"I'm a sophomore this year and I need to update my resume for a scholarship application. I did some really cool stuff in high school, but my roommate says it shouldn;t be on my resume anymore since I'm in college. Is she right?"
The simple answer, like all my other resume advice, is that it depends. Once you are in college, you don't have to list your high school diploma or GED under education because it is assumed. For the most part, once you are in college you shouldn't really have any high school experience left on your resume either--even if those experiences were "really cool stuff."
When you are a freshmen or sophomore, it's not a big deal to still have some high school stuff on your resume, but you should be making an effort to get more college experiences on your resume. By the time you are a junior or senior, there should be absolutely no high school left on your resume.
Of course, there are always exceptions to these rules. High school experiences that are really relevant to whatever you are applying for can stay on your resume. For example, if you volunteered at a youth recreation center for three years in high school and are applying for a summer youth recreation camp position as a college junior, it would be appropriate to leave the high school experience on your resume.
You can tell your roommate that she is both right and wrong on this one.
Got questions? Please feel free to ask The Advisor about it.
hmmm. I'm also a sophomore and have a few things from high school still left on my resume. I figure the awards I won in grade 12 can stay on for a few more years but pretty much everything else is gone. I agree that you do need to review and remove outdated things from you resume, because 1st place in your grade 2 spelling bee just doesn't mean much. However I still have the high school diploma listed on my resume. I've kept it this far because I was certified as bilingual and usually end up doing bilingual work... I also have an award from grade 11 when I received the AP level 5 in french... I intend on keeping those tidbits on my resume until I stop working bilingually, which may not happen anytime soon. So I guess ya, it depends on the relevance of the item to the job you are applying to.
ReplyDeleteHey Anonymous, I'm going to address some of things you bring up in my next post!
ReplyDeleteCheck it out here: http://www.askanadvisor.org/2011/06/should-high-school-stuff-come-off-your.html
ReplyDelete