Professor Erkis, I am thinking about getting some online certifications this summer. The hope is that they would help my resume as I am not working this summer because my internship was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. What do you think? Haley W. ’23 economics major.

First, it is not a problem that you are not working in your field this summer, but you should be working somewhere. The most important summer to have a “professional” job is the summer between your junior and senior year as the hope is that the position will lead to a full-time offer. As you are a rising sophomore, you have two more summers before you graduate to get internship experience.

Any type of position will be helpful. When employers are considering a college student for summer internships and full-time positions, they are looking more at the student’s potential than the student’s experience. I tell my advisees that even nonprofessional work experience can tell possible employers a lot about your potential.

As an example, I was working with a student on her resume a few years back. She had worked at school as a tutor and in one of the university’s administrative offices. For two summers, she worked as a server in a restaurant/diner. She was applying for a summer internship in her field and was thinking about omitting the server position from her resume as the tutoring and other work at school were more professional and important positions.

I asked her what she did at the restaurant and if her responsibilities in the second year were any different than when she started. She said in her second year, new servers followed her for a few days after they started to learn the ropes. She also said that she could handle more tables this past year than she could initially.

I told her that I see her server position telling me many important things about her potential. First, she must be reliable and a good worker, or the restaurant would not have hired her back the following year. Training new servers shows that she is good at what she does, can communicate well and has the trust of the manager, or they would have used someone else to train new staff. Also, the fact that she can train new employees and serve more tables shows that she is able to learn new things and grow. I felt that not only should she keep the server position on her resume, but she should make it a focal point of the resume. She found all of this surprising in a positive way.

As for the online certifications, make sure the certification is something that you will gain some relevant experience from for your field. Is the certification valued by potential employers? If you are not sure, ask one of your professors or ask people who are working in your field how they feel about the certification. If it is not valued or is something that anyone can get without a significant effort, it is unlikely to be worth your time.

Anna Lubomirski:

I definitely understand the scramble of finding something to do during this summer after learning that your original plans were canceled. If I was in your shoes, I would consider what other options there are to fill in time over the summer, even if those options aren’t directly connected to your economics major. From my own experience, I had a job one summer that wasn’t closely related to my career path. But it taught me strong communication skills, which are valuable in any job and will be applied in my future career. Once you have a list of your opportunities (i.e. certifications, online classes, a job, etc.) for the summer, I would weigh the potential long-term benefits and lessons learned from each option on the list and make a decision from there.