Part II: Research and you shall find
If you, your parents, your friends, and your friends' parents don't know anyone who does anything related to your passion, then you need to start doing a little research.

Your starting point is the same: Begin with what you love to do. From there, you need to make a list of everything related to that that you can think of. Let's say you love animals and want to be a veterinarian when you're out of school. You need to find a way of working with animals.

A good starting point would be the veterinarians in your town. Write each one a letter and offer your services answering phones, filing charts, or even cleaning exam rooms for the summer. Follow up your letter with a phone call. Remember, a lot of people like to take vacations during the summer months, and you could be that perfect fill-in for a vet's office.

Like larger animals?

Many zoos have part-time volunteer positions--a perfect way to supplement your burger-flipping or strap-cutting job with experience that will pay dividends in the future. Some zoos even have a few paid positions. You can find out about them by looking up your local zoo's Web site.

The Oregon Zoo in Portland, for example, has some incredible opportunities for kids during the summer, both volunteer and paid. If you're the right candidate and at least 14 years old you can have a seasonal job doing anything from selling tickets to driving shuttles. Even when those jobs fill up, other lucky kids are becoming ZooTeens and actually running the zoo's new family farm. Students manage other students in what is perhaps the first program of its kind in the nation. And finally, if you meet certain criteria, you could also be hired for a paid internship in which you would do animal presentations at community centers and schools.

The point here is not that you're out of luck if you've missed deadlines or if you don't live in Portland, Oregon. Rather, cities sometimes have amazing opportunities that you can find out about if you do a little research.

Whatever your dream job, your task is to approach it creatively. Think of all the industries that touch on the thing that you most want to do. Then develop a clear way to promote yourself as a job applicant. When you see a need somewhere and can clearly and succinctly offer to fill that need, you stand a great chance of getting your shot. 

But if none of this works, you still have one sure-fire way to get someone to hire you.