You're looking at your resume. You stare blankly at it, all it has is your past work experience of part time jobs, an internship, maybe some clubs, organizations, or sports you were a part of in school. Now you're about to graduate and you're wondering how your past jobs and internships help you with getting an actual job. The fact is, most part time jobs can help you prepare for the real world.
I will use my own past experiences as examples to show what I mean. Currently I want to go into something in the digital advertising or marketing areas of work. Most of these are working with clients by listening and implementing plans
ShopRite:
I worked here for about a little under four years. Three of them I was a cashier. While working here I learned money management by dealing with cash, credit cards, debit cards, EBT, and checks. When not behind the register I would probably be found doing "Throwbacks" which is putting unwanted items back on the shelves or leveling isles and making them look full. While doing this I was also constantly being asked questions by customers about sales in the flyers, where something was, if we had certain items, or anything else you could ask a teenager working in a supermarket at minimum wage. Of course I also had the customers who would yell at me when something did not go their way. By dealing with customers on a daily basis who were either satisfied or dissatisfied and actually talking, explaining, and remaining calm I built up experience with customer/clientele relations.
Guinta's Meat Farms:
During my time at Guinta's there was mainly three things I learned that can help me after school when looking into getting a full time job. Both of the first two have to do with customer relations. Due to working in the deli department, I dealt with face to face customer service similar to ShopRite. The only difference was that because it was a smaller store, I dealt with the same customers on a daily basis. This led to customers asking for my name, when I would be in, knowing the basics of their orders and somehow remembering their faces in the sea of customers I would deal with every day. This could be considered building and maintaining customer relations. The other piece of the customer relations would be over the phone. When a manager or assistant manager would not be able to get the phone, they would ask me to answer it. This led to me having to learn how to talk with customers who had questions, vendors who needed information I would need to find out. This was pretty much just answering a phone but I did learn how to properly answer the phone, not just say "Hey," as if it was my cell phone, and how to speak to a customer over a phone and try to make sure they stayed satisfied so they continued to come to our store. The last thing I learned was time management. With this job, I was normally put on the opening shift. This required me to get to the store at least 10-15 minutes before opening, set up the machines and counter, get any product that was not put in the case the night before, grab anything a vendor might have brought the night before or boxes that were needed from the back room, and much more. Because of this I had to know what time to get up, what time I needed to leave and get to the store by, and know how much time I had to spend on each task to make sure everything was done before the store opened up for shoppers.
So although these are basic skills that can be learned anywhere, I did get experience with more than just scanning items, stocking product, and slicing meats and cheeses. So the next time you think you aren't getting any experience out of a random part time job, look a little harder and notice what you are really doing.
