Before Eliot and I embark on writing our Resume Series in the next few weeks, I feel it’s important to talk about one way of drastically improving your resume prior to actually creating it. The section of your resume devoted to extracurricular activities is unique because whereas everything else takes years to build, you can create new content for this section almost immediately. In fact, unless the career fair or interview is less than a week from now, you still have time to get involved! Below is a list of five things to look for in the ideal extracurricular activity to enhance your resume, because if you’re going to take this last minute leap towards elevating your credentials, then you had better do it right.

1. Relevance to your field
Unfortunately, you’re not in high school anymore and your two years on the Ultimate Frisbee team won’t get you too far. While extracurricular activities unrelated to your field might show that you’ve spent your free time doing something, they do not demonstrate an effort towards building your professional skills, and in the end these skills are what are going to allow you to perform in the position the employer is trying to fill. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to have an interesting skill, hobby or involvement that sets you apart from the other ten candidates interviewing for the position, as long as it is connected enough to the job description that you can present it as an asset. And trust me; it’s difficult to present two years of throwing Frisbees as an asset. (more…)

When you are offered an interview, pick the best time they offer and take it. Plan to make it there. If you have a midterm, get it rescheduled. If the interview is 6 hours away, bring some homework to get done on the bus ride. There is never a good reason to turn down an interview, unless of course you already have a better offer. Again, think about what’s going to matter the most in five years…your career, or the assignment you have due in two days. Exactly - your career.

Everyone should know that careers are built over time, not instantaneously. You get a couple internships which give you the experience to get a better job out of school. That job will enable you to get another job more inline with what you want at that time. You build up from nothing into the career that you want. That’s why you want to get an internship, it’s one of the first steps out of many for the rest of your life. (more…)

Everyone has heard of an internship. The concept has been around since our parents were in school. So many companies in every industry have adopted their own version of the internship in the last couple decades that today the definition has become broad and adaptable. When you hear internship you may think of your cousin who’s interning with NASA and pulling in a handsome wage to help design the next Mars Rover. Or maybe it’s the intern at your favorite local radio station, the kid that the host occasionally pulls away from coffee duty to be the subject of that day’s humiliating but entertaining experiment. Perhaps the most specific definition that can encompass all of them is an official program, paid or unpaid, that is meant to give the participant experience in a specific line of work.

The co-op is a newer concept in the corporate world that I like to think of as an internship on steroids. While an internship usually only consists of one term of employment, a co-op typically lasts for 3-5, separated by one or more semesters spent taking classes back at school. This design is more favorable to a lot of companies because it gives them a chance to train the student more extensively and reap the benefits of another employee contributing to current projects in a real way. Companies also have a long-term goal in mind, seeing a co-op program as a less expensive, less risky way to hire and train recent college grads. By choosing full-time employees from their pool of co-ops, companies can avoid wasting money on training someone new at an entry-level salary. They can also be guaranteed that the new hire will be able to handle the job since they will have seen them in action. (more…)

When applying for any position, you have to prioritize. What I have found more often than not is you don’t get everything that you want. When you are just starting out, the first step is to find the companies you want to see your resume. This can be a very difficult task, since there are so many companies, and even more you’ve never heard of. Since you rarely get everything you want from the first position you have, I say that you need to prioritize what you want. I like to think there are three main categories concerning you choice: where the company is located, how much they pay you, and whether or not you get to do what you really want. Really you have to choose what is most important to you. I’ll use myself as an example.

Over summers I generally want to stay at home, which is the Philadelphia area. Being a computer engineer, there are not very many positions in this area centered around exactly what I want to do. There are still companies that will pay me well, but these companies do not focus on security which I find most interesting. I cut my losses and take the location and higher pay over doing the exact tasks I’d like to do.

So now that you have prioritized your requirements. You have to begin applying. The best way to find your companies will change depending on your requirements.

Salary/Wage – If your top priority is how much you earn, you are in luck – this is the easiest to locate companies for. Though you cannot find out exactly how much you will be paid, you should know that the bigger the company, the more they will pay interns. Find the biggest companies in your field and work your way down from there. Ways to find these companies include: talking to teachers and upperclassmen, attending career fairs, and searching your field in google. You should already have a general idea of the “big players” in your field. These are the positions that will pay the most.

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