Internships, projects and volunteering: how to count them as experience

"Experience" on a resume does not have to mean a full-time job with a salary. It means evidence that you have done real work with real expectations around it. A summer internship, a project you finished, a season of volunteering and a club you helped run can all show that.

The difference between people who use these well and people who do not is rarely the quality of the activity. It is how clearly it is described. This guide covers how to treat each kind of activity so it reads as the real work it was.

What makes something count

A reader is asking one thing: did this person do something, to a standard, for someone other than themselves? Three signs answer yes.

• There was a task and a result. Something needed doing, and you did it.
• Someone depended on it. A manager, a client, a team, a customer, a community.
• You can explain it. You can describe what you did and why, with a few details.

An internship checks every box. A group project often does. A volunteer role that involved real responsibility does as well. A course you sat through without making anything may not, and that is fine, because you can put it in an education or learning section.

Internships

Treat an internship exactly like a job. Give the title, the organization, the dates and the place, then add bullets about what you did.

Many people undersell internships because they were short or because the tasks felt small. Do not. List the real work.

A few things to keep in mind:

• Use the title you were given. If the organization called you "intern", say so. Do not rename it as "associate" to make it sound bigger.
• If you were part of a team, say what part was yours.
• If the internship was in a different field from the job you want, bring forward the parts that are relevant, such as writing, data handling, customer contact or organization.
• A short stay is fine. Put the real dates in and let the bullets carry the weight.

Projects

A project is work you chose to do and finished: something built, written, designed, analyzed or organized. For people without a long work history, projects often carry the most weight on the page.

For each project, say what it was, which tools or methods you used, what it could do or what came of it, and which part was yours. If it was a group effort, say how many people and what you owned.

If the project has a public link, such as a repository, a published page or a demonstration, include it. Make sure the link opens, and that what a visitor finds there looks like something you are happy to be judged on.

There is a separate guide on the projects section that covers how to order them and how many to include.

Volunteering

Volunteering often shows things paid work does not: initiative, reliability, working with people you do not choose, and caring about something beyond yourself.

Describe it with the same care as a job. What was the role, how often did you do it, what did it involve and what happened as a result?

If you are not sure how to describe what you did, ask the person who organized you. Coordinators often remember the detail better than you do, and they can tell you which parts mattered to them.

Choose activities that connect to the job or that show a strength worth showing. A volunteer role that involved managing people, handling money, teaching or organizing events will usually mean more to an employer than one that involved attendance only.

Do not list every activity you have ever joined. A few good ones with real detail beat a long list of names.

Clubs, societies and leadership roles

Student clubs, sports teams, committees and similar groups can belong in this section too, provided you did something in them. A bare membership tells a reader almost nothing. What you did there tells them a lot.

Only use a figure you can stand behind. If you cannot say how big the budget was, describe the job without a number.

Where to put each one

The right place depends on how much of each you have.

• Internships go under Experience, or a heading such as Internships if you have several and no other jobs. Put them above education once you have some, and below education if the internship was short and your degree is your strongest point.
• Projects get their own section, usually after education for a student and after experience for a working professional.
• Volunteering and activities go in a short section near the end, unless the role is highly relevant, in which case it can sit with your experience.

If you have a lot of one type and little of the others, give the strong type more space and trim the rest. A page with three internships and a single line of volunteering looks balanced. A page with nine bullets about clubs and one line about an internship does not. The order for a first resume is covered in the guide for freshers.

Be careful about

Overstating your role. Say "contributed to" when you contributed. Say "led" only when you led. Interviewers often ask about exactly the part you made sound biggest.

Confidential work. If an internship involved private client data or unreleased products, do not describe it in detail. Keep it general, and check what you are allowed to say.

Padding. If you are tempted to add something only to fill space, ask whether you could explain it for two minutes in an interview. If not, leave it out.

Dates that do not add up. List start and end months or years, and keep the format the same everywhere.

Talking about it in an interview

You will be asked about these experiences, and the best answers are simple stories: the situation, what you did, what happened. Pick one example from each activity you list and practice telling it in a minute. If it helps, use the free tell-me-about-yourself tool to turn your background into a short spoken answer.