Recent grads or soon-to-be graduating students face an exhilarating next chapter. Most already have planted career seeds along the university journey, learning practical skills through the classroom, internships, part-time jobs, volunteer activities and sports affiliations.
Taking advantage of your already honed skills and abilities while also fanning the flame of passions helps to fuel a powerful resume story.
However, many graduates fall short when constructing their career vessel. Assumptions often weaken the opportunity to build a strong, interview-landing resume that will outperform your competitor. Following are three assumptions you will want to avoid and how to circumvent them:
Assumption #1
The “I don’t have any real experience” assumption. Thinking this way diminishes the real thought work and effort involved in articulating your meaningful value.
Reality
Most graduates have compiled enough experience and results to fill a small book. To hone that experience, you must first dissect your day-to-day. Start with your most recent year of school. Did you carry a full course load? How many hours? What was the most difficult class, and why? Did you perform group projects? Case studies? Did you work a part-time job (on- or off-campus) or an internship? What was your role? Did you perform in a customer-facing role? What did clients say about your work and your service?
Did you learn to use specific software applications? Which ones? Did you learn how to analyze problems better? What types of problems? How did you fix specific issues? Did you get a chance to manage people or projects? What was the outcome? Did you have to work fast and efficiently to meet deadlines at work while also juggling coursework and grades? How did you adapt to ensure you got everything done? What systems did you employ? What tasks were you complimented for? What did you do that made you feel empowered, and ‘in the zone?’
You get the drift? You’ve done a lot, and this is only the tip of the iceberg.
Continue reading here: Resume Tips for New Grads.
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