"It looks really good on a resume."
"Employers love to see stuff like that."
"I'm just doing it because I know people will think it's impressive."
The statements above are things that I have heard college kids say over and over in my three years so far at school. The fact of the matter is, we are almost all guilty of it. By "it," I mean planning our activities and involvement around building a resume.
A resume is a scary thought; it is a piece of paper that reflects everything that you are to a potential employer. It is a piece of paper that stands in the way of you and your dream job, or you and your top-choice grad school. We all want our resumes to reflect the very best of ourselves.
Life is about doing things with purpose. Purpose can be a passion or a love; purpose can be for the good of others or for the relaxation of oneself. If tasks and involvement are selected and done without purpose, they are simply a waste of time.
You are not your resume.
Yes, resumes are extremely important, but if being involved is backed with the sole reason of using that involvement as a bullet point on a piece of paper, then it is done wastefully.
There are activities that are crucial and do add positively to a resume; however, the purpose behind those activities should be to better oneself or increase a knowledge or skill.
An example would be completing an unpaid internship; yes, the task will be something great to add to a resume, but the purpose behind the internship should be to increase skills and knowledge.
Life is short and we all want our resumes to be long. But life is too short to do things because we feel like we have to. What about those tough tasks that are needed? Finding purpose behind them other than "they are resume builders" will change the way those tasks are done.
Because let's face it, a resume doesn't come close to reflecting who we really are. A resume can't tell an employer about the new yoga pose you mastered last week. It can't explain the joy that you brought a woman at the nursing home by visiting her and listening to her stories.
For the remainder of the school year, focus on doing things because you want to or because you want to better yourself. Your resume is a document of action verbs and past experiences; give your actions and involvement purpose.
