After IV
Can I Put InterVarsity on My Resume? (Finding Your Footing With Resumes)
 
Podcast Intro – (Upbeat acoustic guitar music)

Jon Steele  0:09  
Hey everyone. I'm Jon Steele. And this is After IV: a podcast for InterVarsity alumni. Life after college is hard. And even a great experience with your University chapter doesn't shield you from the challenges of transition. As we hear stories from real alumni learning how to make it in their post-InterVarsity reality, my hope is that this podcast will offer some encouragement, a few laughs and even some hope for the future. This is After IV, and these are your stories.

Welcome
Hello, and welcome to After IV, the podcast for InterVarsity alumni. I'm your host Jon Steele. As always, it's a pleasure being together for another episode. A huge welcome to all of you first time listeners out there, especially if you're new to the alumni life itself. I'm glad you made it. We're here to help you walk through this new season that you're entering. And you found us at a great time. Because we are in the middle of our finding your footing series. It's a collection of episodes meant to provide you with some skills and frameworks that are especially helpful right after you graduate. You can find links to the previous episodes in the series in our show notes for this episode, a quick heads up including this one, we have three more episodes in the finding your footing series, and then we'll be taking a break for a few weeks. But don't worry, we're going to have some great bonus material for you to listen to between new releases. There have been some amazing moments with our guests that you haven't gotten to here yet. And we want to share a few of those with you. Now as for this episode, when you were a student with InterVarsity did you ever find yourself feeling concerned about the time you were spending with your chapter versus the time you could have spent gaining professional development of some sort. Maybe you had thoughts like this, I really love being a small group leader, but it's really limiting my internship opportunities, or maybe something like this. I'm glad that I'm at chapter camp. But I'm missing out on some valuable summer work experience. You knew that your chapter experience was incredibly valuable for faith development and community development, but it felt like it was lacking in development for your future career. Well, I have some good news for you. On this episode, we're going to talk about why your investment as a leader as a mentor. Even as a committed community member. We're all part of your professional development as well. We're joined by Kaitlynn Steele, InterVarsity, alumna and certified HR professional, and she's going to help us get a handle on how to use our inner varsity experiences in building a solid resume. So if you're prepping for that post-graduation job search, this is going to be a huge help to you. And even if you're an alum who's not on the market for a job right this moment, save this episode. So you can listen to it again later, because it's going to serve you well in the future. All right, let's meet Kaitlynn. This one's for you alumni. 

Musical Interlude

Interview

Jon Steele
Well, Kaitlynn, welcome back to the podcast with me. I'm here again. Well, we're going to talk about resumes. When you were here. Last time, we talked about resumes, but a little bit different spin, not just like, how do you build a good resume? How do you prep well for the interview, but in particular, how do you use InterVarsity experience to build a resume whether you're going into a ministry position, or I would say for most people not going into a ministry position. That's what we're going to talk about. But before we get too far into that, just give a brief introduction for yourself. People can listen to the previous episode to get a more in depth story about where you come from. But tell us just a little bit about who you are, Kaitlynn.

Kaitlynn Steele  3:35  
Yes. So I'm Kaitlynn Steele. I am Jon's wife. We have two kids, Aurora is four. And Luna is 10 months old. I work for a commercial construction company in Mankato, Minnesota, and I do marketing and human resources there. Went to Minnesota State University Mankato, got a degree in business management with a specialization in human resource management, and also a minor in nonprofit leadership. And Jon and I were in the same InterVarsity chapter, which is how we met 

Jon Steele
That’s right. Love. Love at large group.
Kaitlynn Steele
But not at first sight.

Jon Steele  4:15  
But not at first sight. No, that's a whole other story though. Okay, so then let's, let's talk just big picture here to start with. First of all, is it possible to use InterVarsity experience as a resume builder, even outside of ministry setting? Big picture? And how is that possible?

