In the past two years, Gen Y has been exposed to the harsh realities of the current economic climate. The truth surrounding the job market is that not all new graduates are guaranteed their dream jobs; this can be further illustrated by the Huffington Post's series The (Un)employment Chronicles: Voices Of The Degreed And Jobless. In fact, many current students have seen the ever-pressing need to expand their resumes with real-world experience before their job search has begun.
Below are five ways college students can increase their depth of experience and stand out on a resume:
1. Search for courses where participation is reliant on a student challenge:
Great professors look for unique ways to expose their students to the real world. Be proactive, search for classes whose professors are offering a unique experience, such as competiting in a student challenge. Some professors may have students compete in case study challenges; others may favor hands-on competitions such as the Google Online Marketing Challenge or the Dow Sustainability Innovation Student Challenge.
2. Enroll in a class that awards certifications upon course completion:
Relevant certifications look great on a resume, portfolio or LinkedIn profile. Almost every college major can be enhanced when accompanied with certifications and fortunately, many colleges and universities offer to prepare their students for certifications upon particular course completion. Whether a teacher with CPR, an MBA with Six Sigma or an HR student with PHR, all will spruce up a resume and help new graduates stand apart from peers within their major. Find ideas for certifications here, but make sure not to pay for a certificate, which can be acquired through a course offering.
3. Join a networking association:
Networking associations often offer membership rates with student discounts and participating in networking associations can offer an array of benefits to college students. As a student, the network itself will be of value if targeted in the correct area of interest. Ask a career counselor which associations are most frequented by alumni within the appropriate major or try searching LinkedIn to find associations mentioned on the profiles of professionals within the appropriate industry.
4. Look for a mentor and ask to volunteer or intern:
The transparency offered in social networking on the web with websites like Twitter make it much easier than it used to be to find a mentor, engage in conversation, introduce oneself and develop a relationship that can result in volunteering or interning. Any relevant experience is good experience while a student is still pursuing a degree; just remember to have realistic expectations of how much time a mentor can invest in students and stay even more realistic regarding any financial stipends offered.
5. Become a resource and tutor students:
Becoming a tutor is a fantastic way to build credible resume qualifications, while also grabbing references and connections along the way. Try contacting the student center and inquire whether they are excepting new tutor applications. If not, go out and tutor students independently of the school. Tutoring students is an excellent way of becoming a resource and proving advanced comprehension within a subject matter.
Are the aforementioned suggestions not for you? Try becoming a Resident Advisor or organize a student event. Whatever the method, be sure to graduate with a resume complete with skills proving accountability, responsibility and overall intelligent decision-making.
Follow Kristen Durkin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jobreign
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Facebook Founder, Mark Zuckerberg
I work for myself. My brother does. My father did–on a much larger scale. I suspect one or two of my eight nephews and nieces will too.
It gets you out of bed in the morning. It is teeth-grinding anxiety when you take on too much work, or when there is too little of it, or when your invoices seem to have slipped into a black-hole.
And it’s tremendously hard to juggle that whole work/life balance thing when your work is your life. It’s embedded in every nook and cranny. Pushing back is hard to do. Vacation? Every day is a workday. And that’s OK. Really.
You love what you do, period. You control your own destiny, as ephemeral or illusive as that may be. It’s an inner drive that’s hard to explain if you don’t have it “engindered” in you, as Grammy would say.
For many career switchers, the entrepreneurial path is the ticket. It’s the American Dream. Just watching movie scenes from The Social Network and tracing Mark Zuckerberg’s college launch of Facebook can convince us all that it’s possible. And with years of business experience and so forth, you’re far more prepared to launch than a twenty-something.
Don’t think you’re too old to start your own business. Bussgang tosses out some interesting studies to support this. The Kauffman Foundation reports that the median age of founders is 39 – right at the midpoint of a typical professional career – and 69% are 35 or older. Another study by Washington University professors of 86,000 science and engineering graduates showed that age was not a significant predictor of becoming an entrepreneur.
Get comfortable with salesmanship. How good are you at selling yourself? This is a key ingredient for those of you embarking on an entrepreneurial second act. You may have had a wonderful initial experience starting a new business or a consulting business but fail to understand that your confidence is only part of the battle; the other part is marketing yourself as you move along from those heady first few months or even years.
Brace yourself for greenhorn blues. It’s much tougher than you think to cope with being a beginner. It’s unnerving. You feel as though the rug has been pulled out from under you, and your base of support and confidence has slipped away. To have a second act hit, you must be sufficiently open to change in life.
Develop a thick skin. We all like to be treated with respect. But when you move into uncharted territory, you’re a neophyte, the proverbial new kid on the block, starting over at the bottom. This requires some psychological adjustment and fine-tuning. All of a sudden, you are making less, probably making a few mistakes. A supportive partner or best friend might be all the shoring up you need, but it is a transition phase that shouldn’t be ignored.
Make mistakes with grace. Easier said than done. Face it, the older you are and further along on your professional success ladder, the harder it is to accept criticism and responsibility for screwing up. Your ego just isn’t as nimble and forgiving as it once was.
When you’re in your twenties you are better equipped to handle the inevitable screw-ups and missteps, let them slide off your back with a simple shrug, and move on. Accept that trying new things means learning from your mistakes along the way. You will be in a healthier stronger place to move ahead. Doing things badly is just another step toward doing them well.
One of my favorite entrepreneurial success stories is John Sage, 50, who cofounded Seattle’s Pura Vida Coffee. After graduating from Stanford University in 1983, Sage spent a handful of years working for pharmaceutical giant McKesson, garnered a Harvard MBA in 1989, and achieved financial success as a Microsoft marketing executive. He took a turn as a vice president of a start-up high-tech company, Starwave, which was acquired in 1998 by Disney and Infoseek, leading to his “lucrative exit” as a multimillionaire, he recalls. “I was fortunate to be in high tech at the right time,” Sage says.
So he had the funds to kick-start his venture with HBS classmate, Christopher Dearnley. And the company, by all accounts, has been a winner. Like all start-ups, it has had twists and turns and challenges along the way.When I asked John what he would have done differently, here’s what he said:
- “I should have put a more demanding set of financial filters and more scrutiny on the basic business model. I was in a position to fund it for several years, which was great, but as an unintended consequence I didn’t really subject myself to the same rigor and discipline that I always talk about. I should have spent some more time really thinking through what it was going to take financially and operationally to scale the business.”
- “The business required a leadership and a management team that has a different skill set than I do. I am not a good day-to-day operational penny-pinching guy. It would have been very helpful to have come to that realization much earlier. It was a combination of my optimism and, in part, arrogance—just thinking, how hard could it be? I got an MBA, right? I can do this.”
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