Resume Question: More emphasis on current experience or include past internships? Forum

[Anonymous User]

I'm trying to keep my resume to one page and wasn't sure on which to do.

I've been in gov office for 2 years, in the general counsel's office of my agency. this is my first job out of law school, but i interned here for a long time during law school. i'm prepping my resume to start looking for something in the private sector.

in my current resume draft i've included a lot of detail for both my current job as well as my internship position here, taking up roughly half of the first page while using very thin margins. however, i have three additional internships from law school that are now bleeding into the second page.

my concern is that while i've done a lot in my current job and my internship here, and i feel it's necessary to detail it out because i'm looking to continue this line of work in the private side, i don't want employers to think i'm some one trick pony, especially having graduated so recently. is that a reasonable concern? i should note that while those three internships were interesting, they were all ~3 months and not really related to one another.

so what should i do? lessen my current experience/internship here or cut out the old crap?

[zot1]

Make it relevant to the jobs you're applying to. If the current job and related internship is more relevant than other three then cut them...

[skeenbr0]

I agree that it depends on the specific job your are applying for. Obviously you want to modify your resume for each application, to show how you fit the employer's needs. If there is a specific skill you picked up in an internship that the employer is looking for, you probably want to mention it. That said, an employer probably puts the most weight on your current job, so don't count on that skill from an internship getting you the interview. (The needs of the employer can also show you where to cut the fat from your current job description- if there is something you do that is absolutely unrelated to the position, that's something to cut to allow room for skills from an internship.)

There is another reason to at least list the internships, even with very limited descriptions of what you did. One of the questions you are going to get in an interview is "why do you want to leave the regular hours and good benefits of government work to have to hustle for clients and work ungodly hours for us?" And of course, your answer can't be "I want to make more money." That is where those private sector internships come in- be thinking about why private sector work was rewarding to you, and why you want to get into it professionally.