Teaching college students about a resume on an internship
When students come to the Career Center for help with a resume for an internship, you know you’re doing something right. Your reach should extend beyond identifying the right specialist or starting the job search process. All these steps in between, including landing on a great internship, should also occupy a significant part of your wheelhouse.
Going through the details of internship applications through students may seem like preparing a job application using training wheels. And you should take the opportunity to draw these parallels. If your counseling is beneficial now, the student can use what they have learned in their future job search. They are also more likely to return to the Center and recommend it to friends!
However, remember that a resume on an internship serves a different purpose and audience than a full-time resume.
These are the qualities that your student body needs to understand and what you can do to provide them with this information:
Getting an internship is very important. The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) conducts an annual Job Outlook survey. With its 2020 findings, NACE stated that practice experience can play a significant role in determining who gets a job. Between the two equal candidates, a position will be offered to the one who has completed an internship for an organization or industry. So you need to ensure that resumes are first-class.
Work experience, skills and education
These sections will look appropriately similar in the internship resume and resume at work. Be sure to mention that the strategies you propose to make the skills and details of work experience interesting can apply to the resumes on which they will work in the future.
Depending on the student’s level of comfort with resumes, teach him how to care for a particular position. If they have never seen a resume before, this information can be too overwhelming to process. However, intermediate or more advanced levels gain a lot by going through the internship priorities with you and translating them onto paper.
Relevant course work
If the student you’re working with doesn’t have any part-time job or childcare that could be mentioned, encourage them to replace the work experience section with relevant course work. They can discuss what they did in the course, what they learned, the group projects they led, etc. But be sure to indicate that course work should not be the centerpiece of the resume after the internship.
Of course, a year or two after college, there may still be some information about the courses. However, responsibilities and achievements in the internship should be put in the spotlight.
Academic achievements
The academic achievements are impressive, but taking up space with three awards from your final year of high school two years ago is not worth it.
The latest achievements of an undergraduate should come from college. Tell students to limit the section to the title and year of the award, and maybe even a brief explanation of what it represents, if it’s not self-explanatory. Any additional details are superfluous, and if the information is limited, do not include this section.
Proof of leadership
Regardless of whether the employer is looking for interns or full-time employees, right now it prioritizes candidates with leadership skills. According to Deloitte’s 2021 Global Human Capital Trends, 60% of executives say leadership qualities are key at all levels in preparing for an unknown future.
Therefore, delve into the history of the student to identify moments in work at the university, in part-time work or in volunteer work, where they are an example of these leadership qualities.
Recommended literature: Encourage students to start professional development sooner rather than later.
References
As with job applications, there is no reason for a student to include references in the internship resume, unless the company has explicitly requested them.
However, make sure that students have a list of professional references ready. Club or academic advisors, professors, coaches and volunteer coordinators are excellent options as references for internships. There are no friends from school.
You can always advertise that career counselors will be happy to help with internship applications, but that will only get you that far. Not everyone is excited about signing up for individual coaching, as it will take a lot of time and courage to ask for help.
Tu je niekoľko ďalších nápadov, ako začať brainstorming:
Triedna dielňa
Spolupracujte s profesormi na vedení workshopu v triede. Je to najlepšia záruka, ako osloviť čo najviac študentov. Okrem toho môže workshop pomôcť tým, ktorí neplánovali návštevu Kariérneho centra, začať dôverovať vašej odbornosti. Semináre prvého ročníka, kurzy s vyznamenaním alebo voliteľné predmety životných zručností, ako sú osobné financie, sú pre tieto workshopy najvhodnejšie.
Newsletter
Newslettery sú skvelé, pretože na jednom mieste môžete zahrnúť podrobnejšie informácie. Namiesto toho, aby ste si prezreli povrchovú úroveň len jednej témy, aby ste vyhoveli najnižšej úrovni zručností, môžete sa ponoriť do hĺbky s mesačnými splátkami série.
However, with newsletters, you are fighting against the attention span. Students receive a lot of emails, and you need yours to appear to keep their attention and get the information. If you have time, add an infographic, recent research, or embed a video on YouTube.
Worksheet
Draw up a worksheet with a summary of resumes from the internship, a true or false section, and a resume template to fill the blank.
If you have a resource to get, it’s easy to get information when you don’t have time to dive into it. And the inclusion of these interactive elements increases the likelihood that students will watch it and retain the information.
Embed the PDF on your website. Include it in emails. Hand over copies to professors and distribute them in class! If you can be extremely generous, offer a prize to students who will bring a completed worksheet to the Center.