"Older" Applicant - What to put on resume? Forum

[wealtheow]

I will be six years out of undergrad (27 yo) when I [hopefully] matriculate in Fall 2014. I'm planning on a 1-page resume, don't care if some schools allow 2. Obviously, the focus needs to be on my "current experience" and education/accolades, and I know that piddly shit should be kept to a minimum. With that said, I'm trying to figure out what to include on the resume from my time in college. Anything leadership oriented should go on there, I assume. But how about undergrad employment?

I worked a LOT in undergrad - I was a work-study kid, had about 3 internal jobs during the academic year and worked every summer at the school as well.
Some schools seem to care very much about this...Should I "formally" allot space to all my jobs as an undergrad, traditional resume style, or just do a brief list with dates/hours, like so:

College Involvement
- College Mascot
(2004-present)
Make a fool of myself each weekend for our terrible foozball team.

- Work-Study
(2004-2008)
Worked in the following offices through academic years & summers: Financial Aid, Alumni, blah blah.

Hope this makes sense. The latter would take up less space, but doesn't feel very professional to me.

Also, any other "older" applicants with work experience, I'd love to hear how you are approaching the resume!

thanks everyone!

[guano]

When it comes to UG employment, cut the oldest shit first to meet space requirements, unless a particular job is either too good to cut out, or too inappropriate to leave in

[midwest17]

If you have post-college work experience, I'd leave the during college stuff off. Or, if you think it was enough hours per week that it adds context to your academic record, I'd condense it as much as possible, like the second option.

[A. Nony Mouse]

I used an academic cv. I think it was 5 pages. Got in everywhere my numbers were competitive. So I don't see any harm in being comprehensive. Obviously this is not what I did for applying to legal jobs, but admissions is different from a job. Unless a school has an express page limit, I'd just include everything you think is worth mentioning - if you want them to know that you worked throughout college, I'd include it to show those time commitments. If you don't care if they know that, leave it out (I didn't include any college employment on my resume, but I was older than you when I applied).

I do think you can condense the college stuff as suggested, but I wouldn't just lump work-study jobs under "College Involvement" - I'd list them under jobs, but if they were mindless/unrelated to your current work, keep it short. Maybe so:

EMPLOYMENT
Real Job #1, location, dates
- info
- info
- info

Real Job #2, location, dates
- info
- info
- info

Undergrad University, location, dates
- Work study administrative positions in the Financial Aid, Alumni, and [whatever] offices (20 hrs/week) [or whatever amount]
- College Mascot at sporting events

I don't think you'd need to provide significant detail about those at all, just list them to show that you had those commitments for the schools that care.

I'm also sure there are other ways that would be just as acceptable, this is just how I'd approach it.

[guano]

To be fair, outside of HYS it'll make very little difference what you do

[SPerez]

Don't leave anything out from college on. The older stuff that's pretty self explanatory doesn't need to have a paragraph of duties, it can just say "Cashier, In & Out, May 2005-Aug 2005".

You might not think it's relevant, but you never know what the person reviewing it will focus in on. Since most schools allow up to 2 pages and being older you can definitely fill it, there's no reason to not use all of that space.

Dean Perez

[wealtheow]

thank you so much for all your input, everyone! i am most likely going to include the work study jobs under employment experience, as a. nony mous suggested. i'm thinking now i'll err on the side of comprehensive, since i never know who may be looking at the app. it probably still won't exceed one page, because i am very boring, but this makes me worry a bit less about length!

also, just to clarify, but i was not actually a mascot, as i am terrified of people in suits. don't want to leave any ambiguity regarding that, lmao. no offense to anyone who's into that.