The first year of law school is an inundation of resume and interview advice. I’ve even had the same career services counselor edit my resume twice – in contradictory ways. Through the mess, however, there has been one steady suggestion that stands apart from all the formating preferences and tips we learned in undergrad:
Add an “Interests” line.
You know – interests. Besides all the community service you did to make your resume look better. Like your love of Spanish cooking or talent with watercolors. But like all things on your resume, you don’t want to include anything you can’t talk to a real enthusiast about, lest the only reason they gave you an interview was this personal connection.
This is the point in editing my resume when I realized I don’t have any real interests. So I combed back through my life to figure out what I do with my free time. I came up with reality television, drinking with friends, flirting with boys. I took a look at my facebook profile. Unfortunately “Mardi Gras” is not an appropriate interest unless you’re applying to a float building company. That doesn’t mean that I don’t do other things – I just don’t do them enough to confidently converse about them.
I’m a dabbler.
I dabble in sewing. I dabble in dancing. I dabble in writing. running. yoga. cooking.
While trying new things is fun and exciting, I just hadn’t realized that I have the same stopping point for everything – beginner.
So this is what my resume has called on me to do: beat the beginner level.
My 3-step strategy:
1. Vocabulary – for example, for yoga I need to actually learn and retain the names of the poses and meditations. For cooking I need to know a variety of techniques and common ingredients for particular genres of food.
2. Repertoire – I need to have several finished products under my belt. For writing it might be a few short stories. For running I might do a 5K. Something I can talk about.
3. Evaluation – I need to have an opinion about what I like and what I don’t like. I love vinyasa yoga, but not bikram yoga. For cooking I only use cast-iron pans and much prefer to broil than bake. Then I need to be able to defend my opinion.
So how close am I to beating the beginner level? I largely have Step 3 down (it doesn’t take much to get an opinion out of me) but Steps 1 and 2 need some major work.
It’s amazing how life condensed to a page draws attention to where you’ve fallen short. It’s so obvious that a good job candidate has work experience, school activities, and community service. We don’t forget to work on these aspects of ourselves. The things that make us interesting people, however, often get the shaft as we take on more responsibilities. I love the “Interests” line. It gives credit to being a student of life rather than just a student of a university. Objective now: to become a better student of life.
photo credit: frankh
Someone’s blog is looking awesome! And what a good post, too!
I agree that so many people have breadth but lack depth…though sadly for them it may not just be on the Interests line..
It’s good to think about things like this. It’s so easy to take on so many things, and so tempting. I think you’re already pretty darn good at many of those things above, good enough to easily fill the resume line, but in the game of life we all have our own expectations for being a rockstar…and it’ll be fun to see how you get to that stage in whichever of those areas you pick.
good ideas! i was mourning the state of my “interest” line this week… once i have to condense “art” to a single interest (rather than listing different eras/media separately), i’m in big trouble! too bad reality television connoisseurship isn’t (yet) an acceptable interest, because we rock at that.
I think the key to the “interests” line is to think of the “eyes light up” thing – what is it that, when they bring it up on your resume, is going to make you visibly more enthusiastic and break the tension of the interview. I don’t think it’s as important that you’re an expert, just that you’re naturally interested in talking about it.
So even if you’re talking about “working up to a 5k” but seem to love the process, or “just getting into yoga” and seem excited about it, I think that goes a long way. And if the person you’re talking to is much more experienced you can always turn it around and start asking him or her about it – people love to talk about their own hobbies, and it’s going to be a more memorable conversation than the interviewer had with the last person in your chair, or the next.
I’m sure there are some type-A lunatics that will look down on you for listing yoga without having actually run your own studio at some point, but they’ll find other insane reasons to reject you too, so whatever. Some people will hate you for no good reason – that’s just a part of interviewing.
That’s my perspective as a fellow 2L know-nothing, anyway.
Technotheory: thanks!
liz g: I know – if you want to see expertise ask me some ANTM trivia.
m: that’s a really great point. The key is the ability to converse intelligently about something and come off as genuine. Asking a true enthusiast about their experience is a great way to make your interviewer feel special
It’s the interviewer who isn’t an enthusiast but wants you to talk about something that sounds interesting who worries me.