Which do employers prefer: research, extracurriculars, or volunteering during the school year?

Career Opportunities & Internships
1

As an undergrad, which do employers prefer: research (paid) or extracurricular activities (leadership experience) during the school year?
I also read an article that explored a study that showed that a small sample of employers like volunteer experience more than these 2 which was initially unfounded to me (still kind of is). If any of you have been recruiters before, can you share what you prefer to see students engage in during the semester? I don’t think i will have time to engage in all 3 activities.
So, leadership experience, volunteering, or paid research?

p.s. I personally would like to do research as I could get one paid and it’d be less stressful than trying to maintain a leadership position but don’t mind my preferences, haha. Also I have seen some other students put research experience on their resumes and I noticed there were positive results for them when they applied for internships so that is also why i brought up the option of research even though I consistently hear that employers don’t care about research.

2

Internships > research > volunteering in most fields. Because the bars for each just keep rising.

3

If i were to leave internships out of the options?

4

If it wasn’t clear, I meant during the semesters when I enroll in full-time courses. Also, I’m in engineering if that matters.

5

I kind of do all three – research, book club, volunteering at animal shelter – but spend fewer hours on each than most people would if they really dedicated their time to one or two.

If you want to do research, go for research. It’ll give you something to talk about at career fairs.

6

In engineering, technical skills matter more than volunteering or being the president of some club for an entry-level position. Technical skills can be gained and demonstrated in both academic research and internships/co-ops. Internships/co-ops have the advantage of possibly turning into a permanent position after graduation.

7

I agree with @roethlisburger. I will also add that when I interview people I look for what the person can demonstrate he or she learned from the experience, whether it’s volunteering, leadership/extra curricular, etc. Did you just show up or did you solve a problem, improve a process, or accomplish something unexpected? My son was an ECE major ('15). He said he talked a lot about his senior capstone project during interviews. He was able to relate it to the work the company that hired him does.

8

I own / run a small company - we do national and state projects for which we deploy software systems and various domain experts. Inside the shop we have marketing, tech, support, IT, engineers, writers, project managers, finance folks - just about everything.

My answer to your question is that the type of experience matters less than the outcome - will it help you get better at something and be more able to demonstrate that emerging skill or passion?

Why? Because many employers have changed - we used to look for more formal items in resumes, but now we want evidence of what you can do. Writing, coding, a web site you did for a club, statistics you put together, examples of problem solving. What it is just depends on the job opening, but we ask for examples of work for virtually every position.

Caution - I’m not saying that working hard in high school and getting to a great college is not important, but a young person from the best colleges who can’t demonstrate real skills is of very little interest to me. The world is moving so fast now that I have next to no time to train someone up. So show me that you come ready to do and learn and I’m all ears.

It’s hard to find good talent, so we use a headhunting firm almost always, and they say we are not the only client of their’s that has dropped the degrees / years experience / well known college thing. Get our attention with a very crisp short resume and then attach something you have done… examples of your work. If you get invited to an interview offer to do some task over the next 1 to 2 days, and prove your value.

Worst news last: the first pass reviewing your resume will last 30 seconds if you are lucky. So make sure your best points stand out. Don’t follow resume rules, for example, if the chronological order hides your best assets at the bottom of the page.

Probably more than you wanted, but I think this is an important shift in the job market – wanted to share.

9

This is going to vary wildly depending on the employers’ preferences. There’s no real hard and fast answer. collegedad7 gives a great answer about how this can vary.

For my job, we’d prefer to see the research experience, but that’s because I’m a researcher and when we hire new BA graduates we hire them into research coordinator positions. The internship or volunteer experience would only be useful insofar as it was related to research. But if I worked for a marketing firm, maybe I’d prefer the internship. Unless, of course, the research experience was market research. Or if it taught you how to use SPSS or do statistical analysis and I need someone who does that. Or maybe the volunteer experience taught you that. Or maybe I’m a social services company that values volunteering with the population I serve.

You see how it can differ based on need? It depends on the characteristics of the experience as well as the kind of job that you’re looking to get.

So do the research!

10

Getting a job is not like getting into college. Colleges look for well-rounded students who will add to their community, so volunteer work is a good thing on its face. Employers don’t care about that…what employers care about is whether you will add value to their business.

To that end, volunteer work is not all created equally. For example, let’s say that you volunteered at a soup kitchen, dishing out food to the needy. That’s great, but you probably didn’t learn much in the way of skills, so employers will think you’re a good person but won’t see much added value from that job. If, on the other hand, you managed a soup kitchen in which you were responsible for managing inventory levels, scheduling staff (volunteer or otherwise), and keeping the books up to date, then you’ve earned some experience that can help a future employer.

It also depends on what you want to do. If you’re interested in marketing, then doing biology research may not be all that helpful, but political science research may be super valuable.