You’ve spent four years or more building your knowledge and perhaps even earned a high GPA. You may have even worked several full-time jobs to help pay your way through school. The question now is, “is any of this experience relevant and something a potential employer is interested in?” This is very much an, “it depends” kind of answer. My rule of thumb? If you have done something that has taken up your time and shows that you can balance academics and other types of responsibility, include it. Let the hiring manager, recruiter, etc. decide what is relevant.
On a resume, highlighting your body of work in the most comprehensive way, without going over one page, means including what has taken up your time. Some candidates have spent all of their time on academic pursuits and internships, some candidates may have been busier with athletic commitments, and then some may have spent a nice chunk of their time working to support themselves. Not a single of these scenarios is better than other, just different. Just because the person that has had to work a number of smaller part time jobs hasn’t had the time to take part in as many school sponsored activities doesn’t mean they are any less qualified.
As a recruiter, my main goal is to assess what you have done with the time you had during your undergrad years, and how you balanced and what made up all of that time. I can tell you, a lot a recruiters and hiring managers will like to see that a candidate was able to balance the demands of academics with the demands that come along with a part time job. Don’t cut yourself short by removing them.
With all of that said, still be smart about what you include. Do not include a part time job if it’s going to take space on your resume away from academic pursuits or relevant internship experience. It’s all about balancing all of the things you have done when it comes to crafting that resume. This may mean only including a few part time work experiences, or more, depending on how much room you have and what your experiences have been!
Ryan Scheuer is a Recruitment Senior Analyst at Accenture, primarily focusing on full-time and intern recruiting for the Accenture Consulting, Accenture Technology and Accenture Strategy business units. He also partners with campus teams in the development of the strategic direction of marketing efforts and the on-campus recruitment programming.