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The time when you are transitioning from school to work is tricky for so many reasons. Breaking into a profession when all you have to stand on is your degree and a few 3-month long internships is a challenge. In my experience coaching recent college and graduate school grads during this transition, there is something that I have discovered that gets seriously misunderstood about how to get ahead in your career. It relates to the way that we construct resumés during that brief career transition.
Including coursework on your resumé communicates the opposite of what you want. Coursework is often added to resumes in an attempt to look knowledgeable about a subject. It shows that you’re well-read and beefs up content if you’re lacking in actual practical experience. However, because education is often at the top of a younger person’s resume, those classes become the first thing you’re communicating. Individual coursework makes you seem more inexperienced than you are.
Including your major or area of focus is helpful and sufficiently communicates your knowledge on subject matter. Your degree stands on it’s own. You don’t need to convince people of its worth. Instead, fill your resumé with as many volunteer experiences, internships, practicums, etc. as you can. Those will show a hiring manager a much more relatable version of you—the part of you that gets things done, not the part of you that can write 10 page papers and think abstractly about the world. The entry level jobs you’re trying to get into are not absent of critical thinking—but that certainly is not going to be the top priority of a hiring team. They want someone who can be productive, someone who can follow first, then take the lead. Your degree already shows you are smart. Leave it alone and put both your time and the effort you spend on your resumé toward showing non-academic accomplishments.