29- Lifetime Resume: Taking credit for all of your hard work

A new grad can feel really dumb. Even after 10 years of college, I compare myself to pharmacists who have been practicing for 10+ years and feel like somehow I should be as on my game as them.

Well, feeling stupid doesn’t get you a job, and I need to showcase my strengths, so I attempted a different type of resume today. I looked back at what I was good at and what I had experience in, OVERALL.

Turns out I have 20+ years of public service experience. Over those years, I have worked in the retail industry, the food industry, as a mentor, peer educator, fundraiser, and healthcare provider.

I also have 15+ years of management experience, from a small business up to leading a national committee. I have managed books at car dealerships,  a jewelry manufacturer, a shoe store, a government contract training center, restaurants (not to mention the $10,000 cash deposits I carried to the bank in my backpack when I was 8 months pregnant), and I am now starting my own business.

I have been conducting research of one form or another for 10 years as well, including: observing ballet classes in several different states; tending to mice colonies; taking mouse blood pressures via their tails; other assorted mice surgeries and detailed experiments taking 12 hour days in the lab for a week (praying nothing got contaminated); culturing fungi from dirt samples; gel electrophoresis; processing urine and blood specimens and conducting cellular assays on them; and patient surveys.

I don’t have a degree in business, but I definitely have seen different ways of dealing with books, employees, customers, bosses, inventory, sales, etc, etc.

I used to manage a small coffee shop in San Francisco. While I have downplayed that for years, saying that it was just a small coffee shop, I was identified by my boss as the one capable, willing and trustworthy enough to do the job. It has been that way ever since. I tend to only have jobs I pursue, so I usually love what I am doing, and it shows.

So, look at your resume. Does it showcase years of experience? If you are a new grad, don’t discredit your prior jobs. Take what you gained or strengthened with those jobs that can benefit you in your new field, and highlight that in your resume.

Seriously, give yourself credit by spinning the presentation differently.

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