Boise State Career Center Service-Learning Tips!

If you are just starting your Service-Learning experience, be sure to consider your career goals while progressing in your service-learning project. How will this experience relate to the career you plan to pursue? What roles or tasks give you an opportunity to develop skills you haven’t had a chance to use in a professional setting before?

To get the most out of your Service-Learning experience, consider meeting with a career counselor for help exploring your career options or determining what skills you need to gain for your career, or check out online career planning resources in the Virtual Career Center.

Did you know that Service-Learning is considered real experience that can and should go on your future resumes?

Service-Learning will help you gain skills, hands-on experience, and professional contacts that are critical for your employability. The Career Center has resume tips as well as virtual workshops to help you along your way.

What if the service-learning project you’re working on isn’t directly related to your career goals? Did you know this experience will still be valuable to future employers if you use it as an opportunity to develop skills important to your career? These are transferable skills.

Employers have identified the top transferable skills, or competencies, they expect entry-level hires to have. Check out the list!

Your Service-Learning project absolutely counts as real experience to employers, so make the most of it on your resume! Where you put it depends on how closely related it is to your career goals and to your other experiences. Especially if your project is related to your career goals, make sure to highlight it front and center! In your resume include a descriptive title for your SL project, the name of the community organization, dates or semester, and bullet points describing relevant tasks, skills used, and outcomes.

For assistance with how to add your project to your resume, check out the Career Services’ virtual workshop on resumes, make an appointment, or come to their Drop-Ins.

Failure is a reality of work, and because of that, most employers don’t want to hire someone who has never had the experience of failing and figuring out how to move forward. When you’re applying for internships and career positions, employers will ask you about times you experienced failures, setbacks, and challenges, and will evaluate how you handled those situations.

If you’re experiencing challenges or unexpected setbacks in your project, make sure to use them to your advantage!

• • • Think about what story you’d want to be able to tell a future employer. What steps did you proactively take to address the situation?
    • Get help turning those challenges into impressive examples to use in interviews!
    • Make an appointment with a career counselor now while the experience is still fresh in your mind!

“Behavioral-based” interview questions are becoming increasingly popular. These questions often start with “tell me about a time when…” of “give me an example of…”, and ask you to tell a story. Employers ask these questions to learn about your ability to use important skills.

Through Service-Learning and other experience you have during your time at Boise State, you should be actively collecting potential interview stories. As you’re finishing up your Service-Learning, this is the perfect time to look back at your experience and generate a list of potential stories for future interviews.

To learn more about preparing for these interview questions, check out the Career Center’s virtual workshop on interviewing, or make an appointment for help identifying and figuring out how to tell your best stories from your Service-Learning experience.