Edging the competition

David Lai

With today’s declining economy, the job market for new college graduates is more competitive than ever. Stellar grades and leadership experience is no longer enough to make a resume stand out above the rest. Nowadays, the most important qualifications for a college graduate aren’t even obtained in college. Instead, they come from industry, in the form of internship and cooperative education experiences.

Today, relevant industry experience is absolutely essential for graduates who want a leg up on the competition. According to an article written by Linedda Cates-McIver, “many companies who recruit college graduates will not even consider for an interview a student who has not participated in an internship or cooperative education program.” This is because there is much to gain from an internship or co-op experience that cannot be learned in a classroom. According to Mark Oldman, co-author of The Internship Bible and America’s Top Internships, “it shows that you have the office skills and soft skills, such as how to be a professional, and how not to step on toes when carrying out work assignments. These are the things you can only learn on a job.”

From personal experience, I can safely say that there is no replacement for on-site job experience. Having completed four different work rotations for three different companies, I will say that the most important skills that I took to each subsequent job were the ones I learned from my previous work experiences, not the classroom. While there is still incredible value in the academic knowledge taught at universities, there is no better driver than experience to both jump start your career and develop highly sought after analytical skills.