I spent last summer in the trenches.
These trenches happened to be long, rubber-lined ponds of varying depths, filled with hundreds—and by the end of the summer, thousands—of water lilies. Not exactly World War I standards, but working in greenhouses in the middle of an Ontario summer and finding mud in your ears at the end of the day definitely starts to lose its appeal—usually around mid-May.
The summer before the pond centre, I worked on the manufacturing floor of a screen door factory, cutting five hundred door-sized pieces of mesh each day. Before that, I was a chained to a cash register at a big-box store, ringing through hockey sticks and auto parts.
Somehow I always seem to miss out on the cool jobs. I know they’re out there—I hear about them from friends and classmates every September—but for some reason they’re not advertised in my small hometown.
In the hopes of making this summer different, I decided to set out on a quest to find a “cool” summer job. Cool can mean different things to different people, so I’ll sum it up—it’s a position in an area that interests you and which may be of some use to you in the future, where you are treated with respect. Note that mudslinging and mesh-cutting do not fit the profile.
So I sought out two cool job experts. Julia Clarke, ArtSci ’08, seems to fit the bill. She has spent the past three summers working for White Squall, an outfitting store that sells outdoor gear, teaches kayak courses and guides adventure trips through the islands and inlets of Georgian Bay.
Spare time on paddling trips is spent swimming, watching amazing Georgian Bay sunsets, hiking on islands and looking at the stars at night. Though it sounds idyllic, Clarke said there is a lot of work involved.
“We guide for about four to five days a trip,” Clarke said. “When we’re on the water, we wake up at seven, put the coffee on, start breakfast. If it’s an adventure trip then we move by nine o’clock and we’re paddling till about four or five at night.”
Clarke first heard the job was available through her older sister Jen, ArtSci ’05, who had been working there for a few years. After the initial application process, Clarke said her employers do a re-evaluation every year asking where their staff would like to take on more responsibility and what their strengths are. Apparently, having a good employer is key to the making of a cool job. Clarke said her employers, who run White Squall from their home, are the most generous people she knows.
“They paid for all my training, for all of the courses that we put on,” she said. “They want their staff to do their best and they want to treat you well. They’re so gracious and giving.”
Dennis Crawford, ArtSci ’06, experienced an entirely different kind of a cool job during his internship for the Conservative Party of Canada in the summer of 2004, working in the Office of the Leader of the Opposition (OLO) under Stephen Harper.
“The OLO is the bureau of the opposition, similar to the Prime Minister’s office,” Crawford said. “It did all the work for the leadership of the Conservative party.”
Crawford heard about the job from a fellow member of the Queen’s Conservative Club, and contacted his MP for more information. He said interview questions included one asking which book had most affected his political world view. Though he went in with his own ideas, Crawford said he came out of the internship with a new perspective.
“It definitely was an eye-opening experience,” Crawford said. “It made me realize a lot more the breadth of conservatism in this country, and that there’s a lot of different types of conservatives and they’re often at odds, even with each other.”
Crawford was delegated the usual intern task: research, communication, and data entry. But despite the “boring” mornings spent typing up address lists from petitions, Crawford said there was hot gossip around the office (it was all about Queen’s student Josh Kertzer, ArtSci ’06, who ran a website campaigning against Calgary West MP Rob Anders) and the position fulfilled that lucrative requirement of being in Crawford’s “field.” “It’s obviously going to help me in the future because I’m a politics student,” Crawford said.
According to the Queen’s Career Services website, key tips for getting a summer job include having strong references, making personal contact and preparing ahead of time for an interview, all of which both Crawford and Clarke did in order to land their very different—yet equally cool—job experiences.
Just as different are their personalities. Clarke is upbeat, hardworking and of course, loves the outdoors. Crawford is intense, articulate and passionate about the future of Canada.
It seems that in order to finding a job that interests you, you must find a field that interests you. Employers know that people who enjoy what they do work hard. The trick is in being able to communicate your enthusiasm and give examples of where you’ll put it to work. Both Clarke and Crawford first heard about the job openings from friends and family, which is not surprising considering that the Career Services website says that only one in every five jobs is advertised online or in newspapers. The rest are posted in windows or on the company’s own website, or communicated through word of mouth.
After talking to my cool job experts, I have lots of good ideas of how and even where to look for jobs. However, try as they may, not everyone is going to get hired to a cool job. They are often dependent on geography, early applications and past experience. Some of us are going to be driving Octocarts in the casino parking lot or scooping ice cream for screaming kids, all the while building up resumes, getting good references and dreaming of next summer.
—With files from careers.queensu.ca
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