Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Defining Experience

Carla Certeza


Experience.  It’s the bulk of your resume, (at least it’s supposed to be), and it’s what employers take time looking at in the ten seconds that they spend on your resume.  No matter how good you are, without experience, it’s going to be hard to land that dream job or internship.  With any job or internship, experience plays an important role.  Many people have seen a paradox when trying to get hired; they think that in order to get a job, they need experience, but to get experience, they need a job.  Don’t think this way.  If that was the case, everyone would be unemployed.  It all goes back to how you define experience.

‘Experience’ doesn’t necessarily mean work experience.  Maybe you took the lead in a group project for class, or you gave a speech at a local event in your town.  Volunteer work can be beneficial to include in this section as well.  Just make sure you choose experiences that showcase your skills and that have occurred relatively recently.

Sometimes, people who have had work experience don’t include it in their resume because it doesn’t directly pertain to the kind of job that they are looking for.  Don’t make this mistake!  While it would be great if you found a job that directly pertained to what you want to have as a career, this isn’t a common occurrence for people who are just starting out.  Having any type of employee experience shows that you know how a professional work environment functions.  Furthermore, employers aren’t just looking at the experience itself, but at the resulting skills you acquired.  Make sure you have bullet points in the experience section of your resume with power verbs to show off your skills.

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