If you’re fresh out of college, and especially if you went directly from high school to college, your resume is going to be sparse with relevant work experience. Sure, you’ll hopefully have internships, volunteer experience and part-time gigs to list, but your early career is hard to show off when your longest professional experience lasts an academic year. That’s okay. That’s exactly the dilemma you should be in—and you should remember that your peers are in the same boat. But how do you present your limited experience and flourishing passion?
1) Be conscious of time. Apply to jobs that meet your real qualifications.
I remember trying to add up my 3 month internship (that was 2 days/week) with my 2 year part-time job (that was 1 day/week) to make myself eligible for jobs requiring 2+ years of work experience. Apples and oranges. I didn’t have 2 years of experience.
Now that I’ve been on the recruiting side of the table, I can tell you that 2+ years of experience means candidates should have 2+ years of full-time (or close to it) work experience. It’s not that your professional work thus far is meaningless—it’s just that the stakes of those roles were not high enough. That 2+ year experience requirement is about seeking a candidate who, for at least 2 years, has had the responsibility of maintaining work for a significant period of time and being accountable to the consequences of meaningful assignments. Internships are important—but as an intern, the stakes are lower than as a full time employee. You are protected from real consequences of messing up, and likewise, your mess ups don’t risk deeply exposing the company.
Start where you are. There is no shame in that. Save your time for the jobs that match your experience level and move up from there.*
*For my readers who are more established in their careers, taking a low level job just to get in the door could eventually work against you. However, for those in the early stages of their careers, it’s a good approach.
2) Show me what you’ve done in the world, not what classes you’ve taken.
To me, seeing coursework on a resume tells me that the candidate’s most impressive accomplishments have been in the classroom. While that may be true for you, it doesn’t tell me what you can do for my company. It tells me you signed up for interesting classes relevant to my line of work (hopefully). I don’t know how you performed in those classes—or your ability to apply the theory that was taught in real life.
Being a good student doesn’t always translate into being a good employee. I’ve actually seen several individuals who were excellent students—high GPAs and the like—who, when given full time employment, struggled to balance the responsibility to perform, the sacrifice required to get the job done, and the lack of control over their time and schedule.
This is both a plea to go get professional experience to beef up your resume, and to let your degree stand on its own.
Share this post with your friends and relatives who recently graduated to help them ease into the process of landing that first ‘real’ job.