Kaitlynn Steele  4:32  
Yeah, absolutely. It's definitely possible. It would be similar to any other organization that you're a part of, in some ways, that is just showing that you're a member that you're committed that you're dedicated to coming back. But the I think the great thing about what InterVarsity offers is that there's often a lot of training and there's a lot of leadership opportunities. Many organizations don't have you be a leader when you're a student. They have you know, staff or faculty that are doing all the leading. And so to have experience, learning how to lead is super important, being given the opportunity to try and fail is super important. And you come out on the other side knowing a lot more than the average person, because the best way to learn is to practice things and not just read about them in a book.

Jon Steele  5:17  
Yeah, it seems it feels like because InterVarsity is a faith based organization that maybe we are quick to dismiss it. No! This is a legit organization that you were a part of where you contributed where you learned, and that you came out somebody with more to offer as a result of being a part of it. And that can be in lots of different positions. So let's start drilling into some of these different things. Now, first of all, I recognize that people listening have come from lots of different chapters, we're not centralized enough to have just the same title for everything. And some people don't know their title. Yeah, and some people don't even know their title. So we're gonna get like, generally specific to start with here. So let's just think about like coordinator roles. So maybe this, this would be something like a small group coordinator, maybe you didn't necessarily lead a small group, but you coordinated the people who did, maybe your large group coordinator, getting guest speakers and organizing the flow of the evening, making sure that you have everything there that you need, maybe social events, things like that. So just coordinators in general, how would you talk about a position like that in terms of putting it on a resume?

Kaitlynn Steele  6:27  
Yeah, absolutely. So the first thing that I always recommend is to use metrics. So if you have a group, an anniversary chapter of 10, people, the amount of work that you do, and how involved that is, will look very different than a chapter of say, 200 people. For some things, your life gets more complicated. Sometimes it gets easier, depending on the size, but in general, using metrics to talk about some of the things you did so yeah, I planned events. Well, what does that look like? Did you plan to social events every week, every month. So to give something that they can relate to is really helpful. Some of the other things I think about is outside of event planning, you know, being up front, whether you're the emcee, or someone speaking, leading music, a lot of people don't like to be up front. And even if they do, they just don't have a lot of experience with it. Different school programs will give you better opportunities to be up front. I know, I know, people that I graduated with that had never even given a presentation when they graduated from college. And I was in a program where I was literally upfront, I don't know, two to three times a week, that's not always the case. So being up front, being able to put on a good conference or a good event with quality speakers making those connections, it can be a little bit like herding cats to get all the pieces like put together, college students can be a little aloof. So if you're a small group coordinator, it's one thing to invite someone to come to a small group. And it's another thing for them to actually show up. And some of that is that roll, making sure that they get there, they've been connected, you've done everything that you can to get to that point.

Jon Steele  8:08  
It feels to me like, like you said, there, you have classes where you can do some of these upfront roles, or you're coordinating your group members for a group project. But even so those are things that you're like required to do because you took a class, there's something that feels especially like meaningful to say that I on purpose, stepped into this role of coordinating people and kept doing it for a whole semester, a whole year or my entire career.

Kaitlynn Steele  8:33  
I volunteered to herd cats. Yes, exactly. I like to give the perspective too. So I work for a construction company, our job is to manage the construction project, there is very little that we self perform. So there's very little where we are actually building the building, our job is literally to manage the tender of 30 subcontractors to get all the work done. And that's a full time job. That's what our company does. That's what we specialize in. And then we have one person whose full time job is just to do paperwork for these construction projects. So if you're a coordinator, those are skills that every company needs. Every visionary needs a doer and needs that organization and things that come naturally to you do not come naturally to others. Every company needs administrative skills, needs people skills. And if you have both like that's a that's a very wonderful thing.

Jon Steele  9:27  
If you're a coordinator of some sort with InterVarsity, you are a project manager. Absolutely. Because you are moving multiple parts towards the same goal, the same deadline. And if you don't, then it looks bad.

Kaitlynn Steele  9:38  
Right. And they're way less motivated because they're not getting paid by you.

