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What should I put on my resume?

I want to start saving up for college, but I don't know what to put on my resume. I don't have work experience, haven't volunteered, and haven't been on any big projects. I have been in clubs and organizations, played instruments, and done other activities outside of school but none of them have given me any experience for the job I want to apply for and are more or less for recreation purposes. What should I do? #career #jobs #resume

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Angela’s Answer

Hi Gabriela,


Your resume gives potential employers an overview of your education, work experience and skills. Do not feel discouraged if you do not have work experience yet; we all had to apply for that first job. The great part is, once you obtain one position you can always speak about this experience for the next one.


If you start volunteering now though, you will have some experience to speak about when applying for positions. Volunteermatch.com as a lot of opportunities that can be local or virtual. This might be a good place to start.


For now, definitely include all of the groups and organizations that you have been a part of. Just because these clubs are not exactly what you want to do in the future does not mean it is not valuable experience. In these clubs you probably learned how to work well with others and other transferrable skills.



Good Luck!

Angela recommends the following next steps:

Go to Volunteermatch.com to see what opportunities are available
Create a word document that contains: - your name - contact information: email, phone number - education: high school - experience: any experience and include your title, the start and end dates and a brief description of your role. Here I would include extracurricular activities that you participated in and any volunteer experience. - skills: list any skills, which could include programs like Word, Excel or soft skills like time management, communication and leadership
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Derrick’s Answer

Gabriela, you have answered your question. You participated in activities and have skills that are worthy to list in your resume. Now, you need to make the next move and start taking leadership roles in those organizations (e.g. serving as the secretary, treasurer, chair, etc) and you may want to play in the school's or city's band. Do some volunteer work to gain additional skills and from there, you could be working in some big projects in those non-profit organizations (e.g. coordinating a fund raising event, creating the web site of the organization, setting the books, etc)
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Brenda’s Answer

Definitely include any clubs or organizations that you have been a member and the work you have done in those organizations. Make sure you identify any leadership roles and/or your impact within the organization. Start volunteering on a regular basis. This will give you some work experience and also will help you develop a business network.
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Rebecca’s Answer

Hi Gabriela,

Remember everyone has to start somewhere in the job market! It is important to think about what career path you want to take and try to find entry level jobs that contain the same skills that can be transferable to the industry you will be in. When searching for jobs online, look for entry level positions. I would recommend looking up 'no work experience resumes' online to get a sense of how others have portrayed their activities and involvement in clubs within their resume.

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Yolonda’s Answer

Here is the perfect video to show you how to market your extracurricular activities on your resume:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=JuVYWUo2meE
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Ken’s Answer

The first thing for you to do is develop a clear career focus and talk to people who are doing what you think that you might want to do so that you can see what they do, how they got there, and what advice and suggestions that they might have for you. They will also be able to give you some good information about resumes, as they have already made several as they progressed in their career.


A good resume has a career focus and contains things that you have done in that area, which could include hobbies, classes taken, volunteer activities, clubs or organizations to which you in are or have participated in, along with a statement of how and why you are interested in this area and what your goals might be.

Ken recommends the following next steps:

It is important to develop a good understanding of how your personality traits relate to particular career areas. Getting to know yourself and how your personality traits relate to people involved in various career opportunities is very important in your decision making process. During my many years in Human Resources and College Recruiting, I ran across too many students who had skipped this very important step and ended up in a job situation which for which they were not well suited. Selecting a career area is like buying a pair of shoes. First you have to be properly fitted for the correct size, and then you need to try on and walk in the various shoe options to determine which is fits the best and is most comfortable for you to wear. Following are some important steps which I developed during my career which have been helpful to many .
The first step is to take an interest and aptitude test and have it interpreted by your school counselor to see if you share the personality traits necessary to enter the field. You might want to do this again upon entry into college, as the interpretation might differ slightly due to the course offering of the school. However, do not wait until entering college, as the information from the test will help to determine the courses that you take in high school. Too many students, due to poor planning, end up paying for courses in college which they could have taken for free in high school.
Next, when you have the results of the testing, talk to the person at your high school and college who tracks and works with graduates to arrange to talk to, visit, and possibly shadow people doing what you think that you might want to do, so that you can get know what they are doing and how they got there. Here are some tips: ## http://www.wikihow.com/Network ## ## https://www.themuse.com/advice/nonawkward-ways-to-start-and-end-networking-conversations ## ## https://www.themuse.com/advice/4-questions-to-ask-your-network-besides-can-you-get-me-a-job?ref=carousel-slide-1 ##
Locate and attend meetings of professional associations to which people who are doing what you think that you want to do belong, so that you can get their advice. These associations may offer or know of intern, coop, shadowing, and scholarship opportunities. These associations are the means whereby the professionals keep abreast of their career area following college and advance in their career. You can locate them by asking your school academic advisor, favorite teachers, and the reference librarian at your local library. Here are some tips: ## https://www.careeronestop.org/BusinessCenter/Toolkit/find-professional-associations.aspx?&frd=true ## ## https://www.themuse.com/advice/9-tips-for-navigating-your-first-networking-event ##
• It is very important to express your appreciation to those who help you along the way to be able to continue to receive helpful information and to create important networking contacts along the way. Here are some good tips: ## https://www.themuse.com/advice/the-informational-interview-thank-you-note-smart-people-know-to-send?ref=recently-published-2 ## ## https://www.themuse.com/advice/3-tips-for-writing-a-thank-you-note-thatll-make-you-look-like-the-best-candidate-alive?bsft_eid=7e230cba-a92f-4ec7-8ca3-2f50c8fc9c3c&bsft_pid=d08b95c2-bc8f-4eae-8618-d0826841a284&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily_20171020&utm_source=blueshift&utm_content=daily_20171020&bsft_clkid=edfe52ae-9e40-4d90-8e6a-e0bb76116570&bsft_uid=54658fa1-0090-41fd-b88c-20a86c513a6c&bsft_mid=214115cb-cca2-4aec-aa86-92a31d371185&bsft_pp=2 ##
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Katya’s Answer

Hi Gabriela, all that is important experience. Make sure you include these tabs on your resume:

1) name, phone number, email address

2) objective- what type of job are you interested in

3) work experience- you can include your school work, volunteering experience, part time jobs, anytime you worked on a project, maybe you conducted a training session around digital learning-do include this

4) computer skills-word, excel, any other digital experience you have

5)school, year graduated, major, GPA

6) any professional awards, accomplishments, school recognitions,

7) additional skills- languages

Companies do understand and for beginners jobs- they do know they you might now have sufficient experience. What they do look at-how active you have been in schools, grades, communities

Hope this helps
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Simeon’s Answer

On your resume, put some bullet points below your educational experience highlighting some of the classes you've taken. Make some notes of what you learned in those classes and how it gave you relevant experience for the job.
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Kim’s Answer

Gabriela,

Just because something is "for recreational purposes" doesn't mean it won't help you land a job. Someone else mentioned "transferable skills." These are skills you get doing one thing, that also relate to something else. Customer service is a big one. But you can show how in playing an instrument, you learned to practice something to get good at it, to not be a quitter when things were hard, to be self-disciplined enough to show up for practice, and to practice on your own, with no one standing there to make you do it. You can talk about helping younger students (if you did), participating in fund-raising activities, which required sales skills, money-handling, talking to people, and accurate record-keeping.


What is the job you are trying to apply for? Look at the job description, ONE sentence at a time. For each sentence, think of what you HAVE done that sort of applies to that element. Don't think about what you have not done. Don't read the whole thing at once - that will overwhelm you into thinking you can't do it. This is do-able. It's a creative writing project! No lies - just creativity!


Keep trying, and, feel free to ask more questions!

Kim
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