It's that time of year again, college students are actively looking for summer work and some are starting to pull together their resumes. Some will look for any job that will bring them some cash flow while others are thinking about internships that align with their college majors and course work.
I’m helping a college junior who is looking for an internship position for the summer. The first thing we did was update her resume. The resume that she emailed me was one page in length with a listing of her course work, a very short description of her current position on campus and another short description of her previous job as a restaurant server. She also spent last summer out of the country with her school’s Summer Abroad program.
The first thing I did was ask her to expand on her summer abroad program. I asked her these questions:
1. What courses did you take?
2. Were you involved in any activities?
3. While traveling did you do anything, write anything, and perform any school or major related activities?
4. When you traveled, how was it related to school and your major?
As for her work on campus, I asked these questions:
1. How many students and staff did you come in contact with while you worked?
2. What tasks do you perform and why?
3. Do you have to report to anyone?
4. Are you involved in meetings?
5. Did you have to problem-solve, negotiate, or communicate?
7. How many hours do you work per week?
Finally, I asked about her activities at school with these questions:
1. What are you involved in at college; any clubs, sports or sororities? If yes, what is your role?
2. Within your classes, do you have to organize other students, analyze data, or make presentations? What are they?
3. Have you received any awards?
4. Do you volunteer? If so, what does it involve?
From these responses, we can work on her accomplishments and activities for a new resume and in doing so, identify various skill clusters. I’ll add some detail about the summer server position and we’ll be ready to go. I gave my client a list of websites so while I’m rewriting the resume, she can browse the list and look for any internship opportunities. Those websites are:
http://www.internjobs.com/
http://www.internships.com/student
http://www.quintcareers.com/grad_internships.html
http://www.nj.gov/oag/law/internship.htm
Type in Internship and your state in the search area: http://www.indeed.com/ or http://www.jobsdirectusa.com/.
Like any job seeker, college students can get mixed messages about the length and format of a resume. Many are told to create a short, succinct one-page resume because they haven't had much experience. I disagree because depending on the student, the activities and skills used in classes, part time work, summer jobs and volunteering can add up and add a lot of value to the resume.
No comments:
Post a Comment