Making the most of your summer job

Getting plenty of customer service experience at the supermarket checkout

After a more or less difficult search, you found a job for the summer. Well done! But once the job ends, young people often neglect to include it in their resumes. They might think that it is not relevant, but it is actually important to emphasize this experience.

You can show to the recruiter the skills you gained and developed through a summer job. Recruiters are often attentive to your first steps in the working world. With this on your resume, you increase your chances of finding a first “real” job. Here are a few ideas for how can you maximize the impact of your summer work experience on your job application.

A positive start to your career

Recruiters have a reputation as being “risk averse”: they prefer to hire candidates who can prove their suitability, rather than those who promise to do a good job –if only the recruiters are willing to give them a chance. Whether you spent your vacation helping your uncle with his accounts, creating a new web site, watering the flowers in your neighborhood park or playing football with children at a summer camp, summer jobs can supply just the proof recruiters want to see –provided you can describe your experience in a convincing way.

To this end, it is important to describe your activities in a way that will appeal to a potential employer. Your summer work experience makes you a good candidate on two counts: first, it taught you concrete skills that will be useful to your new employer. Secondly, it taught you life lessons, helped you grow and mature into someone your new company would consider as an asset.

A solid skill set

The challenge is to determine exactly what skills you learned in your summer job and describe them in terms that the recruiter will immediately recognize as useful. A good starting point is to read the job advertisement or the job description carefully and make a list of the skills required. Then, think of the work you did this summer. What examples can you give for each one? What did you organize? How did you prioritize your tasks? Remember when you successfully persuaded someone to do something or buy a product –how did you communicate with them?

In your description, use action verbs and do not hesitate to detail the full scope of your responsibility. Don’t limit yourself to a strict description of your tasks. Your contribution added value to your employer beyond the actions you executed each day. Consider the difference between these statements:

Waiting tables, the most popular summer job for students the world over

“I observed the boxes on the conveyor belt and pressed the STOP button each time I noticed one that had a defect.”

“I supervised the production line and controlled the quality of the boxes to ensure no faulty products were ever delivered to our suppliers.”

“I played with the kids every day while their parents worked.”

“I prepared weekly activity plans, paying special attention to alternate between physical play and creative arts and crafts, both at home and outdoors, while ensuring the children’s safety and well-being.”

Show that you understand not only what you had to do, but also why it was important. Your work made a difference. It had a positive impact. It is your job to help the recruiter see it.

Marie, a former student, told us about her best summer job experience. It was at Uni-Emploi, the career services office at the University of Geneva. “It was my first meaningful job”, she says.” I learned there to work in a team and communicate well with colleagues.” Helping students obtain employment turned out to be a value-driven job for Marie: “I learned the importance of solidarity”, she continues. “I realized that I really enjoy helping people and that this is what I wanted to do later, in my own career.”

Personal growth and development

Are you the same person that you were before summer vacation? In what ways did your summer job enrich your personality, and how is this relevant to recruiters? Some of these examples might resonate with your own experience:

• Understanding the structure and the organization of a company: who does what, the various departments, roles within a team, the different processes and procedures;
• Getting along with supervisors and colleagues: how to speak, how to behave, what you can share informally during a break, what you might learn from more senior employees and those of different generations;
• Work etiquette: the importance of punctuality, physical appearance, how you are perceived by others;
• Evaluating performance: how your success is measured, how you deal with problems;
• Managing money: earning a salary, setting saving objectives, learning the value of hard work;
• Negotiating: compensation, hours, absences…

Practice your patience and leadership skills working at a children’s summer camp

When describing this learning experience, you will have stories to tell and examples to portray those new skills that will be relevant to your new employer. Perhaps you helped your department achieve a specific objective, showing how you learned to collaborate and be a team player; or negotiated a pay rise after your first month on the job, demonstrating how you improved your persuasion talents. Did you take time to listen and support someone who is not part of your group of friends? Did you become more self-disciplined? Make sure to draw the recruiter’s attention to this personal development, proof that you are now ready for a bigger challenge and that they can trust you to fit right in.

A meaningful experience with a long-lasting impact

For many young people, summer jobs represent a new social environment with its unique set of rules and challenges. It can be destabilizing. It can also be a great opportunity to sample an industry, a type of organization and a certain company culture to inform future professional choices and preferences. It is always a rich learning experience.

Ela from Poland told us she worked every summer after high school. “My first experience was in a restaurant, where I washed dishes.” Ela explains how this job helped her make important decisions about her future: “It was very hard work, during long hours and I finished late so I had to ask my colleagues to drive me home,” she recalls. “I decided to study at the university because I did not want to work like this my whole life.”

It does not matter so much what you do for your summer job: If your attitude is serious and you present yourself professionally, with meaningful examples and the right words, recruiters will see the skills you developed and recognize the valuable life lessons that will make you a great candidate for your first permanent job. What really matters is how you make sense of this experience.

By Michal Sela and Bastien Lecoultre

Sources:

Bozonnet, Camille. “Le job d’été, un élément clé dans son CV”, Tribune de Genève, 25 juin 2014, Emploi.

Dr. Christopher Thurber, Writing Camp Jobs on a Resume, http://campspirit.com/wp-content/themes/CampSpiritTheme/docs/magazine/CB_Resume_Sept_2011.pdf (accessed July 9, 2014).

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Leonrw via photopin cc

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