is it ok to put "relevant experience" section on resume Forum

[taylorswiftfan]

Is it okay for me to put a "relevant experience" section on my law school application resume? I mean it's not relevant to the law per se...

I have a lot of different internships/ work experience/ leadership and i wanted to highlight a few of them. So I wanted to call it "relevant experience". Is that okay?? I highlighted an extracurricular activity i did well in so that's why i don't want to call that section "professional experience".

moved to proper forum and user outed for anon abuse

[papercut]

From the way you're describing it, you're in the wrong forum.

And also, it sounds like it's just work experience. You can't say, "this isn't relevant to law school, but I want to call it that."

[taylorswiftfan]

Well one of them is experience from an extracurricular activity (club) in college. Isn't that not considered work experience?

[JazzieShizzle]

Well one of them is experience from an extracurricular activity (club) in college. Isn't that not considered work experience?

What? No. It is an extracurricular activity you participated in during college, just like you said.

hth:
http://www.top-law-schools.com/law-school-resume.html

[A. Nony Mouse]

It is perfectly fine to just have an "Experience" section that includes paid and unpaid activities. It may not be the best way to organize the info, depending on what you have on your resume, but there's nothing inappropriate about it. (There's no need to put "relevant" because presumably you're not including irrelevant material on your resume. If you only want to include certain things, that's fine on a resume too - you don't need to say "selected" or anything. Just keep in mind some schools may want to see everything you've done.)

[LSATSCORES2012]

Well one of them is experience from an extracurricular activity (club) in college. Isn't that not considered work experience?

What? No. It is an extracurricular activity you participated in during college, just like you said.

hth:
http://www.top-law-schools.com/law-school-resume.html

... from which experience was derived.

On my resume, I have two sections for this kind of thing. The "Experience" section, in which I include significant work experience as well as very significant extra-curricular activities. Under my school, I have a section that says "Activities", under which I list all of the other non-trivial activities I participated in. The test that I use is: if I can put a description to go with it that will either spark the reviewer's interest and be related to what I'm applying for (weighing these two factors, where a high value for one can compensate for the other) or elaborate on experiences gained in the position that will help me in the role that I'm applying for, then I put it under experience. Otherwise, I put it in the list of activities.

[Br3v]

It is perfectly fine to just have an "Experience" section that includes paid and unpaid activities. It may not be the best way to organize the info, depending on what you have on your resume, but there's nothing inappropriate about it. (There's no need to put "relevant" because presumably you're not including irrelevant material on your resume. If you only want to include certain things, that's fine on a resume too - you don't need to say "selected" or anything. Just keep in mind some schools may want to see everything you've done.)

Quality answer OP

[JazzieShizzle]

Well one of them is experience from an extracurricular activity (club) in college. Isn't that not considered work experience?

What? No. It is an extracurricular activity you participated in during college, just like you said.

hth:
http://www.top-law-schools.com/law-school-resume.html

... from which experience was derived.

On my resume, I have two sections for this kind of thing. The "Experience" section, in which I include significant work experience as well as very significant extra-curricular activities. Under my school, I have a section that says "Activities", under which I list all of the other non-trivial activities I participated in. The test that I use is: if I can put a description to go with it that will either spark the reviewer's interest and be related to what I'm applying for (weighing these two factors, where a high value for one can compensate for the other) or elaborate on experiences gained in the position that will help me in the role that I'm applying for, then I put it under experience. Otherwise, I put it in the list of activities.

whoa I misunderstood OP! I thought OP was asking if experience gained through club participation is considered work experience, like if he volunteered to work a soup kitchen or something.

I like the way you divided your experience and activities, LSATSCORES2012

[taylorswiftfan]

Thanks for the help.

Well, I have a lot of random internships, jobs, and school club leadership and didn't want to detail every single one because i would not have room. So i decided to only highlight a few (includes jobs i've held and club leadership positions). I have a list on the resume of jobs and volunteer positions i've held but am not sure how to categorize these.

I hope you understand what i mean by this.

I think i'm just going to have the headers: "experience" , "additional work experience", "additional volunteer experience" to keep things simple. I was going to have a header called "additional leadership experience" but that sounds stupid. What do you think?

[BPlaura]

I think i'm just going to have the headers: "experience" , "additional work experience", "additional volunteer experience" to keep things simple. I was going to have a header called "additional leadership experience" but that sounds stupid. What do you think?

Feel free to leave off any work or volunteer experience that you don't think will help your application - not everything on your resume needs to be related to law, but it should be carefully considered as a part of how you present yourself. (For instance, jobs in unrelated fields might show your work ethic.) It sounds like you're already doing this, but I wanted to make sure.

The three categories you described sound a little over-complicated to me. What's the difference between "experience" and "additional work experience"? If one is just your law-related experience, I'd combine it all into one section. Having the volunteer experience listed separately would be fine. And yeah, not sure about the "additional leadership experience" - might be better to include it as part of the other sections. Your bullet points for work experience and volunteer experience can highlight the ways in which you were a leader.

[taylorswiftfan]

should i call "experience" "relevant experience" or "selected experience" then?

[BPlaura]

should i call "experience" "relevant experience" or "selected experience" then?

Either of those titles would make more sense, yes. But again, you really don't need to separate out the relevant experience vs. rest of your experience. You're not applying for a job; you're just trying to let law schools get a better idea of your background. So it's not super important to differentiate between relevant and non-relevant experience. I'd recommend two sections, one for work experience and one for volunteer experience/other activities.