How has being Greek helped your career?

[littleowl33]

I know a few recent grads who were offered jobs by Kappa alums through networking, which is awesome in this economy. However, most of them were engineers who weren't having a lot of trouble finding jobs anyway. 85% of the posts I see on our internal Kappa networking resources (we have a Yahoo group/listserv and a Linked In group) are from recent or soon-to-be grads looking for jobs in marketing/PR/event planning in NYC/LA/other major cities, and I'm not sure how successful they are since there are so many of them asking for help.

I did have my Kappa involvement on my resume for my first job out of college and I think it helped because the leadership roles I had were related to the job I was interviewing for. We discussed it briefly in my interview, mostly in relation to the events I had planned and the recruiting/marketing work I had done, since the job involves planning events and doing recruiting work. I also made sure to include tangible results in the description on my resume. My chapter had a great deal of growth during 3.5 years I was in it and I was heavily involved in that, so I included things like "Was instrumental in increasing yearly chapter recruitment from X women in <year 1> to Y women in <year 3>." I don't think it's as compelling to just say you were highly involved and learned people skills or whatever.

That said, I don't think it's appropriate for your resume for any job. My friends in the hard sciences and engineering did not include their Greek membership on their resumes because it wasn't really relevant and could even be detrimental. It's relevant to the field I work in, but I don't think I'll keep it on my resume for my next job (I'm still working in my first job) because it will be several years old. I would probably include alumna involvement, though.

ETA: My chapter also organized presentations by alums with professional positions in finance, law and the corporate world on how to network, how to dress in the workplace, how to write a resume, "Things I Wish I had Known About the Workplace", etc. in our senior programming. All that stuff was actually really helpful.

[OHNOITSJESS]

Originally Posted by littleowl33

That said, I don't think it's appropriate for your resume for any job. My friends in the hard sciences and engineering did not include their Greek membership on their resumes because it wasn't really relevant and could even be detrimental.

Maybe it's because I'm in an organization specifically for engineering/hard sciences but it's on my resume and most interviewers ask me about my involvement in A.O.E. One of my interviewers turned out to be a Pike alum from another school.

[preciousjeni]

My sorority affiliation has been on my resume ever since I joined. I got my first "career" position, in large part, because of it. I was going for a particular position and had some competition, so I used whatever I could.

I always find a way to bring up my experiences within the Sorority and, on this occasion, it turned out that the executive was herself in Alpha Epsilon Phi. We went off on a tangent about it and I brought the conversation back around to the benefits of having that experience for the job I was applying for.

I got the job and was later told that it was the connection I made with the executive that pushed me above the rest.

I have several years of National Board experience within my Sorority, which always come up in interviews. I attribute that experience to a number of opportunities I've been given.

ETA: The word "multicultural" in my Sorority's name is a great conversation piece and has almost never been overlooked by interviewers who are looking for someone comfortable in "diverse" environments.