Highlighting Fraternity on your Resume

I have worked with many graduating seniors or rising juniors that try to hawk their fraternity experience on their resumes and only list 'Name of the Fraternity, Initiated 20XX.' If I hiring people and were to see this on your resume, I would wonder what you learned about leadership - and leaving me wondering isn't a good way to get a job from me.

We know that many business leaders have benefited from fraternity and sorority experience. But not all of them know your chapter lingo - does anyone else ever really use the word Quaestor anymore?

When I review the resumes for fraternity men, especially for the Tau Delta Phi men I know, I encourage them to expand on their leadership experience and connect it with the job or internship they are looking to get. For instance, if you want to get a job where you are doing sales, you can highlight your recruitment/rush chair experience - you recruited X number of men through values-based programming, created an online tracking system for recruitment interactions and developed a matrix for offering fraternity membership.

You can also highlight the same chair experience if you wanted a job where you could manage other staff - you delegated tasks among X number of active brothers, held one-on-one trainings with new members to teach them skills for recruitment, and evaluated the overall team based on bid-matching and unaccepted bids. As you can see, you don't need to put the same bullets for the same position - change up the bullets so they reflect the type of job you want

Or if you want a job that handles money you want to list ANY position where you handled money, such as Steward or Philanthropy chair:

Fundraising Chair Fall 20XX

· Worked with chapter membership of 22 men to raise chapter funds for philanthropy and chapter resources

· Raised over $XXXX in monies in one semester, donated to 3 national philanthropies

· Tracked expenses and income with chapter treasurer

or

President January 20XX – Present
Vice President January 20XX – December 20XX

* Managed a group of 25 chapter members, including directing weekly chapter, executive meetings

* Overall responsibility for $15,000 in continual renovations to chapter house

* Responsible for annual $20,000 chapter budget; supervised chapter leaders on responsible budget management

Noting money on your resume is a great way to demonstrate trust - because anyone who trusts you with money is likely to trust you with something else valuable.

Also, when you list your chapter leadership positions, it's ok to use a term that is more clear in regular terms such as President (instead of Consul), New Member Educator (instead of Magister), or Treasurer (intead of Quaestor). This way hiring managers know what you are trying to share without guessing.

Good luck to all the graduating seniors that will be looking for jobs (if you haven't found one yet) and to all the fraters who are being elected into new fraternity positions. We know you will learn many things that will help you with your professional life after graduation!