Your TA may assign your seating today, so that you're sitting with others who share your major. This would make talking about resumes more relevant and impactful.

Resumes

Let's talk about it. Here are some questions about your initial resume your TA may ask you to consider during section:

What is the hardest part about putting together a resume?
Who have you consulted for help in the past when putting together your resume?
What kind of job do you think your initial resume qualifies you for?
What do you think is the biggest shortcoming or silence in your resume so far?
Are there any important qualities that you would bring to a job that are not represented on this resume?
What would you like your resume to include by the time you graduate from university?

The assembly line. Everyone take one bullet point on the SuccessWork resume review checklist. You're now reviewing with a focus on that one bullet point. The class will organize in a circle or circuit. You'll pass your resume to the next person for a rapid-fire 20-second review session – your job is just to make notes if your bullet point needs attention. You'll keep going until your resume gets passed back to you. And, of course, you'll get lots of experience seeing other students' resumes!

Review committees. You'll be put in groups of 3 – there might be one group of 2 or 4. Each group will pass their resumes as a batch to the next group for review, and once that batch is done they will be passed to the next group (so the process repeats).

What happens in each batch? Each group will pretend to be hiring for a certain position. When a batch of resumes arrives, you'll each take one and review it for one minute. Next you'll rotate who has which resume and repeat. And then you'll repeat a final time. Afterward, the 3 of you will discuss for a minute or so which resume you'd select, if you were hiring for your position.

This is a little like the activity above, but in batches or with stations.

Learning from resumes. Take out a piece of paper. Swap resumes with the student sitting next to you. Read through your fellow student's resume and, on your paper, write down three things about this student's resume that differ from your own – and which you'd like to incorporate into your own resume. (This might be formatting/style choices, decisions about how to organize the resume and choose what comes first, ways of creatively and specifically describing certain activities, choices about including or not including certain types of activities – anything.) Your TA will go around the room and ask you to pick one of these things to explain to the class as a model resume practice.

STAR statements

What does it stand for? Your TA will introduce you to a powerful technique that will help your interviews be as effective as possible. STAR statements are basically very short stories. They keep you from rambling, and they help you highlight the most important parts of your story. Here's what the acronym stands for:

Situation = the employer and time period
Task = the problem or goal
Action = the specific things you did
Results = the outcomes

Shooting from the hip. Your TA may divide you up into pairs (maximum one trio). Trade resumes with your partner and take turns asking each other about the things on the resume you have in front of you. Respond with STAR statements, even if you haven't prepared one for what you're asked about! Here are some ways to formulate mock interview questions:

Pick out one work or volunteer experience listed on the resume and ask "Tell me more about your time working at _____. What skills did you use to succeed in that job? What was the most important thing you learned from the experience?"
Pick out one class listed on the resume and ask "Tell me more about the class you took on _____. What was the purpose of the course? What is the most important thing you learned from the class?"
Pick out one award or honor the student listed on the resume and ask them what they did to earn that award, and what stays with them about that experience that they would bring to a professional job.
Ask them why they chose to major in whatever they listed on their resume, what kind of job or career they hope that major will lead to, and what one thing on their resume connects most to their choice of major.

Silly statements. The point of this activity is for you to see how to take anything and turn it into a STAR statement. Do the activity above, but ask questions that nobody would ever ask in an interview. Here are some examples, but feel free to try your own:

Tell me about a time you spent too much money.
How did you resolve the last fight you had with friends or family?
What is one of your favorite moments in a movie, TV show, video game, or book?