Host: What if I am a new graduate, or have no experience in the job I am applying for?
Louise Kursmark: It's a great question for particularly as mentioned for new graduates because they will sometimes say I just don't have any experience, I have nothing to put on my resume. You better look at what experiences, what success stories, what projects and so forth you can find maybe from your classroom experience. Maybe from your extracurricular, maybe from your part time jobs.
You might not be able to demonstrate in your resume that you have skill as a whatever is you want to be, a sales professional. But, maybe you want to demonstrate that you have good communications skills, that you have good persuasion abilities, that you are good organizer, that you are a good problem solver. So, think through your experiences in college, in the summers part-time, maybe even back to high school, to find examples that proved you have those skills and use those on your resume.
One of the best places that college students can look to find good experiences would be your classes. A lot of classes now require projects. Think about those projects. What did you do in those projects, was it something that allowed you to demonstrate leadership skills? Did you have a team that wasn’t working well together and you were able to get them to do so.
Did you rescue your project that was in danger of missing a deadline, did you pull a team together to meet a really difficult challenge and succeed with an A-grade or nomination to for an award? Think about the projects of all the different classes that you were in and come up with several success stories to write in your resume that illustrate your skills without having to be genuine professional work experience. Employers don't expect you to have the experience; they do expect you to have the capabilities.