For experience, does it begin post-college or "real world?" Do "college jobs" count. For example, I worked in student housing during most of time, but I don't think that would apply to "experience."
I am nearly six years removed from college. I have been working the last 5.5 years as a research assistant for a non-profit. If I were to apply for another job, would that college experience be something I can count?
I was a chef for 10 years. Now I'm a software dev.
If you want to talk about 'experience' I had this weird situation where I had tons of work experience but none of it was directly related to what I wanted to do.
Why do I bring this up? Should you go off and become a chef? Nah. My point is a bit more abstract. Sometimes what interviewers and recruiters want from your resume is a way of showing what you've learned, what you've got that other's don't have, how you can turn lemons(apparently unrelated experience) into gold plated lemonade.
Being a chef, on the surface, seems very different then being a software dev right? Most of the chefs I know and worked with are awesome, somewhat vulgar, hardworking people who are, shall we say, technologically disinclined. I get a lot of double takes when people see my resume. But I leave it on there - why? Well for starters it's a conversation starter. But I can also talk about flexibility and rapid problem solving, scheduling and managing, my value on planning and structure, my lessons learned on details vs the big picture... well you get the point.
The point of a resume(and any interviews) is to sell yourself and your experience. Consider all the things you learned about yourself, the skills you mastered, the challenges you faced and the things you did at that job. Think about how you juggled work and school, how you supported, in personal and professional ways, the of students under your purview, how you organized and functionally did stuff.
There will come a time when 'chef' won't appear on my resume any more. There will come a time when you will have enough interesting, related work to fill your resume with that 'Student Housing Personnel' won't appear on your resume. That's nature and a function of time. But, to specifically answer your question, experience starts whenever you learn something.
The purpose of a resume is to sell yourself as effectively as possible (I'm assuming that the purpose of this question is to determine what information you want to include on your resume).
That means picking the best things that you can to highlight about yourself. And it can also mean excluding things of lesser stature, as a good resume is also concise (particularly if you're in the U.S.).
As a general rule your resume should not exceed two pages in length. If your "real world" experience takes more than that, it's time to start pruning bits out. And if it doesn't even fill a single page, it's time to dig a bit further and see what else you can find to help make yourself stand out as a candidate.
So when does experience start?
It starts at the present date, and works backwards (for most people in most situations). And it keeps going backwards until you've got enough content to fill a professional-looking resume with your best and most relevant accomplishments.
If you've got real-world experience, then great. If you need to pull in some college-related experience, that's also great so long as it's relevant to the position you're applying for and so long as it's presented in a way that effectively highlights your skills and expertise. Same goes for open-source projects that you may have worked on, or anything else that 1) is relevant to your desired position and 2) makes you look better than the next person.
If your goal is to sell yourself as a prospective employee, "experience" starts wherever you need it to in order to accomplish that. Professional experience is generally better than college experience, and college experience is generally better than no experience at all.
The purpose of your resume is to get you the interview. A secondary purpose is to give you stuff to talk about in the interview.
Is your time working in college housing meaningful to a future employer? I think it probably is. The specific skills you learned probably are not vital to your future. But, think of it this way:
You may have paid for part of your education with that job. THAT's worth bragging about: it shows commitment and dedication.
In that job you learned to work. You probably learned something about customer service. You probably learned something about prioritizing lots of tasks and handling emergencies. You may have learned how to keep track of inventory. Possibly you got some experience dealing with challenging people (drunk american-football players, demanding bosses, etc).
THAT's the stuff you learn on the job that they can't teach in school. THAT's the stuff that a food-service or housing job will teach you. If you're trying to land a non-entry-level job it's helpful to let the employer know they don't have to teach you that stuff.
So, you should consider listing this on your resume something like so (use your words, not mine).
2011-2013 Resident Assistant, College. Served as primary interface between
75 student residents, maintenance, and college administration.
This job paid 50% of my college room and board costs.
Obviously,your full time experience in the last 5.5 years counts for more. I am assuming that your resume is about one page long, so keeping the college work experience (without writing about it in great detail) is not going to be a problem.
As you gain more experience and.or go on to new positions over time, you will run up against the one-page resume limit. You will react first by summarizing your work experience in college e,g. "held several retail positions while in college, which helped me defray my college costs" to no longer mentioning your college work experience at all. It's a natural progression.
In terms of general advice: I suggest that you review your resume periodically, employed or unemployed, and keep updating it if new with new work experience, then new skills and new education. Employed or unemployed, don't let your resume grow stale. Chances are pretty good that, if you are not excited about reading your own resume, nobody else is going to be excited about it either. As an engineer, I am trained to keep the equipment in working order if not in tiptop shape - your resume is part of your equipment :)
I'd like to quote John Dewey here:
We do not learn from experience... we learn from reflecting on experience.
That being said, it counts as experience as long as you can reflect or pull something out of it.
It doesn't matter what you did or where, what matters is whether you learned something.
If you feel that you've learned a valuable lesson from a job, or even a hobby, not thinking about the nature of the job, then yes, it counts as experience.
would that college experience be something I can count?
Did you learn something from this college experience? Did you learn something that makes you a better candidate for the positions you're looking for? Would you do something differently today in comparison to what you did during that period? Did you encounter mistakes and or problems that you'll be able to tackle in easier manners now?
Don't underestimate your experience, but make sure that you can tell how the experience has improved you.
I'd like to bring up a personal example:
Today I work in IT, but I worked in a warehouse during a few summer vacations. I learned that I should always be doing something and if I didn't have anything to do I should ask for something to do.
I'm able to transfer this experience into my present job. Instead of saying I worked in a warehouse I can say something like I worked in a warehouse, where I learned the importance of always having a task at hand and if non were obviously available then I should constantly be asking what I should be doing.
The latter is a reflection of my experience, which is highly appropriate in any case. Find out how you can reflect yours and it will be highly relavant for your current resume.
