Posted by Tim Chen, Career Services Career Assistant

With the school year coming to a close, it’s now a good time to look back and see what you have learned in the year.  Depending on your class, you might have gained a wide variety of experience.  These might include technical skills from application specific courses, communication skills from public speaking, management from working in club organizations, or leadership from group projects you were involved in.

After you have brainstormed and figured out what you’ve learned and the skills you’ve gained, take the time to apply it towards your resume.  Depending on how much information you generated, this could create an addition to your activities section, your education section, or stand out as its own section in the resume.  If you feel that you have a strong resume and cannot place the skills in your resume, then write them down somewhere (while your ideas are fresh in your mind) so that you can reference them.  This comes in handy when you want to talk about skills and experiences outside of your resume for documents such as Cover Letters or answering questions in interviews.

Overall, reflecting on your experiences and skills gained within the year allows you to not only remember all of the things you might have done the previous year, but also to figure out how you might handle your pursuit in the future.