Free Can I Wear My Nose Ring to the Interview?: A Crash Course in Finding, Landing, and Keeping Your First Real Job by Ellen Gordon Reeves Page A

transferred to Cooler U…”
I Dropped Out!
    Q. I never graduated. What do I do?
    A. You may still list the school you attended, along with the extracurriculars and course work you did, but you should indicate the years you attended: 2006–2008. Be prepared to explain matter-of-factly why you never got the degree and whether you have plans to finish it.
The “Experience” Section
    Drawing a blank when it comes to the “experience” section of your résumé? This is normal, especially if you’re just starting out in your professional life. I hear it all the time—“But I’ve never done anything.” This is usually untrue. What people often mean is, “I don’t think what I’ve done is meaningful or important,” or they don’t see how the experience they’ve had relates to the job they want.
    Think carefully before omitting a seemingly unimportant activity. People typically leave off babysitting, dog-walking, or caring for the sick or elderly, whether these were paid, volunteer, or familial responsibilities. Some career counselors specifically recommend leaving off this kind of experience. I disagree. If you haven’t had a great deal of other work experience, these positions indicate that people were willing to leave their most prized possessions in your care: their children, their dogs, their relatives.
    You might be thinking, All I did during school was work at a fast-food restaurant and practice the piano—nothing that relates to a job I might want. Untrue. Working in fast-food restaurants indicates that you can handle pressure and deal with the general public. Practicing any instrument, sport, or hobby reveals commitment and discipline, even—especially—if you do it on your own. It’s all about how you present what you’ve done. If it’s true that in college all you did was take courses, flesh out your résumé by adding a “Course Work” section. Then, in an interview, you say that during college, you decided to focus exclusively on your studies.
    For more guidance on describing your experience, see page 51.
How Much Detail?
    Q. I was an intern. Do I list everything I did?
    A. For administrative positions, give a sense of the range of your activities and emphasize the skills most relevant to the position for which you are applying.
    Start with items that indicate the greatest responsibility: “Selected to orient new interns. Made travel arrangements for CEO.” At the end of the entry, merge your most mundane duties into a single bullet: “Administrative duties included answering phones, assembling mailings, and filing.” Make sure you list any task specifically mentioned in the description of the job for which you are applying. In an interview or cover letter, you might indicate that you can handle anything that’s thrown at you and won’t balk at the nitty-gritty stuff: “I did everything from setting up the coffee in the morning to revamping the company’s billing process.”
Volunteer vs. Paid
    Q. How do I indicate paid versus volunteer experience?
    A. Recent graduates and people returning to the workplace often have a great deal of volunteer experience, which is totally valid—the skills you gained are transferable, so don’t leave something valuable off your résumé just because you weren’t paid for your work.
    MARKETING YOUR SKILLS
    Sometimes it takes a little imagination to show a potential employer that your skills are relevant to his organization. Take the case of an experienced book editor who had decided to go back to graduate school in early-childhood education. “Milly is the ideal candidate for your program,” her boss wrote in his recommendation. “If she can deal with temperamental authors all day long, she’s obviously qualified to deal with very young children.” All the skills you have—from internships, from course work, babysitting and other jobs—are relevant, if you can learn to repackage and present them correctly.
    You do need to differentiate between