Jon Steele  9:42  
Yeah, totally. You're motivating people who are doing this for free. That's huge. Okay, so then let's let's go to something maybe a little bit more specific, but I think that there's probably a lot a lot of people who have had this role and that would be something like a small group leader, community group leader, whatever you want to call it, but the place where you come together or where you study scripture together where you share life you go do like fun things together, whatever that might be that role, somebody who leads people in that every time every week, or whatever your rhythm might be like, what are skills that people could put on a resume?

Kaitlynn Steele  10:16  
Yeah, absolutely. So small group leaders are wonderful, because typically they have this welcoming personality. And they can just draw people in, they're usually pretty good at following up with people. So I like to think of them as the manager that you wish that you worked with. There are a lot of managers in the world that got the job simply because they've been there the longest, but have no training. So if you, you know, went to like a conference where you were trained on how to be a small group leader, that's a great thing to put on there. That's professional development in a way. And some of the other things I think about is, you're this coach, you're a mentor, you're training people on how to do manuscript study. You're training people on how to be in community together, and you're creating a team. Yeah, I might just be reading through this one passage this week, but you're setting some ground rules on on how you interact. So some of the things I like is that typically, you're really good at asking questions. You are this team leader, you know how to welcome people, you know how to follow up with your team. And you know how to research because you've been digging deep into passages into the Bible every single week.

Jon Steele  11:24  
Being somebody who can lead a quality meeting feels like a really good skill most small group leaders are being trained in what does it look like to give everybody space to speak? What does it look like to help everybody get to know each other like even like icebreaker kind of stuff, every week, you recognize who's contributing, who's not contributing, and inviting people into that those are really great skills, that you're not just going to, like walk over people in the meeting. And if again, like the prep that you said, you've done, you've been digging in every week to prep for these meetings, you also know how to guide people towards a goal. The project managers we were talking before are like getting a bunch of people to do a task like to contribute towards a big task altogether. Here, you're helping guide people towards an idea altogether of like, this is where we believe this conversation is leading us and how can we take action steps on that, that means something that's huge to be able to guide people in that kind of a conversation. I mean, that's like a goldmine for somebody to know, like, wow, you can run a good meeting that people care about, and there's actionable steps that walk away, and it's not just an hour gone into the ether with nothing that comes of it. That's amazing. 

Kaitlynn Steele  12:32  
Once you have an office job, you will realize that there's this joke that goes around that's like, oh, another meeting that could have been an email. Great. Yeah, being able to have a point and get to the point of super helpful. And again, you know, using metrics, how often did you meet? How long were you a small group leader? Did you raise up a certain number of people did you multiply into another group, those are some good things to share. And then again, you know, anytime you do training, is professional development. So I was given three years of small group leader training, it covered these topics.

Jon Steele  13:06  
Framing a conference, as professional development feels like a one two punch. This isn't just about faith development, this is professional development that's happening at these conferences, that just makes the investment that you make to get there seem even more worthwhile.

Kaitlynn Steele  13:20  
Because I'm in HR, I see a lot of trainings come my way. And I recently came across one that was talking about, like, how to be a manager for the first time, and I kid you not, it was $2,000, to attend a one day seminar. And that's a pretty typical cost, you know, anywhere from 400 to 2500, for a day event. And here you are getting this training, and then being able to practice it with a staff who is going to follow up with you with a small group coordinator who's going to check in and give you resources that you need to make sure that you're doing a good job, just recognize that you have a lot of skills, these are not things that everybody knows. The other thing I'll say is that manuscript study is not something that everybody does, like we're known for being able to see the text for what it is and find information for what it is and not just making up our own answers. So another great skill to have.

Jon Steele  14:14  
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, observation interpretation application has come in so handy, the number of times that all of a sudden, I realize I'm using those skills, and it's not a Bible study, or mind blowing, those are skills that you will be able to apply in a million different places, including your job.

