From the category archives:

Education vs. Experience

Education Is A Commodity

by Josh Barsch

Ever hear the talking heads on CNN discussing the stock market and talking about the “commodities market”? They’re talking about stuff like coffee beans, wheat, corn, etc. We call these things commodities, which means there isn’t much difference between coffee beans in Africa or Jamaica or Guatemala. Sure, there are subtle variations in quality and flavor, but at end of the day, a bean is a bean is a bean. It’s not like the difference between a Ferrari and a Ford Fiesta.

So, where does your education fit into all this? Is a college education simply a commodity, the same everywhere? Well, yes and no. It’s what you make of it: what you decide to learn and master while you’re in college determines whether your education is a Ferrari or a clunker. But in terms of the way you represent that education on a resume, it’s pretty much all the same. Everyone applying for your job probably has an education of some sort, and your resume entry probably looks like this:

Bachelor of Whatever
Wherever State University, 2002

As you might guess, there isn’t a lot of difference between these entries: only the names, places and dates change. And as we discussed earlier in this book, when everything looks the same, it starts to mean less and less, and your prospective employers just tune out the entry altogether.

Here’s the deal about the education section of your resume: In most cases, it’s hastily scanned at best, and even then, it’s just to make sure that you actually have an education of some kind. Very rarely will anyone assign massive value to the school you came from; at the same time, it’s just as rare that you’ll be overlooked because you went to a smaller or lesser-known college.

Let me repeat that for the millions of parents out there who have children wanting you to spend an extra $50,000-$100,000 on a “name-brand” school. You will not be overlooked for a job because you didn’t go to a marquee school. Some of the greatest people I ever saw came straight from community colleges, and some of the most useless came from the Ivy League. Trust me – your future boss will not run to check your school’s ranking in the U.S News & World Report college rankings to help her decide whether you’ll be a useful employee.

On the other hand, let’s look at experience. The variety of different people’s experiences is absolutely unlimited. Each job has a different title and is performed at a different company and has different responsibilities and tasks that must be carried out every day. Two candidates who have exactly the same Bachelor’s of Whatever from the University of Wherever may have vastly different levels of experience. One may have done little more than make coffee and sort mail at her internship, while the other may have taken on a great number of critical responsibilities at his. As you may have guess, we employers tend to give much greater weight and respect to the latter.

Yes, but: I can already hear you now – “But I don’t have any experience!” Bullshit! Of course you do – you just don’t realize it. Everyone has experience of some sort. Have you lived in a cave for the last 20 years? If not, then you have experience. Here are some examples:

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Internships

by Josh Barsch

For students who are still in college, internships are the most popular form of experience on a resume. There’s a good reason for that: just about every business out there loves interns. Adores them. We love interns because you’re cheap! Hell, a lot of the time, in the case of unpaid internships, you’re not just cheap, you’re absolutely free. And it’s not the type of free labor you get from prison chain gangs or DWI convicts doing community service work. You actually want to be there, you’re smart, you’ve got some preexisting knowledge about the business, you’re busting your hump to prove you’re worthy, and oh, by the way, you work for less than the guy who cleans the bathrooms. Or for free.

Because of this, internships abound, and probably always will. Which brings me to my next point: don’t rely on your department office, or your career counselors, or even the Web, to give you a listing of all internships out there, because they can’t. They’ll give you the high-profile and long-established ones, but that’s it. It’s very, very easy to not just find little-known internships, but to create them yourself. Your ability to do this depends on your willingness to take a pauper’s wages for your work, but that’s pretty much status quo for most internships you’ll find. Here’s how you do it:

Decide where you want to do an internship. Look around the company’s website for the highest-ranking person in the department you want to work for. (If the company’s small and doesn’t have a website, call and ask for the owner or general manager. When he/she gets on the phone, ask their name. Then hang up. Now you know!)

Next, go to the company’s office — physically, take yourself down to the office (and bring your resume). Ask for the person whose name you’ve just discovered in the previous paragraph. When they emerge, tell them briefly who you are, and that you’d like to give them your resume. Then say this:

”I’m Jane Doe, and I’m a student at Wherever State University. I’d love to do an internship here, and I’m willing to work for minimum wage helping you out in any way you need me to help out.”

You’ve got a 50-50 shot repeating the above. Your chances increase greatly by modifying the approach to:

”I’m Jane Doe, and I’m a student at Wherever State University. I’d love to do an internship here, and I’m willing to work for free, just to gain the experience and a resume entry, helping you out in any way you need me to help out.”

No matter how presumptuous it may be to simply barge into someone’s office and hand them your resume, the prospect of free labor is an aphrodisiac that very few businesspeople can resist. Add to it the fact that you’re obviously a bold and enthusiastic volunteer, and your chances of getting work go through the roof.

Of course, I understand that some people have bills to pay and can’t devote a great deal of time to volunteering. But remember – an internship that takes 5-10 hours a week fills up space on a resume just the same as one that takes 35-40 hours a week. If you can trim back your activities just a bit here and there, maybe you can make it work.

Including internships. Some students say, “Yeah, I did an internship, but it was unpaid.” And then, for that reason, they don’t put it on their resume. Are you nuts? Of course you put it on your resume! Did you learn any less because you weren’t paid? Did you do any less?

It’s not just paying jobs that make experience. It’s not even just volunteer jobs. If you have experience doing something, put it down. Put education first only if you have absolutely no relevant work experience.

This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t take internships if you can. They’re certainly the easiest and most common way to get some real-world job experience while still cocooned away in the college environment, and by all means, if you’ve still got the time and opportunity, do one (or more).

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”Yes, I Invented Post-It Notes” Or To Pad, Or Not To Pad?

by Josh Barsch

With all that talk about the thousands of new competitors you’re going to have for every job thanks to the Internet, you’re probably already thinking about padding your resume. After all, I’ve been railing and railing on you about putting your best foot forward in this one concise page, right? So when the competition is this thick, should you push the envelope to add “extras” that might make the difference between a nice paycheck and another month on unemployment?

Yes, you should. It’s my opinion that you should give yourself every reasonable advantage you can get away with. But padding your resume is an art – it’s not something you can just do haphazardly and expect to get away with. There are some guidelines to follow when you’re padding, and these guidelines will usually ensure that you give your resume some added “oomph” without opening yourself up to looking foolish or, at worst, getting fired later on.

What padding is, and what padding isn’t

Padding means different things to different people. But hey, this is my book, so we’re going to use my definition. Some people think “padding” means inventing jobs, skills and accomplishments out of thin air – jobs you never had, skills you don’t begin to have and accomplishments you never accomplished – and adding them to beef up your resume. That’s not padding – that’s just stupid. I’ll explain why on the next few pages.

There’s no perfect definition of smart resume padding, but there are a few principles which can be your guide.

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