Lack of leadership experience
Hi everyone,
how important is it to have leadership experience on your resume?
I don't really have anything - partly because I didn't really care about it when i started college (wasn't that ambitious back then...) and partly because I did other things such as part-time work to get some money or a semester in Asia. I guess that was not particularly smart and it's my own fault, but it's too late now for me to get anything relevant while still in school.
For the record: I'm European, my school is not bad (I guess something like no. 5-10 in Europe) and grades are good. I also had an ok internship last summer (Big4 M&A), but my other work experience is not really relevant.





It definitely helps. Shows
It definitely helps. Shows that you can be a team player and take charge when needed. Could certainly be a deal breaker if the competition is especially fierce
Just saying...
Depends for what
Depends for what organization/club. I would say 95% of college clubs are a joke and people don't do anything. If you're the president of the vegetarian club, no one is going to care.
Rambo: Depends for what
Depends for what organization/club. I would say 95% of college clubs are a joke and people don't do anything. If you're the president of the vegetarian club, no one is going to care.
This is what I find. A lot of student org "leadership" positions are BS and contribute nothing to the organization. But employers eat that shit up when they see it on a resume.
Just start your own group.
Just start your own group. Problem solved.
If your resume is already
If your resume is already getting you 1st round interviews then it doesn't matter too much. However, you still need to have a story about a time you were a leader / your leadership style for the behavioral questions.
If you aren't getting 1st round interviews, adding some leadership experience will definitely help. You can always get involved with something outside of school (volunteer with kids).
Leadership can be defined in two words: "Follow Me"
Leadership experience
Leadership experience definitely helps. Not having any signals that you're not ambitious and that you lack social skills, but it's not hard to get leadership experience you can put on your resume. If you stop and think about it, you probably already have a few things you can classify as "leadership experience". Also, you don't have to have the "President" title in a campus group to have leadership experience. Get involved with some groups and see if they need a Treasurer, VP of Recruiting, etc. You can create a new position if you have to. If all else fails, you can always start your own group and call yourself President and Supreme Dictator.
http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/group/big-4-accounting
http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/group/entrepreneur
Are you seeking a leadership
Are you seeking a leadership position? If you are seeking a position where you would be leading a team, it is important that you have successfully led teams at work before or show that you are ready to do so in short order. If not, it doesn't matter. The only leadership positions I have cared about when hiring are those that are work related. President of the finance club (or whatever) in college is irrelevant to me. It's not like that teaches you how to manage people in a work environment. It's fluff and everyone knows it.
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Thanks for your responses,
Thanks for your responses, very helpful.
I have been involved with some non-profit organization organizing a congress. I volunteered there for about 5 months (inviting speakers etc.) and was paid the other 3 months. There was no real "leadership" involved in the sense of leading others, but I guess being something like director of marketing for a student club does not involve this either.
How should I put this resume, considering that I was paid for 3 months (as I certainly dont want to lie or anything)? Putting it as work experience seems useless (at least I wouldn't care if I were a recruiter).
Thanks a lot!
It probably doesn't matter
It probably doesn't matter much either way, unless it is highly memorable. The only example I ever remember where extracurricular activities or leadership in these activities caught my interest as an interviewer was when a kid got Mark Cuban to speak at his finance club event. He pressed on Cuban's assistant about dates he would be in town during a Maverick's game and befriended her. It worked. The bad news, the kid had one of the most impressive resumes coming out of college that we would have easily hired him anyway. This just reinforced how badass of a candidate he was.
Bottom line: leadership experiences in school or lack thereof have never influenced my decision to hire someone one way or the other and I have interviewed hundreds of college students and have hired dozens. It doesn't matter either way because the skill doesn't really transfer to the job.
Turbo leverage for capital explosion -- BD Capital
My WSO Blog