As college students, we are all getting ready to head out in the real world: to get a job and lead our own lives. Most of us have had jobs or internships, which require job interviews. Even then, plenty of people who haven't had a job nor internship have held leadership positions in some sort of extra-curricular activity.
All throughout high school and even now going into my sophomore year of college, I have held countless leadership roles in different organizations. They weren't only because they looked good on resumes, but because I was genuinely interested in the activity. From the years that I have devoted my time and effort to various activities, I realized that it didn't matter if you wanted the leadership title in that organization. In order to actually do the work required of the job, you needed to love the organization.
I'm sure most of you know this already. Why would we join an organization that we aren't genuinely interested in? To be fair, there are people who do that all the time. They devote the time and effort to earn a leadership role in the team and once they get it, they simply sit aside and don't do anything when they step into the role. It's like any other school project. We've all met that one person in our group who doesn't do anything to contribute. We've all been the person who gets mad and rants to our best friends about it because we end up having to do all the work.
Out of the seven organizations that I have been a part of so far in my life and the job that I have taken on, I personally have gone through experiences when people around me weren't doing their work at all. Despite rounds of pleas to get them to do the share of the work that they're responsible for, it's ultimately up to me to fulfill the job that needs to be done; whether it be making an event happen, meeting printing deadlines, or even just showing up to a meeting.
Attending resume workshops wasn't fun. They definitely weren't something that I wanted to spend time in. But I went to them anyway, because I knew that it would benefit me in the future.
As a freshman, I had no idea what I was doing in my life. I knew that I wanted to get an internship or a job to have the experience. When I started my resume, what I had on my Word document was two pages filled with my extracurricular activities in high school. Nothing else. Working up the courage to go to the Career Center to ask for help on where to even really start on my resume, I came out of the office with a better understanding of what should go on the piece of paper and what should be taken out.
As a year passed, I quickly learned most of the things that there is to learn about crafting a resume and building a LinkedIn profile. Whether it be what words to use to "sound" impressive on a resume or what to just throw out from a resume, I've heard them all. Ultimately, it's up to us to use the resources that we have to build up the experience to survive out in the real world and ask others for help when we need it.
