Whether you're graduating from high school or wrapping up just one of several years in university or college, the onset of spring / summer means the same thing: it's time to look for summer employment.

Although most students would probably rather spend their summer vacations lounging poolside than waiting tables, the reality is that most people depend on their summer jobs to help pay for school. This makes finding a good summer job an incredibly important venture.

Let's start with the most basic aspect of getting a summer job: actually discovering available positions to apply for. There are a number of obvious places to go to find out who's looking for employees - the newspaper classifieds, online job sites, your school's career resource centre, and even various government services.

Right off the bat, your school's career resource centre is likely one of the best places to find a potential summer job, since most centres have job boards up dedicated solely to student summer employment (if you're in high school, your school counsellors may put up a similar board). The centre's career counsellors may also be able to give you additional job leads, and help you put together a stronger resumé.

The newspaper classifieds may also yield some results - just make sure you're especially checking them out on whatever day of the week the newspaper runs its special, expanded career section.

Various online job sites (Workopolis, Monster, and so on) might also scare up a few more potential employers, especially if you're looking for work in some other part of the country where you might not have access to the newspaper.

Finally, the government-funded Student / Youth Human Resource Centres (also known as Hire-A-Student centres in some provinces) - which exist year-round in larger cities and often pop up in small towns every summer - are also valuable sources of both job postings and job-hunting assistance (resumé writing, interview prep, etc.). The federal government also runs a number of related Web sites for young job seekers, including youth.gc.ca and jobbank.gc.ca.

By using one or all of these sources to find employers, you might think you're covering all the bases when it comes to searching for a summer job. The thing is, though, only about 20 per cent of jobs are ever advertised anywhere.

So how do you go about finding the remaining 80 per cent of the jobs that are out there? Well, the first thing you want to do is tell everyone you know that you're looking for work. Family, friends, your parent's friends, your friend's parents, teachers, your dentist, your hairdresser - try and bring up your job search with everyone you come into contact with over the next little while.

This word-of-mouth networking widens your job search net considerably, since chances are someone you know is either looking for a student to hire or might know someone who's hiring. At the very least, these people will hopefully keep your name in mind should they stumble across a potential summer job in their day-to-day travels.

Another thing you should do is actually get in touch with the places you'd like to work at, regardless of whether they have a "help wanted" sign hanging in the window. Either by phone (good) or in person (better), ask to speak with the manager and find out if they expect to have any openings this summer. Make sure you're dressed to impress, be ready to briefly extol your many employable virtues, and always bring along an updated resumé with you on these fishing expeditions.

The key to this method of finding a job is patience, coupled with persistence. You might go to 20 different places, and only find one or two who are actually planning on hiring someone. Even still, though, that's one or two more potential jobs that you may not have known about it if you hadn't made the effort. Plus, the fact you actually took the initiative to come down and introduce yourself before they officially began looking for a new employee will earn you some brownie points and help make you stand out from the crowd.

So, those are all the ways to actually FIND a potential job - now how to you go about GETTING the job? Here are a few basic tips:

• Start early - the earlier you begin looking for summer employment, the more choices you'll have. And if you're among the first to contact employers, you'll have a way better chance of getting the job over someone else who stumbles in looking for work in June. Plus, knowing by, say, March, that you have a summer job lined up takes a lot of pressure off you as the school year draws to a close.

• Try and tailor your cover letters and, if possible, your resumés specifically to the job you're applying for. And do be sure to include a good cover letter - they show you're serious about your application, and give the employers a chance to learn something about you before they even wade through your resumé.

• Speaking of cover letters and resumés, make sure they make sense, aren't too ridiculously long, and, above all, don't have ANY spelling mistakes. This is your first impression - you don't want to come off looking like an idiot who can't pay attention to details.

• Include valid references with your resumé - if you can't be bothered to include references (and, instead, slap a "references available on request" at the bottom of your resumé), then don't expect employers to be bothered to track you down for more information. It's also a good idea to contact your references and let them know they may be getting a few phone calls about you from potential employers.

• If the job requires you to fill out an application, make sure you fill it out completely, even if some of the stuff it asks is already answered in your resumé. You never know, the employer may not even look at your resumé, in which case your partially completed application will most certainly find its way to the reject pile.

• Be fully prepared for job interviews - dress nicely, show up on time, and be prepared to answer common interview questions (Why do you want to work here? What are your weaknesses? Your strengths?). Knowing a bit about the company is also a good idea, but don't just recite the "About Us" page from their Web site back at them - waaay too obvious.

While everything above covers all the basics of finding and getting a summer job, there are a handful of other things students should keep in mind about seasonal employment:

• Before you even begin looking for a summer job, you need to be clear in your mind on what, exactly, you're looking for. Do you want a job in your hometown, so you can save money living with your parents during the summer? Are you willing to deal with crappy hours and hard labour to get a higher paycheque? How many hours are you willing to work and for how many weeks? Are you dead-set on finding something that's directly related to your future career - even if it means poor pay (or, in the case of some summer internships, NO pay)? Think it through, so you can focus your job search accordingly.

• Finding a summer job that lines up with your career goals is great - you'll gain valuable resumé-enhancing experience, build up post-grad job-hunt contacts, and get a taste of what you'd like to do after graduation. But the race for such jobs can be highly competitive, and it's not the end of the world if you end up spending your summer doing something totally unrelated to your ultimate career goal. If you think about it, these breaks between school years are one of the only times in your life where you have the freedom to really explore what's out there. Who knows, you may find a passion you never knew you had before. And even if your summer spent swabbing the deck on a cruise liner doesn't inspire you to become a sailor, you'll still have gained valuable skills and experience, not to mention a resumé that shows your versatility.

• Loyalty can be a valuable thing when it comes to summer jobs. If you find a job you enjoy and that pays reasonably well, you might want to consider asking your employer at the end of the summer if they'd be willing to hire you back next summer (from an employer's perspective, going this route saves them the time, hassle, and money of having to advertise, interview, and find a new, untried employee). If they think they'd like you to come back, try and keep in touch with them over the school year, even if it's just stopping by once or twice during the winter months. Then, come February or so, call them to confirm your availability. In addition to the benefits of having a steady summer job each year, if your job happens to be in your field of choice, this route could very well lead to a full-time, permanent job when you graduate - after all, if your long-time boss needs to hire a new staff member, they'd probably rather go with someone they've known for several summers, rather than some new person they've just met.

• Don't discount self-employment. It is, after all, YOUR summer vacation. You may need the money for school, but if you can come up with a way to make that money while, at the same time, being your own boss, then go for it. Start a lawn-care company, organize children's birthday parties, clean rich people's houses - if you can find a way to fill a niche in your community, don't be afraid to explore it. Not only could it potentially make for a very profitable - and fun - summer, you never know where such an entrepreneurial venture will lead in the future.