Welcome back, everyone! Hoping you’re gearing up for a fun Halloween weekend and many treats along the way. Today, we wanted to focus on the importance of school (mainly undergraduate college) involvement and how it builds a toolkit through which you can nail interviews. How can you get involved at college? How do you ensure that these activities translate in an interview setting? How can you merge career aspirations with extracurriculars? Find out everything you need to know below!

Building Involvement Aligned with Your Future Carrer

Student Organizations

Above all, it should come as no shock that joining a student organization is the easiest, most convenient, and quickest way to increase your involvement outside of coursework. Whether your membership requires an application, or joining without prior requisites, student organizations offer a variety of different activities, skill builders, and friendship opportunities. Most universities host campus-wide organization fairs and virtual events to facilitate students’ ability to learn about opportunities to join new groups and recruit throughout the academic year! So, reach out to an advisor, friend, or even professor to identify your next and closest resource. Especially for those of you pursuing student orgs. in hopes of ‘beefing up’ your resume, make sure to ask about their corporate involvement and how they create relationships with employers. As a participant in ‘Women in Business’ in college, we were encouraged to attend speaker events during which corporate employers would explain their product and employment offerings, how to get involved, and what a career would look like at their company. By attending under the guise of your student org. identity, you’re not only benefitting from the chance to actually meet employers but also by the association with a prestigious and recognized student group that employers are actively recruiting from!

Volunteering

Another great way to increase your extracurricular involvement and achieve a holistic candidate profile (including community involvement!) is by volunteering. Not only through student organizations but also by self-search, you can easily identify a vast array of volunteering opportunities specifically geared toward causes that mean the most to you. We encourage you to seek out student volunteering platforms, identify volunteer-based organizations, and ask around to find a group that will join you in your efforts to give back! It is also super crucial to your longevity with an organization that you identify a cause that resonates with you and that you believe in. Recruiters absolutely consider longevity from candidates, so committing to a volunteering opportunity long-term is a great way to simultaneously showcase loyalty to an organization.

Greek Life or Business Fraternities

Like the above, a large component of Greek life includes philanthropic efforts! Many organizations “COB” in the spring to provide an additional opportunity to rush their organization, get to know members, and potentially join permanently. If you are more interested in the professional or academic side of fraternity life, then joining a business “frat” may serve as an even better opportunity to fit your preferences! Within these organizations, it’s crucial to pursue a leadership position to increase involvement and showcase an uphill trajectory throughout your college ‘career’. Are you interested in member development? Philanthropic leadership? Recruiting? Financial management? Marketing promotions? Well good news, you can seek increased involvement by pursuing any one of those key pillars of a successful org.! So, make sure that, before joining a sorority or fraternity of any kind, you inquire about long-term leadership potential.

T.A. or R.A. Positions

Finally, if you’re looking for academic credit, potential scholarship, or paid opportunities, applying to be a teacher’s assistant in a course that you have experience in, or living in a dorm/residence hall and working in a “management” position as an R.A. is a fantastic option. Make sure to look into these opportunities as early on as possible to solidify your placement in the position! Not only will doing so provide credit or a paycheck, but also an amazing leadership opportunity through which to craft your resume experiences.