I’m teaching a group of potential job hunters and one thing that concerns them in our topic of resume-writing is that space labeled “work experience.” Since all of them are still college kids, they aren’t quite sure how to fill this up, especially when they’ve observed that some job postings often have that item “experience necessary” or “experience required.” So I thought of my past experiences and how I was able to land a supervisory rank job even right after graduation.

Freelance Work. College shouldn’t be a time to just focus on academics. It can also be a time to gain some work experience and earn money on the side. Freelance work is indeed a good way to improve your skills on something. For most of the time, freelance work gives you complete control over your time making it a tad more student-friendly. Not only that, with each project you complete is a prize in the bag (for your portfolio) and the people/clients you get to meet are contacts that you might be able to use in the future. Most freelance work are for creative work - art, design, wand riting or technical work - coding code snippets.

Part-time Work. Similar with freelance work, part time work can be anything from flipping burgers in MacDonald’s or being a student assistant in your college. While these jobs could be “menial.” Working students command a lot of my respect. It’s hard to balance academic work with a fixed schedule. Good HR people also acknowledge this fact.

Internships. While these things may not pay at all, internships give you a lot in terms of experience. You get to be immersed in a particular workplace related to your future field like in a design, law, or marketing firm. This not only gives you the rank-and-file experience, you also get to see work done first-hand. Most companies who offer internships also look into “absorbing” good talent from their pool of interns into the organization.

Volunteer Work. So even if it’s not paid . This shows so many things about you. First of, this means that despite having an academic workload, you are able to balance both and the other one’s (the volunteer work) done in your own volition! Yes, and the experience also builds up soft skills like people and communication skills not to mention building up a “fine upstanding citizen” image.

Extra-curricular Activities. Same with volunteer work but still, school related. Being an active and influential member in your student organization also ups your experience points. Regardless of the nature of your organization and your projects, you will definitely experience working with people, thus developing your people skills. If you happen to be a project leader, this immediately gives you a first hand experience in management.

Building a Portfolio Some companies would often look for alternative brownie points especially if they welcome fresh graduates in their fold. One of the ways they can measure an applicant’s aptitude is through his/her portfolio. This can constitute previous work done on the side or these can be past freelance projects. Some companies would often invest on young talent and be willing to let you undergo training under its fold.

So don’t be afraid to list these things under work experience, especially if you don’t have any “real” prior experience since you’ve just graduated.