Kaitlynn Steele  14:32  
Also, that research piece is really helpful. And thinking about it as like reference material. I worked at a job for Verizon customer service. And one of the things that our supervisors would say, like you would raise your hand to have them come over there and talk to you while you're in training. And they'd say, like, where are the three places that you've looked for this answer? And I hated that question because I usually look to one and then freaked out because someone was on the phone with me and I got all panicky and what I ended to realizing is like, there's a lot of information out there. And being able to look for yourself is really helpful. So like knowing to look back at the text. It's amazing to me how many times I'm in a conversation with three, four or five people, and we're all hypothesizing about something. And somebody finally is like, Oh, well, what did the actual email say? Or what does the law say? What does the fact sheet about this law say? What does our contract with them say? And no one has looked at it yet? And I'm just going, oh, yeah, like, this is our reference document. Let's go back to the text, go back to the text, go back to the text, because that's what's going to tell us what we need.

Jon Steele  15:36  
Yeah. And even as you're prepping, you're looking at what the Strong's Concordance say about this word. What does my Bible Commentary say about this particular phrase? What does the Bible Dictionary have like of just like you've been practicing to check multiple sources to better understand the thing that you're trying to help other people understand? And so you have experience of like, I'm going to research before I give my answer here, or before I say, I have no idea what's going on here. Can somebody help me? You are accessing those skills to look other places? Okay, so Wow, small group leader, apparently, there's a ton that comes in handy. You guys are wonderful. No kidding. So then again, this is generally specific here another role, something that would be in in the realm of like mentors, Shepherd, discipleship, something like that. You're not necessarily leading people through the same text altogether, you're not coordinating a particular event, but you are helping somebody walk through their life events. And that can be totally different from one person to the next, as you've done this over a few years, or whatever. How do you see your role like that being something that you could package up nicely for a resume? 

Kaitlynn Steele  16:44  
Again, this plays into some of that coach and mentorship, you are the Maximizer? You're the one encouraging growth in a team? Did you encourage people to attend a conference and see a life change in them? Did you raise up other leaders to do the same thing and to coach someone else to mentor someone else? It's a little more of those soft skills. And one of the things you could talk about is, you know, how many times you are meeting with them? What kind of progress did you see in them?

Jon Steele  17:14  
I mean, you're you're sort of able to to roll with the punches, like the things that the things that this person needs to hear, you're able to tailor your language, your expertise, your experience to what they're going through, what problem they're trying to solve, and help them develop actionable steps to like move forward, that feels very business he even the way that I'm saying that, but like in our faith walk the questions that we have about scripture, that's something that we sit down with our mentor with our shepherd, whatever you might call them, you know, the person that we look up to the most. And we say like, this is this thing that I really don't understand, or I'm really struggling with. And then they sort of talk through like, Okay, well, let's figure out where's this coming from? And how can we move forward in getting better understanding, changing behavior changing way of thinking, and that those are skills that you can use for when a problem comes along in your company, you must whip it. When a problem reference, that's a song that, that when there is an issue that comes up, you're able to say, oh, okay, I know how to analyze a situation and start talking about steps towards making it better towards moving away from this problem. And that's an amazing skill to be able to have.

Kaitlynn Steele  18:28  
Yes, for sure. I think it's really cool to be able to have the ability to like pause, look at what's going on, analyze the information, and then say, all right, where do we go from here? You know, sometimes it takes a minute. Depending on the situation, sometimes it takes a week. But to be able to bounce back or pivot in a new direction is a huge skill. And when you're mentoring someone, you have no idea what they're going to bring to the table when you sit down with them. So your conversation could go any which way.

Jon Steele  18:59  
Okay, so we've talked generally specific about some of these different roles. Let's just be generally general here. Generally, general, there's probably a lot of people who are listening to this that have never had InterVarsity leadership experience. What about just being a good member? Like, is there something that you can take out of that and put into a resume?

Kaitlynn Steele  19:18  
Yeah, absolutely. As a member, again, you're showing that commitment to something, you're showing that you care about our group that you can stay there, there's a lot of people that bounce around from job to job to job, there is an art and a skill to saying I'm part of this group. And I'm going to be here to see how things go and to give input and to be part of this. It teaches a skill of how to be around others. That's a huge part of college in general. It's a huge part of why I highly recommend people to live on campus, even if they're in the town that they grew up in. Because I think it gives you some extra skill with people that don't know you. A few other things that I would mention, we haven't specifically talked about them. would be things like running social media for your chapter, maybe you use like pro presenter for doing slides, specialty software Canva. If you've been doing like graphic design for the group, you know, if you've done any community like volunteering at local charities or local organizations, those are all really good things to mention, a lot of the people that are doing the hiring don't have social media skills. And so any of those skills show up as well, pretty much every company's on social media. And so if you can have that, you know, some basic knowledge there, feel free to share that as well. 

