JFYI, You Should Def Put Your Sorority Experience on Your Résumé
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Sorority pride was all up in the inauguration last week, with Alpha Kappa Alpha’s Kamala Harris becoming the first female, Black, and South Asian vice president—and, of course, the first sorority member ever to be vice president. As she accomplished this epic feat, she wore a strand of pearls, nodding to her sisterhood. And many fellow members of AKA, the country’s first Black sorority, wore the same gems as they watched her take the oath. *pause for sobbing*
Vice President Harris’s move is evidence that sorority life extends beyond undergrad. But while wearing your sorority colors and symbols is a lovely gesture, there’s way more you can do with the experiences you had as a member—like putting them on your résumé.
If you were a legit officer in your sorority, especially if that office gave you experience you can use in the jobs you’re applying for, it’s very much worth dropping that info on your résumé, says career expert (and sorority alum!) Aliza Licht, founder and president of Leave Your Mark and author and host of the Leave Your Mark podcast.
From president on down, every member of a sorority has some responsibility to keep the chapter afloat. Be it solid networking skills used during recruitment or managing a $100,000 budget as treasurer, everyone contributes something.
You can’t be in a sorority for four years without (1) learning something about being part of a team and (2) volunteering (or, let’s be honest, be voluntolding) in some meaningful way. “A lot of skills learned in a sorority are very important to the working world,” Licht says.
Here are the smartest ways to leverage your sorority experiences and get a bomb-ass job.
Write a job profile.
If you were an officer, write a job description for that role. Then look at the responsibilities of the job you’re applying for to see if any of those skills are transferrable.
If you want to cheat a little bit, Licht says searching LinkedIn for the title of the job you’re applying for, like marketing assistant, then note the words or phrases you see most often across five or so job listings. If you can, apply those buzzwords to the description of your sorority duties.
Consider yourself a brand ambassador.
Whether or not you held a position, you can safely add this role to your résumé. “Your sorority is a brand, essentially,” Licht says. And when you go through recruitment, everyone has a role in selling this brand to potential new members, which is a big responsibility.
So if you were deeply involved in your sorority, list it under Professional Experience. If you were a member without an office or don’t want it to be a big talking point in an interview setting, definitely still list it but put it under Activities or Volunteerism instead.
As a sorority alum, you already know how to commit to a vision bigger than yourself, and companies find that incredibly important, says Licht. Especially during the pandemic, making people feel like they’re part of something, believing in the mission of the organization, and living out the core values of the company are essential to company culture.
Assuming your values align with it, don’t be afraid to list your sorority’s mission or values on your résumé when describing your experience. Then say, “I am one of more than 200,000 members of my organization worldwide that stand united in these values.” It will certainly be a conversation starter in an interview.
Back up your “brand ambassador” status with relevant descriptions.
Think of everything you’ve done within your sorority as an opportunity to showcase your skill set. Remember serving on the committee for the most boring sorority event ever and how you thought every committee meeting was a waste of time? Well, turns out it’s marketable. Add “event planning” to your résumé and thank your frustrated self of two years ago.
Did you ever help with new member education? That’s basically “onboarding” and “brand immersion,” says Licht.
If you had a “little sis” or “pledge daughter,” you’ve got mentorship experience. “All of sorority life is mentoring within a group of women,” Licht says. Employers love to see leadership. And your experience shows you could mentor young talent behind you in the future.
These past four years have made you fantastic at networking too. “Being thrown into a big group setting like a sorority forces you to put yourself out there, and networking is the key to success,” Licht says. “Building community is something that’s important in the real world.” Add this to the list of skills sorority life taught you. Just be sure to emphasize how these networking skills served your sorority and think of examples of how they can help the company.
As a part of a sorority, no doubt you’ve mastered the art of teamwork and collaboration and learned how to share responsibilities over multiple people. “Cross-functional skills are huge in companies, especially right now,” Licht says. “It’s the skill most companies are really searching for.”
Finally, Licht says every company is focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion—and rightfully so. And if your sorority participated in organized activism like Black Lives Matter or a political campaign, make sure you mention that.
“If you can get a group of people to align on a specific cause or project, that’s a lifelong skill that will take you far in your career,” Licht says. Even if you didn’t lead the activism effort, the fact that you cared enough about a cause to participate shows you are committed to the great good of society. It’s a big deal.
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