One summer, I worked as a strap cutter at a golf-bag manufacturing factory. I learned something valuable: that I never wanted to work as a strap cutter in a golf-bag manufacturing factory again.

Yes, the $4 an hour I earned was above the minimum wage at the time. The people I worked with were nice. And, the shirtless young men working at the roofing supply company next door made for an appealing view.

But I didn't particularly care about golf bags, and I had to deal with scorched hands and hair that smelled like burned rubber. On the whole, it wasn't worth it. 

The next summer, I vowed, I would find something better. But the school year flew by, and only a few days before summer would officially begin, I'd done nothing whatsoever to change that.

It's easy for this to happen when you're focusing all your energy on school and the surrounding activities, such as sports, music, and hair. (I went to high school in the '80s, where good hair came in one size: extra large. This took time to achieve.)

When you're spending time on all these things, you figure you'll wait until your real life starts before you worry about landing that perfect job. Like the prom, its time will just come, right?

Nope.

The really cool jobs in life do not fall into your lap. They are rarely advertised in the newspaper. And, unless you've already got a similar job, you don't have the experience they're looking for. This is the young job hunter's Catch-22: You can't get a job without experience, but how can you get experience without a job?

How do you work around this? Let me count the ways. There are three:

• Ask and you shall receive
• Research and you shall find
• Do it all yourself (and with friends)

Ask and you shall receive
I'd wanted to be a writer since I was 8 years old, and figured out that real people wrote books. Before that, I assumed books had just always been there since ancient times, like my parents.

Because I was slow in learning the three ways of finding a dream job, it took me forever to start working as a writer. I did almost everything but, especially in my teens. I worked in a doctor's office, sold pottery in a mall, and burned my hands on those hot golf-bag straps. With the exception of some typing I did at the doctor's office, none of these jobs had anything to do with writing.

Though I did make enough money to cover the home perm kits and mousse, I was otherwise wasting my time by doing something I didn't love.

Believe it or not, Donald Trump gives good advice on this count. In the season finale of The Apprentice, he insisted people should do work they love (not something just for the money). It doesn't necessarily mean you will love every minute of it. There's no such thing as that job. Rather, it means doing something you know brings out your best.

Unless you're a robot, you probably already have a decent idea of what that thing is. If you know someone who is doing a similar job, then you already have a breadcrumb trail to your own career in the business--if you have the guts to ask that person for a little help.

I did just that, although I had no clue how lucky I was about to get. My high school art teacher had just inked a book contract with Random House, and while kvetching with him about how hard it was for me to find a writing job, he offered me a chance to work alongside him for the summer.

I wasn't writing anything more profound than some of his trivial correspondence (using a pen name). Mostly, I organized his office, sewed curtains and a computer cozy, and made the occasional tuna sandwich. The work itself wasn't so important--the important thing was that I saw what he did, how he approached his work, and how high a person's eyebrows could go when he found out his book had landed on the New York Times bestseller list.

It was great fun, and all came about because I asked.

If you know someone who is doing what you want to be doing, ask how you can help them do it even better. Chances are, there is some part of their load you can lighten, giving them the freedom to rise a little higher.

This is a crucial thing to understand, no matter what kind of job you'd like to find. You have value because you can help other people get more done. It's not all about you and your need for money and recognition. Sure, you have interests and needs, but until you bring something to the table, there's no reason for a company or individual to hire you.

What you get in the exchange may be some small amount of money, but far more important, an understanding of what the job takes and what your next steps should be. When you think about it this way, it makes far more sense to take a lower-wage job that can pay you in experience, rather than a higher-wage job that has no long-term significance, even though it can give you more pocket money for stuff you won't care about 10 years from now.

But what happens if you don't know anyone in the field?