I'm a Recent College Graduate - What Do I Have to Offer?

The following question recently crossed my desk:

"I am a recent college graduate and have never worked anywhere except at fast-food places and gas stations. How can I build a decent resume from that?"

Actually, this graduate has more going for her than she realizes. First of all, she needs to focus on where she is headed, career-wise. Do her college courses point her in the right direction? She can do a resume that shows her overall objective, followed by a summary of her skills and relevant courses, to show potential employers she knows her stuff. She should be sure to include her undergraduate degree and overall GPA (as long as it's above 3.0), and her GPA in her major, which should be significantly higher than the overall GPA.

There are plenty of items she could place on her resume, including her academic major (if it's relevant to where she wants to go), relevant coursework, academic honors, scholarship, co-op or internship, special projects, extracurricular activities... "What she learned while in college" could probably fill the resume if she thinks long and hard about it.

And she should not be so quick to belittle her experience working at fast-food outlets. Many such chains provide excellent managerial training for their staff, realizing that it's in their best interest to do so. More than likely, she learned the value of working with a team, of being in charge of a group of diverse people, of providing outstanding customer service; she may even have been selected to attend the chain's management training school.

In my own career, I managed a convenience store (too long ago to put on a resume now). The experience taught me how to balance cash receipts, how to multi-task (in the form of slicing lunch meat, performing the cash balance, and working a cash register), how to deal with customers in the most diplomatic way possible, and how to direct a group of part-time workers, molding these diverse personalities into a cohesive team all working toward a common goal. I certainly mentioned that experience on my resume back when it was more relevant.

There are also plenty of external resources available, including a great book by my good friend Louise Kursmark, called "Best Resumes for College Students and New Grads." Check it out, and for Pete's sake, recent students, don't just throw your hands up and decide you have nothing to offer an employer!

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