Help prepare your child for rejection. Employers of typical teen jobs rarely, if ever, call those applicants not selected for employment. (This lack of etiquette has become acceptable in the adult corporate world as well.) Your child may have thought the interview went wonderfully but might learn that he wasn't chosen for the job. Your child may internalize this kind of rejection as an offense or attack on him personally. It could temporarily affect his mental health if he spends a lot of time replaying it and agonizing over the details. He may feel like a failure.

Your role as a parent will be to listen to his concerns and offer your gentle support. His feelings are very real to him but may be more intense than what is typical for others. This will be a time when friends and allies can share personal tales of jobs they didn't get in order to reinforce that no one is perfect and we're all more alike than different. A job interview is not a guarantee of anything; it's simply a time for both parties to gather information. The adage learned in childhood, “You win some, you lose some,” applies here as well. Be prepared to help cope with these losses and celebrate the successes.