Jon Steele  20:35  
Maybe somebody looks at their leadership experience or their general chapter experience and says, I don't feel like I really accomplished much, or I experienced a lot of failure. As a leader. I don't feel very confident putting that on a resume. If you had a challenging experience as a leader, is there still something that you could use there? 

Kaitlynn Steele  20:53  
Yes, yes. So failure teaches you a lot, teaches you about persistence, about pivoting, try new things, and being dedicated even when things get hard. There will always be seasons of life that are like that, in particular, in your work. So one of the things that I recommend is, don't necessarily put the struggle on your resume, but be prepared to talk about it. So maybe you pick one specific situation and prepare 30 to 60 seconds to say what happened in a super simplified scenario, don't give details, don't give names. And then what you're feeling what you did differently, how you came out of it, that type of a thing to show that progress.

Jon Steele  21:33  
Yeah, the fact that you failed, shows that you've already been sharpened in the right ways, and smoothed out in the right ways to like there's just some of these rough edges that have already been knocked off of you. Everybody talks about like the, you know, the green horn, this person is still a little green. That means they're like fresh on the scene and things that you can show that you are not as green as the other people who are applying, like, that's really great. And failure is one of those things. Yeah, sure. They haven't accomplished what they wanted to yet, but they have been in the game.

Kaitlynn Steele  22:02  
Oh, totally. I would much rather hire someone who's been through some serious chaos, who's made some bad decisions and has learned from it compared to someone who, like life has been easy for them, because I think they have a skewed perception of reality. And so you want you want the person who knows what reality is and knows how to get back up again.

Jon Steele  22:21  
So Kaitlynn, we've, we've talked about a number of different things here. But I'm sure that there may still be holes in what we've talked about. If you, you know, for young alumni who are listening to this podcast, they've just graduated, they're about to graduate, whatever it might be, from the perspective of using InterVarsity experience to build your resume, is there a final piece of advice that you would give or just something that we haven't touched on yet, that would be helpful to make sure people hear before we wrap up?

Kaitlynn Steele  22:49  
I mean, simply, you have skills. So don't doubt that InterVarsity has trained you? Well, because that's what they do. Jon is in training, often, staff, your staff can't help but pass training along to you. So you've learned a lot. There's a lot of things, you know, in your repertoire of skills. And if you can't remember some of the things that you've done, ask your staff, ask the leaders around you, they'll bring up something, you know, to be added to your resume. And then just some general things that I like to say, you know, you can have all the skills in the world, you could have six pages on your resume, the average resume gets maybe six to seven seconds. And so you know, six pages isn't necessarily going to help you in that scenario. So it's okay that your resume is short, you're you're new to the working world, you're new to a full time position. That's totally okay. Utilize the relationship piece. Ask for any recommendations, ask if your staff worker knows anywhere in town that is hiring that might be a good fit for you, and then do your research on the company. And last but not least, make sure that you're making phone calls, you know, any position, you could get 15 resumes, you could get 400 resumes, it really just depends on the position. But you get way less phone calls, I would say we get less than 5% of phone calls. And so if you are the person who is calling, just simply say, Hey, I sent over my resume, just wanted to make sure that you got it. You know, I look forward to hearing from you. I'd love to set up an interview. Once you've had a chance to review my resume. And sometimes they have sometimes they haven't. There's conflicting information about when you should call but calling always makes you stand out. There's a voice there's a friendliness there's a personality that can't always be seen on paper. So utilize that relationship piece and pick up the phone and make a phone call. Sorry, sorry, alumni know most people don't like to make phone calls, but it's a life skill that you need as well.

