Chicken, Apple Sauce, Lettuce, Cream Cheese…and then BOOM you’re in the middle of Aisle 8 at the grocery store and cannot for the life of you remember what else it was that you needed to get. This happens all because you were so sure you did not need a written down list as you had been making some mental notes all week long of what you needed to restock. How could I possibly forget??? It was something really important that I needed! No, this is not about my own grocery struggles, but instead it is to encourage the practice of list making, but for your resume, and maybe your groceries, too.
Tell me if you’ve been in this situation: You are about to re-enter the job market and you go to update your current or most recent job annnnnnnnnnnnd now you’re like me in Aisle 8, blanking. You know what would have been really helpful? If you had made a list of the projects, presentations, calls, extra tabling, one off helping another department, etc as you went along. We do so much work in our positions that it is nearly impossible to go back and recall everything that we had been able to do in this role. This is an on-going shopping list of all the extra things, big and small. It’s simple, not overly time consuming and will save you your time back x10 and then some when you go to update your resume.
Instead of racking your brain for that presentation you did in front of executives or that time you jumped into the mascot suit for a basketball game because your student workers were unable to (yes, I’m talking about me), it will make your life a lot easier. Not only is it beneficial to do this for resume purposes, but if you ever hit a rough day at work or school, which we all do, you can refer back to this list to see all of the wonderful things you have accomplished during your time in the role. To wrap this up, I’m just going to share the real list I had made during my time as a Graduate Assistant at Kutztown University in the Athletics Department. Keep in mind, when making this list, you’re not crafting the actual resume statement/bullet point, just the bare bones concept of WHAT you did so you can expand later on. Enjoy reading a list through the eyes of a much more raw version of myself, also, I used “Assisted”, which is not a very strong action verb. In fact, we advise against using verbs like, “Assisted”, “Helped”, “Aided”, etc. Please visit the button below for a list of strong resume action verbs from our website:
