Job

“11 ways to revamp your resume with study abroad experience”

**by Kylee Borger via “USA TODAY“**

It’s summer internship application season — time to get those resumes in order!

If you have spent time studying abroad, this is your chance to shine and highlight the skills and experiences that make you extra-special and set you apart from your competitors.

No matter where you are in your study abroad experience — just starting to think about it, already diving off the deep end or wrapping your experience up — here are some tasks you should undertake to polish up your resume.

PRE-STUDYING ABROAD — SETTING YOURSELF UP FOR SUCCESS

1. Plan to study abroad. (Yes, I know this one’s obvious, but still most important!)

2. List goals for what you would like to accomplish — skills you want to gained, other things you want to learn, etc.

3. Share those goals with your friends to keep yourself accountable.

4. Bribe yourself if you accomplish your goals. Treat yourself to a spa day or a night out. You deserve it after that hard, semester-long work.

WHILE YOU’RE STUDYING ABROAD—THE REAL-LIFE EXPERIENCE

5. Study the language (it’s the most marketable skill you can gain during your global adventure).

6. Get an internship to add some international spice to your work experience.

7. Broaden your horizons and meet new people you would otherwise never meet (who can help you get a job abroad).

POST-STUDYING ABROAD — THE ACTUAL ‘PUTTING IT ON YOUR RESUME’ PART

8. Reflect on how this experience changed you as a person and gave you new skills. Use this opportunity to tweak your objective on your resume if your study abroad experience has altered your goals.

9. Create a separate sub-heading for your study abroad experience under the education section on your resume. It is different from your other educational experience and it deserves the spotlight in its own space.

10. Highlight your new skills. So, you just had an adventure for a semester abroad, out of your comfort zone. What did you learn? You just had a new life experience that lasted a decent amount of time; odds are you have some new skills that your future employers would love to hear about. Maybe you learned a language, or how to adapt, etc. Either way, add your newfound skills to your resume. . . . .

“How to Sell Your Study Abroad Experience to Employers”

by Anna Jonas via “HP“

Studying abroad is the experience of a lifetime. Your view of the world expands, you become more independent, and you learn more than you ever thought possible. It also looks great on a resume. But it can be hard to put everything that you learned into words on paper. Here’s how to explain to employers the benefits of your time abroad and all that you gained from your experience.

Going through the study abroad application process requires you to be diligent and persistent. With so many interviews and forms, you need to be self-disciplined to get through all of it. This serves as evidence to employers that you are committed and will see projects through to the end. Plus, dealing with all that paperwork forces you to be organized, a necessary skill to do any job efficiently.

There are tons of details you need to carefully plan before you study abroad, from getting a visa to finding a place to live to buying health insurance. All of these things require careful preparation and time management skills in order to get them all done properly and in time, showing employers that you are efficient and detail oriented.

Living in another culture can be tough. Moving to a new city or country requires you to adapt to cultural differences and deal with change. It can also test your problem-solving abilities, forcing you to be resourceful and creative in your foreign surroundings. These are skills that many employers look for, since today’s society is constantly evolving and employees need to be able to quickly adjust to new situations in unfamiliar environments and tackle complex issues.

We live in a globalized world. By studying abroad and constantly being around people from other countries, you gain valuable intercultural communication skills, particularly if the place where you studied had a language barrier. These skills, whether in English or another language, are incredibly valuable to employers as today’s workforce is incredibly diverse. Doing business or interacting with people from other cultures is a fact of life and being able to communicate effectively makes doing business a lot easier. . . .