5, you've got a ******* bum on your hands and need to cut him loose. Not out of disappointment, but because he'll probably steal a few of your credit cards and **** you over at some point. Middle-class tastes plus trailer park work ethic equals crime crime crime.

 

"A'ight den class, we juss gon' run around an sheeit."

 

I'm right in job/internship-searching mode right now, so glad to help out a fellow hunter...or someone who wants to help a hunter.

Some general advice I'd like to dispense---

A lot of firms will not even consider your brother's application, if his resume is longer than a page, or sloppy in some way. Finance DEFINITELY has a taboo on one page+ resumes for students. From all the advice that has been given to me, one page resumes are the way to go for most students.

I recommend using the following template...

http://www.mergersandinquisitions.com/investment-banking-resume-university-student/

I used it, and I definitely noticed an increase in callbacks from my old resume, not only from banks, but also from all kinds of companies. Sometimes, just a few inches of alignment make a difference, and this template is pretty much copy+paste and that solves most issues. Just make sure everything is aligned with the ruler function in Word. Your brother can definitely put his best foot forward. If he can get the resume reviewed by a HR rep when he is done, with feedback submitted and worked on, that can definitely propel him to the top.

Make sure when he submits his resume online, it's saved as PDF (just save as PDF in Word) unless it specifies otherwise. Nice, clean, crisp.

Emails should either be addressed to the relevant HR rep, or "To whomever this may concern", though the latter is to be avoided at most costs.

General behavioral interviews generally revolve around walking through the resume, describing a situation of "adversity", and how you solved it through teamwork and leadership, and grovelling about how bad you want the job. A nice anecdote or two prepared that distinguishes yourself never hurts. Nothing too bad if your brother is personable.

However, your brother may face technical interviews. That will require him to brush up somewhat on what he learned. Just anticipate that firms with strong needs in finance or accounting will try to test him on these skills. He should be fairly comfortable with balance sheets, and financial concepts, if he wants a finance job.

I really do wish you guys the best of luck. Something about this story makes me want to root for you both.

 

I fear you cannot do much. Do what you can to help him, because it will make you feel better, but ultimately he has to motivate himself. I wouldn't let him sleep on my sofa.

 

sounds like he's depressed/unmotivated.

I have a friend, who, after breaking up with his girlfriend, just played games and ate junk food all day. Quit school, barely worked, and just lived off his mom. It's really sad...

 

Also, you can get by with having one-year blanks on your resume, when you're young. When you're old, not so much.

Say he's been using his leftover college savings to travel/see the world, before he knows he has to settle down. Most HR people won't buy it if it's on a resume, but if he mentions it during the actual interviews some bosses (during their own mid-life crises) will eat it up/give him a pass.

 

Hopefully he will be able to figure out that it's ok to not go to college if he doesn't want to but it is not ok to take advantage of his brother especially when he obviously cares enough about him to start a thread dedicated to helping him get his life together.

 

Edit: That's what I get for not looking at the date.

 

150 hours for a CPA exam seems like quite a bit.

 

If he is overdoing the weed, it may affect his motivation. He just needs to quit.