How do people react when you mention you are involved as an alum

[modorney]

> When a GLO graduates and puts on thier resume, that they were a member, many times they will be hired over others who were not

The operative word is "many". In four decades of technology employment, pretty much every interview I had could be boiled down to two questions:
1. Can you do the job?
2. Can you work with the people and culture here?

My college era was a great time for Greeks, and, even though Greeklife has risen and fallen a few times in the intervening years, I was usually competing with those about my age. Many times, my fraternity experience was brought up, particularly with respect to managing a small group of people.

With many projects, where we were working 80+ hours a week, the office resembled a fraternity house - people needed to be fed, housed, and risk management came in to play. Naturally, we weren't drunk, but I had to drive many a worker home, who had worked 36 hours straight, and had fallen asleep in my car.

The particular house did not matter, but the experience was crucial, and companies hired because of it.

[REE1993]

Originally Posted by modorney

>

My college era was a great time for Greeks, and, even though Greeklife has risen and fallen a few times in the intervening years, I was usually competing with those about my age. Many times, my fraternity experience was brought up, particularly with respect to managing a small group of people.

The second sentence quoted here is very interesting (I left the first one for context).

In my work experience, I can't think of a single conversation about managing groups of people and Greek experience in college. I think that the topic of being Greek was brought up a few times during idle conversation over the years, but none of it was in relation to anything related to skills or experience, or anything work-related.

I imagine that in other parts of the country, being Greek might come up more frequently during general conversation, but as I stated earlier, being Greek doesn't guarantee you a job over someone else *simply* because of affiliation. It might get your resume to the top of the "look" pile, but that's about it.

Has anyone had "many" or some work experiences where you were given favor (as in actually being hired for a particular job) simply because you were Greek? How about due to your specific affiliation?

Caveat - we all know that membership has its privileges. I am not talking about personal favors or gratis services.

[skylark]

I put my greek affiliation on my resume, but I can also add ", President" after it, which insures that it will mean at least something to even non-greeks. If I wasn't at least a VP (title infers significant leadership experience), I personally wouldn't list it unless the job had to do with planning social functions or something where the affiliation in general would be highly relevant.

I have been in two interviews where someone looked at my resume, mentioned it, and asked about my experience. In one interview, the interviewer was in a fraternity, in the other interview, the interviewer cooked in one of my GLO's sorority houses while in college. In the end, I got both jobs. Whether there is any correlation, I don't know. Both interviews were the kind that you leave from and think "I nailed it."

I think people like to hear about your interests and try to get an idea of who you are socially. Having a conversation about your greek experience in an interview, especially if the other person is greek, can be a powerful chit chat portion of the interview. You don't want an interview to be ALL business. This is an opportunity to talk about something lighter. That is why I put it on my resume, mainly.

[Fleur de Lis]

I also include my Kappa involvement on my resume and list the positions that I advise. I think it shows commitment and leadership. It has been helpful when the interviewer is greek, but I certainly wouldn't expect it to get me the job. It just tells them a little more about me after I've listed all my skills, experience, education, etc.