Associate professor of english skills for your resume and career

Something that stands out in any resume is the ability to speak two or more languages. If we are thinking of medievalists and early modern professionals, having a good command of romance languages and other European languages will be a great asset without any type of doubt. In any case, for anybody interested in history, it is critical to know the languages spoken in the studied space and those in the surrounding areas as an excellent way to understand and monitor mutual influences. Likewise, grads with a major in medieval, early modern, or general history, will have more opportunities in the job market if they show imagination and creativity as skills in their resumes. Unfortunately, we can only travel in time with our minds; being able to supply with our imagination and creativity what we cannot see presently is extremely important for a good historian. We often count on scarce, disconnected pieces of information, and having the necessary imagination to sense the possible connections is essential to develop a meticulous methodology to support our research findings. Talking about methods, if it is true that we need to be very imaginative to set the first steps to reconstruct history, we also need to be very systematic to produce a rigorous vision that we can call history and not fiction!

Most important advice: Take initiative and be productive.
Find practical ways to use skills even if unpaid. Volunteer work is good. Use language skills. Technology skills. Exploit technology skills around the area of interest. If you want to be a teacher find out what software they are using today; what research skills are they utilize. Make sure you log your activities during the gap year especially those that relate to the area in which you want to work. If you want to go into finance, and you're working at a lawn service, understand and learn the business model and the accounting. If you're working at Starbucks (or in any commercial environment), get a chance to do inventories, learn about the ordering process and sources and suppliers for those orders; and how people are scheduled for work. All of that is relevant experience for business.

The CFO and recruiter for Keystone Staffing Solutions emphasized having evidence in your resume of of being productive during the gap time, no matter if it's one, two or three years. Evidence of being productive is what recruiters want to see on your resume: He stresses: "What did you do to expand your knowledge and skills not only in your selected area but beyond. BEING PRODUCTIVE for yourself proves to be an indicator of how productive you will be for me."

Still on gap year. How to go about it? Use teachers, friends, family, anyone in the field or related to it to provide guidance, insight, suggestions. This can lead to projects or experience that will help in learning and growth.

College graduates in 2021 and beyond need all of the skills that English programs have to offer: critical thinking, effective communication, creativity, and flexibility. New hires need to be able to adapt to workplace changes quickly and with aplomb, which requires critical thinking and problem solving and the ability to communicate those solutions to a diverse audience clearly and effectively. Those skills are refined and practiced regularly in English programs.