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Is it wise to glamourize your resume?


Zerxen
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I'm a senior at a CSU studying economics and I really only had two different jobs my entire life, with 0 internships. My first job is really an unpaid volunteer position at a clinic where I served as a receptionist though I worked at that location for 20 hours a week. The second job I had (several months after my first) was a seasonal position at retail which was incredibly easy but I got laid off because the company was "overstaffed" after Christmas. I commuted 20 miles throughout college and it was hard for me to get hired throughout these four years of school (especially since I had a 5 day class schedules). Didn't help that the location I lived in was primarily Spanish speaking. Beyond this, I have a bunch of community service experience from a club I joined though it usually revolves around helping disabled kids and picking up trash. I almost got hired this year but I was forced to reject the job because it had a 40 hour work week (no flexible hours) and at least three of my classes this semester are holding real time lectures.

Is it worth lying on my resume? My outline is filled with info about my previous positions,  classes I've taken, Excel experience, typing speed, etc. I was thinking of changing "volunteer" to "receptionist" for my first job and perhaps "stretching the truth" about certain skills. I wouldn't go as far as putting in companies I never set foot in nor falsifying skillsets I lack.

Edited by Zerxen
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Embeliish but don't lie on your resume. You can use sites like Career Builder and Monster to find work even with little experience. Once you have built a work history that spans multiple jobs, it gets easier. 

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3 hours ago, Zerxen said:

I was thinking of changing "volunteer" to "receptionist" for my first job

Assuming you were a volunteer receptionist, then yes, you can put that. As long as you did what you say you did, it doesn't matter whether or not you were paid for doing it.

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Just try to connect your previous job experiences to your new one. Employers are looking for transferable skills and experiences, so don't lie about what you've done. Just be creative on how you did stuff. I'm in the same boat as you, so I definitely feel your worry.

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There is no need to lie. Employers care about your experiences, not your pay, so I would not feel worried or ashamed that you are not being paid.

I would also classify volunteering as work depending on the nature and structure of your duties, and being a receptionist with set hours is definitely closer to regular work rather than volunteering in my opinion, so I would put that under the previous work section rather than under the miscellaneous/volunteering section. Volunteering twenty hours a week unpaid is not that different from a part time unpaid internship.

If you are volunteering at an animal shelter a few times a month, tutoring kids at the local library once a week, or something like that, where there is very little hours and no expectation of long term commitment (e.g.: no one complains if you skip a week or a month), then that would fit more into miscellaneous/volunteering section.

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