Resume help for a just emerging young professional.

October 8, 2011 9:25 AM

Resume help! How to highlight abroad working experience to break into another field.

Currently teaching in China and upon my return I am hoping to focus my job search on working with the National Park Service or Fish and Wildlife maybe even NGO/non-profits focused on environmental awareness.

The catch here is that I am teaching in China-- as an attempt to see if I would enjoy pursuing teaching, which I have decided its not really the field I wish to stay in. While my experience here is interesting and will prepare me for later in my career if I were to pursue a Masters in Environmental Policy or a J.D. in Environmental Law, I'm not sure if it will be easy to get into the NPS after a stint like this.

Hoping that MeFis can help give me some insight and perspective on how to display this experience that will help me land a job as a park ranger or education tech positions. Questions I have are: do I list this experience on my resume? How do I explain to HR/employers who are interested in how this experience relates to various positions? I feel a bit ridiculous for even being here when this doesn't quite relate to the field I hope to enter.

My background was in Recreation Management-- I have worked in the government and non-profit sectors before relating to park/open areas/preservation and utilization.

posted by melizabeth to Work & Money (3 answers total)

i have never worked as a teacher or instructor in canada or abroad so my advice may be off, but based on some very basic research it seems like communication skills, listening skills, patience, planning and organization, etc... are skills that are required in order to teach effectively. these are referred to as "soft" skills which are valuable for many jobs and careers. so, sell these soft skills as much as possible and say things like: communicated effectively in order to instruct students, established some sort of dialogue between yourself and your students, planned lessons for the class (or something along those lines), and learned how to manage a classroom setting which shows signs of leadership too.

in response to your questions:
-definitely list this experience on your resume because it shows that you are ambitious and can work well with others and independently
-you can say something like "i wanted to grow more as a person and wanted to further develop certain skills so i thought that teaching abroad would be great for me"
-don't feel ridiculous or think this is ridiculous, a lot of people respect anyone that teaches abroad because teaching in general can be difficult, let alone in an entirely new and unfamiliar environment
posted by sincerely-s at 9:40 AM on October 8, 2011

It's typical to format your resume so that all the content is structured based on chronological job experience. For me, doing that made for a really long resume, with lots of repetition since I've been on a career path for years. So now I like to format mine with the skills and achievements at the top, and a de-emphasized chronological job list near the bottom.

It occurs to me that you would benefit from the same layout for different reasons. It lets you emphasize the skills you want to use in your next job, rather than focusing on where you last worked.

Ask yourself what skills and knowledge you'll take from this job into the next, and put those under skills and achievements. Don't feel the need to list out your responsibilities if they won't impact future roles. Teacher to NPS? Maybe leadership and self-starter skills carry over. I'm just guessing.

And in case it isn't obvious: don't put anything on your resume you don't want to talk about in an interview, and keep it to a single page in length.

Good luck!
posted by nadise at 10:35 AM on October 8, 2011

You might find some more ideas (especially along the lines of what nadise suggested) by searching using the keywords "functional resumes" and "transferable skills". In particular, this page talks about transferable skills and teachers. It lists possible skills gained from teaching and gives a sample of a functional resume for a former teacher who is "Seeking a position in a non-profit industry where my extensive teaching and communication experience will be used in full".

Good luck!
posted by Sing Fool Sing at 7:10 PM on October 8, 2011