Readers:
If you have any questions or comments that Dr. Hansen could provide valuable assistance with, please feel free to email mailto:careerdr@careershop.com

Previous Columns: Get more advice from our archive of previous Career Dr. columns.

New!: QuintZine: A free career and job-hunting newsletter filled with timely and topical tips for springboarding careers, will arrive in your e-mailbox every other week. CLICK HERE!

And owning a franchise is often a much less risky move into entrepreneurship than starting a business from scratch. However, while the success rate for franchise-owned businesses is significantly higher than for independent businesses, no individual franchise is guaranteed to succeed.

According to the International Franchise Association, the estimated number of franchised locations in the U.S. is almost 400,000 in 75 industries, employing almost 10 million workers. More than 2,500 companies offer franchising opportunities from fast food to security services.

In deciding whether franchising is right for you, the key is conducting research. If you like the idea of owning your own business and don’t mind having some decisions dictated from the corporate headquarters, the franchising might be a good choice for you.

Once you’ve made that decision, you’ll need to examine how much you can afford to invest; initial franchise fees can range from $1,000 to more than $200,000 -- and that’s just the fee and does not include all the other start-up costs you’ll face.

You’ll also want to think long and hard about the type of business that interests you most, that best fits your lifestyle. (For example, if you’re a fitness buff, then perhaps a fitness franchise would make sense.)

Finally, there are a number of pros and cons to franchising… too numerous to mention here, but worth your time to research.

Read more about the potential of owning a franchise in this article published on Quintessential Careers: Franchising Pros and Cons: Is Franchising Right for You?

I think there is a possibility of three things happening here that your son needs to address.

First, the stigma of being fired. We can fall it something prettier – his job was eliminated – but the bottom-line is that he was forced to leave his place of employment. He needs to focus on this issue and make sure he is totally over the trauma of the experience – especially since he was let go through no fault of his own. He obviously has valuable skills since he was able to move forward in his career.

Second, he needs to deal with his resume – and the reality he is living. A lot of displaced job-seekers in this current economy have been forced to take survival jobs so that they don’t end up homeless and bankrupt. Most prospective employers would rather see an applicant that has been doing something productive – even if outside his or her field – than a large gap on the resume. Of course, if he has been doing any kind of consulting or volunteer work in his field, he should put that on his resume.

Third, perfect interviewing skills. If he has gotten a few interviews, then at least some of the colleges are not bothered by the gap on his resume enough to not interview him… so, if he is not having success in the interview, then he is either not interviewing well or not following-up his interviews. He may want to conduct a mock interview with a career professional to judge the quality of his interviewing skills.

I suggest he read, Getting Fired: An Opportunity for Change and Growth, published on Quintessential Careers.

He may also want to read this article on Quintessential Careers: The Pros and Cons of Taking a Survival Job. What Should You Do?

There are a number of considerations for you and your friend to contemplate, but the most important one is whether one or more adults are willing to support and assist you in your plans. I am not saying the adult should run your business – just that you have an adult’s approval and support when needed (like when dealing with an angry customer).

So, what are the keys to starting your own business?

Here are a few rules you need to follow to ensure some level of success:

1. You must be able to promote the business to potential customers and clients -- thus, you need to be able to talk with people and be able to try to sell them something.
2. You must be able to make a profit with your business. Sounds kind of obvious, right? But it is sometimes harder than you might imagine.
3. You must know one of the most important rules of marketing (and one I force my students to chant) -- you have to satisfy the customer! You must do a good job in your business or you are going to lose customers.
4. You must avoid serious errors -- in actions of judgment -- in running your business. If you do something wrong, regardless of whose fault, it can cause anger, disappointment, bad publicity, and at the ultimate -- a lawsuit.
5. You must be prepared to work long hours at establishing the business -- and then even more hours running the business. They call it work for a reason -- you need to be truly dedicated and determined to establish your own business.

Get more ideas for other teen business, as well as more details about how to do so in my article, Job Ideas for Teens 15 and Younger: Beyond Babysitting and Lemonade Stands.

Why do career professionals provide samples? I know I do so as a learning tool. I want you to be able to see what a good resume, cover letter, thank-you letter, etc., looks like. I have seen so much poorly written job-seeker correspondence, that I thought it important for you to see good examples.

But I do not expect job-seekers to copy phrases or sentences word-for-word... in academic circles, we call that plagiarism, and if I were a hiring manager, I would call it a reason not to interview or hire you. Borrowing someone else’s work brings into question your ethics -- and work ethic.

So, please use the samples you find as guidelines for what your resume or cover letter should look like and sound like, but do not lift whole chunks and use them as your own. And be sure to read the accompanying articles that describe in detail how to develop your job-search documents.

One final point. Someone raised the question of the difference between borrowing a sample resume versus hiring a professional to write the resume for you. The difference is one is stealing someone else’s work (that may not even apply to you) and the other is paying a professional to develop a document specifically for you.

For those interested in samples, check out the many sample job-search materials we have in this section of Quintessential Careers: Job-Hunting Samples and Examples.

Dr. Randall S. Hansen is currently Webmaster of Quintessential Careers.

Dr. Hansen is an associate professor of marketing at the School of Business Administration, Stetson University. He has been a published career expert for the last 10 years and an employer and consultant with hiring/firing decisions for the past 15 years.

Through his experience as a professor of marketing, Dr. Hansen uses proven marketing techniques and applies them to job-hunting. He is currently working on such a book. Some of his work can be seen at his personal Web site.

He and Katharine Hansen co-wrote the very successful job-hunting book, Dynamic Cover Letters, published by Ten Speed Press. You can order copies from Barnes and Noble of this cover letter bible. He is also author of several career-related magazine and journal articles.

Finally, Dr. Hansen has been an employer and has firsthand experience in the hiring process. He also stays active in the field by reading magazine and journal articles and by talking with employers on a regular basis.