THE shop manager had just about finished serving me when a young woman dressed in bottom-skimming denim shorts, a boob tube and flip flops randomly asked him ‘have you got any jobs?’.

The manager was more restrained than I think I would have been in the circumstances and asked the young woman to bring in her CV.

I think I’d have been tempted to add, and if you are actually looking to find employment firstly dress in something more appropriate than what you’d wear to the beach, and secondly be more polite.

Jobs like that are hard to find and whereas at one time finding employment in a shop would have been easy, I imagine these days you have to be rather more determined in your approach if you are to succeed.

I remember when a friend’s son was at university and he was trying to find some part-time work to fund his social life, so he applied for a job at a well-known jewellery store. He had to complete a massive amount of profiling questions online before he could even be considered for an interview – and he didn’t even get past that stage.

And this from someone who went on to get an honours degree and now has a great job.

There are no jobs for life anymore as Lawrence Bellamy, from the University of Chester, reminded us last week on the Guardian business page.

And if young people are to find them, then they need to go about it the right way.

Here at the Guardian we take a lot of young people on work experience. Due to rising numbers we now restrict it to those either at university or who have finished a degree. Of those we’ve had some excellent people but we’ve also had a few who should perhaps consider a different career path.

Most come equipped and ready for work but one or two have arrived dressed in jeans and we’ve had to ask them not to come back like that the next day – something you’d think would be obvious.

The media industry is incredibly competitive – and those wanting to get in on the ground level have to be tenacious to make themselves stand out from the crowd.

According to a recent report by the TUC, young people are 10 per cent less likely to be in work today than before the recession.

In 2013, only 58 per cent of 18-24-year-olds found work compared with 65 per cent in 2009.

When advertising for jobs many employers will be overwhelmed with applications and will not even consider school leavers or the long-term unemployed.

So I suggest the young woman looking for a shop job might need to rethink her approach.