Jon Steele  24:45  
Yeah. Wow. That's a lot of really helpful information to kind of cap things off here. Kaitlynn, before we wrap up here, can I ask you to do a couple of things for us to help help us provide some additional resources Just this episode,

Kaitlynn Steele  25:01  
I feel like as a staff spouse, the answer is always yes for InterVarsity.

Jon Steele  25:06  
Oh, no, no, you're allowed to say no. Now,

Kaitlynn Steele  25:08  
You know that I love this stuff. 

Jon Steele  25:09  
That's great. For sure I know that you have… I know that you have a Top 10 

Kaitlynn Steele
Top 10 tips for job seekers. 

Jon Steele
That's it. Top 10 tips for job seekers. The other being somebody who was in coordinating roles, small group leader roles, long term member experience, would you be willing to make a sample resume based on your InterVarsity experience that we can post and then people just see, in practical application, how some of this might be written out?

Kaitlynn Steele  25:37  
Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a great idea. 

Jon Steele  25:39  
Awesome. So once this episode airs, those things will be available, we'll have links in the show notes that you can find them. If you also want more resume tips from Kaitlynn, you can look back at her our previous conversation, there will also be a link to that conversation in the show notes. And you're gonna be like ready to bust out some amazing resumes here. Kaitlynn, thanks a lot for coming on the show for again, sharing your wisdom and experience. I Love You.

Kaitlynn Steele  26:07  
(Laughs) No, it's great to be back. I geek out over resumes every day. And so to actually be able to share the things that I've learned and the things that stand out is, is really helpful. And the world needs more InterVarsity students working at their jobs. It would be a better place. So go out there and get the job you want.

Musical Interlude

Wrap up

Jon Steele  26:25  
In the wise words of Kaitlynn Steele, "You have skills, don't doubt that." And I also love the reminder that "InterVarsity has trained you well, because that's what they do." So true alumni, I remember my first time coming away from small group leaders training at a year end chapter camp, I was blown away by the skills I developed in being able to study the Bible for myself and in leading others to do the same. But what I didn't realize was how widely applicable those skills were. Because of all the training I received in that area and all the practice I got to have as a student, I know now how to lead a meaningful meeting with a structure that moves us toward a unified purpose, I have a better understanding of how to observe the room and identify who's tracking and who isn't. I have skills for developing a cohesive team, I know how to check in with people who voiced a concern or set a goal for themselves. Thanks to my time as a student with InterVarsity, I have skills that I wouldn't have had, or at the very least, wouldn't be nearly as sharp. And so to you alumni, not just small group leaders, coordinators, mentors, team leaders, presidents and community members, all of you have been prepared in a really special context that has provided you with skills and experiences and training that are so widely applicable. Don't leave those things on a shelf, hoping that they'll eventually come in handy when you find your church community, put them down on a resume now and put them to good use in your work after graduation. That's part of the world changing influence that we get to have in our new context after graduation. I think that that's pretty cool. Kaitlynn, thanks so much for joining us. Again, you are an absolute boss lady. The rest of you be sure to check the show notes for links to Kaitlynn top 10 tips for job seekers, a sample resume built around InterVarsity skills and her previous episode about prepping for an interview, then go put those tools to good use in this season of job hunting. Also, be sure to come back next week for our second to last episode of the finding your footing series. We're talking with author Katie schnack about her amazing book, The Gap decade when you're technically an adult but really don't feel like it yet. This book is a fantastic companion piece to times of transition. I can't recommend it enough. You're gonna love meeting Katie and hearing all about it. Thanks for tuning in. And I will see you in the After, Alumni.

Podcast Outro – (Upbeat acoustic guitar music)

Hey, thanks so much for joining us today, Alumni. If there was anything that you learned, really enjoyed, or that encouraged you from today's episode, would you send us a DM or tag us in a story? We'd love to hear about it. You can find us @afterivpod on Instagram and Facebook. And if you haven't already, take just a second to unlock your phone and subscribe to the podcast. If your platform lets you, leave us a rating and a review. And if you like what we're doing here, share us with your InterVarsity or other post-graduation friends. Thanks again for listening. And I will see you in the after, Alumni.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai