MARKETING GREEK LIFE ON YOUR RESUME

Students often want to know if they should add Greek life to their resumes, and if so, how they

can highlight such experiences in professional and relevant ways. It is recommended that you

always include sorority or fraternity information on your resume, as many components of your

membership are selling points. Just like your sorority of fraternity, companies are organizations,

and employers will relate what you did in your sorority or fraternity to the type of employee you

will be at their company.

Maggie Becker from WPI’s Career Development Center wrote an article for the Association of

Fraternity/Sorority Advisors (AFA) on Helping Students Highlight Their Fraternity/Sorority

Experience in the Job Search that is a helpful resource to get started. Information from the

article is integrated into the items below to provide a detailed overview of how you can best

describe and market your Greek life experiences on your resume.

Be condent in your experience

No two Greek experiences are the same. Be condent

in your experience and recognize the importance of

the skills you gained from that experience. Whether

or not you held a leadership position, you should

include your time in your sorority or fraternity on your

resume. You can enhance your resume by highlighting

your participation in philanthropy events, experience

organizing or decorating for events, or ability to present

ideas or opinions during meetings.

Use Greek life to stand out. Express the values-based

experience of being in a sorority or fraternity, your

ability to work on a team, and the opportunities

the sorority or fraternity has given you for growth.

Including your Greek experience on your resume can

also give you networking opportunities unlike those

found in others organizations or clubs.

Part I: Brainstorm to List your

Skills and Experiences

Ask yourself

• What committees were you on and what activities

did you participate in?

• Did you have leadership positions?

- What did you do?

- What skills did this require?

- How do these activities relate to your future

career goals?

• What were the requirements of membership in

your chapter?

• What skills do you have now that you didn’t have

before you joined Greek life?

Marketing greek Life on Your resuMe

M a r k e t i n g g r e e k L i f e o n Y o u r r e s u M e

Tips

Perhaps being involved in a sorority or fraternity

enhanced your public speaking skills or attending

weekly meetings improved your time management

abilities. Use such phrases as...

• Leadership: If you held an oce or served as

a Chair, outline your duties. Chances are you

participated in the local Chapter or national

leadership training opportunities. Note the length,

breadth, and content of such endeavors.

• Organization & Time Management: Note that

in order to juggle so many activities within your

sorority or fraternity, not to mention school work

and other obligations, you had to be extremely

organized.

• Teamwork: Emphasize the complex types

of projects completed, number of members

coordinated, and communication skills involved in

productive teamwork.

Tailor your Greek experiences to the position. If you are

applying for nancial positions, highlight your ability

to follow a budget. For marketing or communications

positions, recruitment experience is a good starting

point. Make your position and experiences work for you

professionally.

Part II: Describing the Items

from Part I

Greek Life Action Verbs

Use action verbs to enhance your experiences. For

example, explain how you created a marketing plan

to improve recruitment or developed an alumnae

relations program to re-connect 500 graduates.

Sample verbs to begin each point include:

• Achieved

• Arranged

• Assisted

• Attended

• Budgeted

• Chaired

• Collaborated

• Coordinated

• Created

• Entrusted

• Led

• Managed

• Organized

• Planned

• Promoted

• Publicized

• Ran

• Served

• Sponsored

• Supported

• Trained

• Volunteer

Quantify Your Experiences (to the best of

your ability)

When discussing your experience, give concrete

quantiable details to provide employers with a better

idea of what you did and how often you did it. These

numbers give your experiences more relevance to the

company.

• How many…People at events? Number of events

planned? Dollars raised/counted? People working

together as a team? Hours put into planning an

event?

M a r k e t i n g g r e e k L i f e o n Y o u r r e s u M e

• How often…Do you speak in public? Attend

meetings? Volunteer? Plan events?

Include Details

The easiest way to explain the importance of your

experience in Greek life is to provide concrete details.

Be specic about the tasks you completed. If you don’t

provide details about what you did, employers will ll

in those blanks on their own, which could be either

a benet or a detriment. Provide the company with

tangible insights into your experiences and skills. Also,

try to use the word member rather than sister/brother/

rushee.

Types of details to provide include:

• Marketing & Events

- The purpose of an event, who the event

serveds (community, Greek life, alumni, etc.),

your role in the event (coordinated, planned,

attended, facilitated)

- Social media campaigns and results

- Branding and marketing campaigns, method,

and results

- Educating new members

- If you managed new member education,

list how many new members you trained.

Emphasize training as a verb more so than

education.

• Finances

- If you were the treasurer, include the amount

of money you handled.

- What did you use to manage/monitor the

budget?

• Housing

- How many members lived in the facility you

managed (i.e. “managed a 12-person facility”)?

- What budget did you manage?

- What modications/remodeling did you lead?

- What type of chore schedule did you maintain?

- What type of boards (alumni, housing, etc.) did

you collaborate with?

• Secretary

- How many records did you manage?

- What kind of documentation did you keep?

• Judicial

- Overseeing monitoring rules and policies

- Overseeing judicial cases and ensuring fair and

correct processes were followed

• Recruitment

- Recruited X number of members, resulting in a

new member class of X men/women

- Directed and delegated X number of

recruitment events to promote membership

and values and introduce members

• President

- Led chapter of X number members and

developed goals to promote/enhance/develop

______

- Managed executive board of X members to

oversee______ and facilitate _______Member

- Participated in X number of events to help

raise X number of dollars for our charity, St.

Jude’s Children’s Hospital

- Represented organization on campus and in

the local community

M a r k e t i n g g r e e k L i f e o n Y o u r r e s u M e

Part III: Adding Greek Life to

Your Resume

You can put Greek life on your resume in one of two

places:

Option 1: Leadership Section

• If you have a Leadership section and have a

position, you can follow this template (or do

something similar). This gives you space to describe

your position and work.

2 dierent positions

1 position

Option 2: Activities Section for Your

General Membership

If you do not have a leadership position, or if you do

but don’t want to have a Leadership section on your

resume, you can put Greek Life under your Activities

section. Here, you wouldn’t describe your position, but

you can still list it.

Disclaimer

Greek life should take only about 2-3 lines on your

resume. Some of the above tips can be better used

in describing your Greek experience in an interview,

especially when an interviewer asks about teamwork,

leadership, and campus involvement.

Theta Chi Fraternity, WPI, Aug. 2014-Present

Scholarship Chairman, Aug. 2015-Present

• Maintain database of members and majors to provide resource, support,

and assistance to other members in academics

• Coordinate career development workshops to support personal and profes-

sional development of members to secure internships and jobs

• Plan Faculty/Sta Social to facilitate collaboration and awareness between

members and community

House Manager, Jan. 2015-Dec 2015

• Oversee facility management for 30 residents, ensuring maintenance and

routine cleaning is executed

• Assess and develop maintenance plan for short and long term projects

Vice President Chapter Operations, Alpha Phi International Fraternity,

WPI, Jan. 2015-Present

Manage facility for 12 residents. Oversee elections and bylaw review process

for 120+ membership. Manage three direct reports including nances,

administrative processes, and housing. Lead weekly department meetings

for committee of ten. Document activities and reporting for university and

fraternity annual reports.

House Manager/Secretary, Sigma Pi Fraternity, WPI, Aug. 2014-Present

Recruitment Chair, Chi Omega Fraternity, WPI, Aug. 2015-Present

Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity, WPI, Aug. 2013-Present

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Career Development Center

Project Center

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