Summer Jobs That Look Good On A CV

We check out summer jobs that look good on a CV if you are 16 or over.

Summer jobs are seasonal job opportunities – they come and go, but taking on a summer job means that as well as earning a huge bag of tarnished gold over the holiday, you update your CV with some very valuable work experience. Pick the right summer job and you won’t even have to miss out on festival and other sundry seasonal joys…

Summer Jobs at Festivals

If you do decide to grab some festival work over summer, you won’t get much by way of payment but volunteering as a festival steward or campsite attendant means you’ll see a host of bands and absorb some wonderful life experience. Festivals are mushrooming up all over the UK in increasing numbers, and they’re being held on different weeks and weekends during the holidays so as not to clash with each other. There may still be time to bag a volunteer spot.

Festival summer jobs look good on your CV because they demonstrate you’ve got proper discipline. Keeping your head while all the revellers around you are losing theirs? That’s discipline. You can state on your CV that you’re experienced in assisting the general public with a wide variety of needs and expectations, capable of implementing health and safety standards and comfortable working long shifts as part of a team. Summer work as a festival steward proves your ability to multi-task as you’ll be experiencing a range of work from crowd control to catering, you ultra-responsible creature, you.

Find out more about companies looking for festival staff this summer in the UK.

Summer Work At Sports Events

If you’re not fussed about festivals and more interested in sports, consider sniffing around major UK summer sporting events like Wimbledon. You’ll get to spend time outdoors, though not necessarily in the sunshine, and stewarding on a high prestige sporting event like Wimbledon looks rather posh on a CV.

Summer Waitress and Bar Jobs

Many bars and restaurants have a high turnover of staff, and even more so in Christmas and summer, when customers increase in number just at the point when regular staff want to go on holiday. Summer jobs in bars and restaurants look good on your CV because they show you’re competent, able to multitask and people-friendly (because you will, of course, have a highly professional approach and great rapport with customers). These jobs are known as ‘hospitality roles’ (a nice superior-sounding phrase that looks good on the CV); because of the hard work and sometimes antisocial hours they show you’ve got real commitment.

Summer Office Jobs

Ask friends and family if they know of any spare positions going in an office over summer. It’s so much easier to get holiday work if you’ve got someone to recommend you and/or shoehorn you in – but remember, once you’ve got the job it’s up to you to impress. Temp work and office work experience looks absolutely fanatastic on your CV; the varied work can include data entry, filing, reception duties (answering the phone) and more. A successful stint of officing (is that a word?) over the summer will give you the confidence to handle a professional working environment, and will also offer insight into what office roles entail and if any are of genuine interest to you. Check out our office temping tips to put your best foot forward. Remember, a summer job in an office could land you repeat temporary work in the same place – or, if you really like them and they really like you, a permanent job or recommendation.

Holiday Retail Jobs

‘Working in a shop’ might not sound very glamorous, but what if it’s an arts and crafts shop? Or a comics shop? Or a musty, dusty bookshop? Or maybe a shop that sell ethical cosmetics like LUSH or The Body Shop? Or maybe a shop that sells nothing but sugarspun mice and felt hats?

If time and money are not on your side (and also bearing in mind that the shops you really love might be too small to need to hire extra staff in summer), you can still be proud of landing summer work in a supermarket. A job in Tescos means you can put on your CV that you’re confident in handling financial transactions accurately and precisely. You’ll gain experience in maintaining stock levels as well as giving customer advice to increase both customer satisfaction and sales.

UK Camp Jobs, Holiday Parks and Outdoor Adventure

Come the summer, if you’re vaguely fit and sociable you can check out kids summer camps, most of which specialise in outdoor activities or qualified TEFL instructors. Camp leader has such a management ring to it, it sounds ever so good on the CV… and it shows that you’re not only a team player but one that can supervise and encourage others. There are over 500 UK organisations with an outdoor adventure license, they all need qualified outdoor instructors, and many of them need support staff. UK holiday parks and campsites also employ huge numbers of holiday workers, and you can aim to get a summer job as a reception staff member, cleaner or perhaps land yourself a customer care role.

Charity Fundraising

Raising funds for charity is also known as chugger work, and no-one knows why. Or perhaps they do, but it feels more right to leave it as a mystery. Basically, you stand on a street for a few hours each day and try to persuade people to sign up for a direct debit to a charity. It’s not easy, but at the same time it isn’t hard. There are so many chuggers nowadays that it can be difficult to make an impact, but you usually get basic pay with commission on top, and you’ll be working with lots of people your own age as part of a team. You need to be quite enthusiastic, certainly, but this kind of summer work is always available and worth giving a try. On your CV it will be proof of your motivation and commitment, and the thrill of working for a charity you empathise with will give you a warm glow inside. As well as street fundraising there’s also door-to-door, but make sure you’re safe and work in pairs. Charities should be well aware of this and will have all the procedures in place to ensure your health and safety.

Busking

If you’re looking for alternative summer jobs, try busking over the holiday. It’ll be quite a conversation point on your CV, and depending on your enthusiasm and/or talent you’ll make a bit of money, too. Perhaps enough to buy your own monkey, in which case be sure to put a fez on it and make it collect your earnings from now on in. Busking looks perfectly acceptable and a bit exciting on a professional CV, and in terms of your cosmic CV it’s as good as being CEO of Your Own Bad Self Ltd. Busking may be easy, it may be a nightmare… but at least you’ll know you gave it a go. Learn how to be a busker. If Amanda Palmer can do it, so can you.

You can’t always do a summer job you’ll love, but if you have the time and you don’t have the money, consider it a New Thing Learned and a gap on the CV that has been resplendently filled. Well done, you. Go forth and conquer.