Sometimes less is more on a resume

With many things in life, more is better. However, this is not the case with regard to resumes. I think it is human nature for most people to want to put everything they have ever done in their lives onto their resume. This reminds me of a cartoon I saw that said a resume is not an autobiography. How true! What good is a resume that is chock full of information that is totally irrelevant to the position? If you went into a store to buy a laptop, would it make any sense if the salesperson started talking about the features of the newest cell phone or iPod?

We have a strict rule in our career center that students' resumes must fit onto one page and often my counseling meetings revolve around helping students determine what to leave on their resume and what to take off. For some, this is a painful process because they have a deep attachment to their high school leadership activities and experiences and are reluctant to delete them from their resume. While I can certainly understand why students feel this way about their proudest accomplishments, they should begin phasing out some things from their resumes as they embark upon their internship or job search.

Students need to remember that a resume is a dynamic document, a constant work in progress. I always remind them that they will be adding and subtracting to their resumes during their entire career so they might as well get used to it. Even though I'm sure you laboriously perfected the resume you submitted with your college applications, that resume served a specific purpose and should not be the same resume you submit for job or internship opportunities. While you may have been the Captain of your football team or the Editor-in-Chief of your high school yearbook, there comes a point when you can no longer bask in the glory of prior accomplishments but need to move on to developing leadership activities in college and adding internship experiences to your resume.

When writing or reviewing your resume for a specific position, take a good hard look at EVERYTHING on your resume to determine if it is relevant for the position. This is similar to a company designing an advertising campaign to meet the specific needs of its target audience. If they do a good job of this, their customers will want to read the ad and buy the product. Likewise, if you carefully craft a targeted resume, the employer will be more apt to read it and bring you in for an interview. If something on your resume is totally irrelevant to the position, then you should take it off. Irrelevant items actually dilute and weaken a resume.

It's okay to brag...sometimes

We've all met annoying, egotistical people who love to brag about themselves. Most college students seem to be particularly sensitive to this and would never brag to their peers. However, they carry this same attitude into the interview. Students frequently tell me that they are hesitant to brag about themselves in the interview for fear of being viewed as arrogant or egotistical. Sometimes this is a reflection of having been brought up in a different culture than the U.S. but I also see it in students who were born here. I always tell them that, while humility is a virtue, the interview is not a place to be humble. Bragging to your friends about your accomplishments is, well, bragging. But bragging in an interview is "selling yourself" in order to get the internship or job.

When you go on an interview, the objective is to present yourself in the best possible light to the employer so that they will want to hire you. So you need to feel confident about talking about yourself, highlighting your strengths and skills that would be relevant for the position and expressing your significant accomplishments. Believe me, the interviewer will not perceive this as bragging! Interviewers want to hire confident people, so they will be quite impressed that you are a person who can speak confidently about yourself! They are also investing a lot of time and money in the hiring process and need to make sure they are getting an optimal return on investment by hiring the best candidate. And how would they know you're the best candidate unless you tell them!

If you're still feeling reluctant about selling yourself during the interview, conduct mock interviews with counselors at your career center who will be able to coach you on how to present your key skills, strengths and accomplishments in a confident, polished manner. And, if you're concerned at all about coming across as arrogant, no need to worry! Chances are that you are far from being arrogant, but if you are, your counselor will let you know it.

The odds are NOT 1 in 175,000,000

I hardly ever play the lottery, but the jackpot for the Mass Mega Millions game last Friday night was beckoning me at $144,000,000, not because of the sheer number of millions I could potentially win but because 4's and 1's are "my numbers," and I felt it was a sign that I should play. The next day I eagerly went to the Mass State Lottery website and discovered I hadn't matched any numbers out of five quick picks. That wasn't the worst of it. Right below the winning numbers I saw that the probability of winning the jackpot was 1 in 175,711,536! Wow! But you know the saying, "If you don't play, you can't win."

So, you're probably wondering...what does playing the lottery have to do with career counseling? Well, if you win the Mega Millions, you won't ever need to look for a job again! Just kidding! Some students I meet with seem to believe that the odds of getting a job are as slim as winning the Mega Millions jackpot and make a decision to not even apply to some positions based on their pre-conceived suppositions. They say things like, "that job is so competitive," or "so many people are going to be applying for that job," or "I bet the other candidates have better GPA's than me." It's amazing to me how many students create myths in their minds about why they won't get the job. I always say to them, "Why are YOU taking yourself out of the running without even applying? Let the company make the decision as to whether or not you're a good candidate." Just like you can't win the lottery if you don't play, you can't get the job if you don't apply! But unlike playing the lottery, the odds are much, much greater that you'll get an interview and land the job, and you don't even have to pay any money!

Also, the odds of landing a job greatly increase the more jobs you apply to so don't just sit back after applying for 10, or 15 or 20 jobs and think you're done. And please don't give up if you haven't heard anything from those first companies you applied to. Keep on applying! What have you got to lose? The odds are in your favor.

An interview is not a confessional

Many times when I am conducting mock interviews with students, I have to remind them that the interview is not a confessional. As a Catholic, going to confession is part of my religious tradition, but it always amazes me how many students treat the interview in just the same way. It's not that these students are confessing their deepest, darkest secrets to me. No, not at all. It's just that they either divulge way more information than is necessary to answer the question or will readily share information that will be viewed in a negative light. Skilled interviewers are adept at leading their interviewees down this path to total disclosure and many students, just starting out in the professional world, may not be prepared to handle this.

Let me give you some examples. I recently conducted a mock interview with a student who was going into the final round of interviews for a full-time position. When I asked him why his GPA wasn't so great, he started telling me how he had a hard time in freshman year because he couldn't balance his academics with his social life. I said to him, "Do you mean social life as in partying?" and he said, "Yes." Hello! However, after talking to him "off the record," I discovered that his GPA had been steadily increasing since his first semester as a freshman. So I advised him just to say that and not mention his problem with partying.

Another student was going on a first-round interview which required leadership skills. As president of a sorority, she clearly held a leadership role which would make her a competitive candidate for the position. However, when I asked her about her role as a leader, she started to tell me that she was "opinionated and overbearing" and had a difficult time taking suggestions. "Off the record" we discovered that the reason she said this was because she was nervous and hadn't planned to say that. After some discussion, she was able to identify the positive traits that made her a terrific leader.

I asked another student who was interviewing for a client services position, which job on her resume she liked best and which one she liked least. She proceeded to tell me that she liked the client-centered job the least because dealing with the public can be annoying! So "off the record," I told her either to not apply for jobs that involve client contact or make sure to change her answer.

Okay, so I know what you're thinking..."How could these students have said these things...didn't they know better?" Thinking that is like watching "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" while shouting out all the right answers to the contestant from the safety of your living room. An interview can be an extremely anxiety-provoking situation, somewhat similar to being a game show contestant on national TV, where people end up saying things they hadn't planned on just because of nervousness.

So what's the solution? The solution is to plan, plan, plan your answers to the commonly asked interview questions. I'm not saying to memorize your answers but to know beforehand the key points that you want to mention. By doing this, you will know when to stop and it will keep you from rambling, which is the slippery slope toward the confessional. Another critical piece of advice is to be comfortable with silent pauses during the interview. Interviewers use these pauses to see how you will react...to see if you can remain calm under pressure (this means STAYING SILENT) or if you will start to fill the void with nonsense.

The best way to prepare for interviews is to keep conducting mock interviews with career counselors, other professionals, or your peers. By doing this, you will be perfecting your interview technique and greatly increasing your chances of hearing those magical words, "You're hired!"

Internships are a critical component of your college experience

Last fall at our Career Fair I went around to employers and conducted an informal survey to determine the key factor they were looking for in student candidates. I was expecting them to say a specific skill, such as solid communications skills, but instead they almost unanimously said that they looked for internships on a student's resume.

Internships, as most students know, are a terrific way to test the waters about your particular careers of interest and to build your resume. If you start them early enough in college, you can work at several different kinds of internships to determine what you like and don't like in terms of career options, work environments, company culture, day-to-day routine, etc. And the good news is that internships are plentiful as more employers are hiring interns to do some of the work that was previously done by full or part time permanent employees. Although some internships don't pay, there are also many that do. Most students do internships during the summer but there are lots of internships available during the academic year as well.

So, how do you go about finding an internship? First, you should check your school's Career Services office to see if they have either an online or paper database of internships. After that, there are several job search sites that literally have thousands of internships on them. One of my favorites is www.SimplyHired.com (which pulls postings from other job search websites and company sites). One great thing about SimplyHired is that you can set up multiple searches and get daily email alerts with any internships that match your search criteria. You can specify the city you want to intern in and use key words to find the internship that is just right for you.

Another one of my favorite internship sites is www.CraigsList.org (yes, I said Craig's List!). While there are some sketchy things on CraigsList, many of my students have gotten some very good internships there. Students just need to view any posting with some discernment. See if the company has a website or Google their name to see what comes up. Remember the old adage: if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.

Internships are plentiful so there is no reason not to get one (or several!) If you're looking for a summer 2010 internship, you can start looking now but bear in mind that some employers post summer internships all the way through the spring semester. If you land an unpaid internship but still need to make some money, then a great option is to work part-time at the internship and also get a part-time paying job. Most employers offering unpaid internships are very flexible in terms of hours because they realize you are working for free.

By doing multiple internships, you'll be building your resume, which will make you a more competitive candidate when you graduate, and you'll be discerning exactly what you want out of your future career.