My next blog post is up on The Huffington Post. Hope you will check it out and re-tweet if you like it! Here is an excerpt:
While many recent grads have spent the summer hustling for jobs, completing internships and taking summer classes, I have a hunch that others have acquired deep tans, toned abs and a slew of ticket stubs from summer concerts.
While I celebrate your right to slack off during your summer (and I’m a bit jealous of this liberty), you may find a summer of pool parties and margaritas is a disadvantage when you start hunting for a job or internship this fall.
If you haven’t had the most professionally proactive summer, here are some tips for what to do about it:
1. Give yourself some credit. Lots of things count as experience that you might not realize. For instance, retail jobs, babysitting or working for your parents’ business can be described in ways that demonstrate your drive, leadership and professional skills. Did you manage your time and money? Were your sales in the top percentage of all employees? Did you learn how to work with different types of people? All of these are invaluable workplace skills that can be mentioned on a resume or in a cover letter.
2. Acknowledge if you needed rest. If you had a rough year leading up to the summer months, it’s okay to characterize your summer as a time of restoration. Whether you got back in shape, learned to cook or perfected the latest yoga pose, these methods of self-renewal are good uses of your time. I do worry that your generation is under a lot of pressure and the stress that follows can be unhealthy in the long term. Just be sure to use your newfound energy to propel yourself this fall.
