I have been helping my 16 year old apply for jobs, so far we have applied in 3 places, and of the 3, two of them wanted a social security number up front. I made one up, because I am not going to be putting my kids social into random online forms, if he gets hired, they can have it then. But seriously, is this normal now? Why would they even do that? It is so unnecessary and such a risk for people.