1. Putting your best foot forward
Cross-Cultural Experiences:
How to boost your resume
Nicole Miller
Coordinator, International Programming
Grenfell Campus

2. Cross-cultural experiences…1
Cannot truly happen without you leaving your home culture 2
Involve active learning 3
Make you get out of your comfort zone
You cannot truly have a cross-cultural experience if you do not leave your home culture. Even though you may interact with many different people while staying in your home culture, these experiences do not qualify as a cross cultural experience as in order to have a true cross cultural experience you need to get out of your own culture and comfort zone.
In order to have a true cross-cultural experience you need to engage in active learning. You cannot passively observe another culture and hope to learn it – you must actively be involved and participating in various aspects of daily life in the culture to begin to understand the new culture. For example, going to the grocery store – getting familiar with how the store is laid out, are the eggs sold refrigerated or at room temperature? Does fresh produce come wrapped in plastic, is it in paper, or is it in organic packaging such as banana leaves? All of these seemingly small things are part of the local culture. If you passively observe another culture it would be like you watching a sports game that you know nothing about, on silent without anyone explaining the rules or objectives to you. If you truly want to have a cross-cultural experience it means asking questions, getting to know locals, and understanding the rules and nuances of the new culture.
Actively participating in a cross-cultural experience will bring you to the edge, and hopefully out, of your comfort zone. This is the point at which you will learn the most and this is where you will acquire the majority of your cross-cultural skills.

3. What type of skills do you gain from cross-cultural experiences?
Adaptability
Assertiveness
Ability to quickly establish rapport
Overcoming obstacles
Communication
Critical thinking ability
Enhanced cultural awareness
Flexibility
Independence
Organizational
Inquisitiveness
Open-mindedness
Global mindset
Patience
Perseverance
Problem solving
Self-confidence
Time management
Ability to take initiative
Ability to handle ambiguity

4. Where can you articulate these skills?1
On a resume 2
On a cover letter 3
On your professional social media platform (i.e. LinkedIn) 4
During an interview
When building your resume make sure to include your study abroad experience in the education section. List the name of the institution you attended, the dates, and anything relevant that you completed or earned from that university (courses, certificate, diploma, degree). You should list this institution you attended as its own entry below the institution you intend to graduate from. For example, if you are a Grenfell student who went to Australia, you would list your Grenfell information (including projected graduation date) and then the Australian university underneath that, or for students here on exchange, you would list your home institution with your intended graduation date with Grenfell listed underneath it. If you are from another country and Grenfell is where you are completing your degree you would list Grenfell Campus only.
When listing this experience you should create strong statements with action verbs, responsibilities or situations, and impacts or results. For example (show example on separate sheet of paper)
Additionally, in the experience section of your resume you can list any volunteer work you did while abroad – did you volunteer at Foam Fest while here? Did you volunteer for an activity while abroad? Anything you did in terms of volunteering or service should be added to this section.
You can also list some of your skills in the skills section as this is a space for both hard (ex: technical) as well as soft (intangible) skills.
When writing a cover letter for a job you may want to take the opportunity to highlight some of the skills you gained that are relevant to the job you are applying for. You may say something along the lines of: “I participated in a study abroad experience during my undergraduate degree and I am very comfortable working with people from many different cultural backgrounds. I also have enhanced my problem solving ability and am able to think creatively as a result of living and studying outside of my home country.” The cover letter is a place where you can really sell the value of these skills by giving concrete examples of them.
If you do not already have a professional social media platform profile you may want to consider making one. You can list your study abroad experience as part of your profile and this will likely help your network grow – which can open up job possibilities!
When you are in an interview you will have the opportunity to really highlight how beneficial these skills are. You should be able to provide examples of situations when any of your skills were used. Even something as simple as missing a connecting flight allows you to talk about your ability to problem solve on the spot, to be flexible with options that are provided to you, to be able to communicate across language and cultural barriers, and your ability to overcome an obstacle. The fact that you even went away to study also shows how open minded, independent and organized you are. You can highlight you assertiveness and self-confidence skills by giving an example of when you had to advocate for yourself – maybe this was asking a professor for clarification on an assignment, making sure you got into a class you needed, or getting from point a to b in a new place. There are so many ways to bring your study abroad skills into an interview – you just need to make sure you think about examples of how to highlight your skills before going into the interview. You will likely be asked what some of your strengths are, so this is a great chance to not just say you are open minded, flexible, and are able to effectively communicate with others – build all three of those skills into one example that highlights the skills and shows the employer that you have used them. Additionally, you should be prepared to answer questions about why you chose to study abroad and how and why you chose the location of your experience.

5. Why do these skills matter?
Set you apart from others
Employers are looking for these skills
Job integration
Having these skills, and being able to properly articulate them on your resume, cover letter, professional social media profile, and in an interview will allow you to set yourself apart from other students with the same credentials. Students who have not participated in study abroad will have skills that are similar to these, and on paper may look the same, but when you each articulate to the employer how to obtained that skill, you will be setting yourself apart. Additionally, having the experience on your resume and cover letter will immediately show the employer how you are different from other candidates.
Employers are looking for these skills, but again, you have to be able to explain how you obtained these skills and why they are useful – just listing them is not enough. Research from employer surveys indicates that employers ranked the following four skills as key skills for new hires:
Ability to communicate with people both inside and outside the organization
Ability to problem solve and make decisions
Ability to prioritize, organize and strategically plan
Ability to obtain and process information
These are all skills you have obtained as a result of your cross-cultural experience so using some of the methods I spoke about, make sure you can articulate these skills in an effective way.
Having these skills should also allow you to better integrate yourself into your new job. You are able to adapt to new situations, can create rapport quickly, you’re able to communicate effectively with others, and you are open-minded and inquisitive. All of these skills should help to make a recipe for success in the workplace. Being able to quickly integrate into a new job will also help you feel committed to the organization and will also foster trust between you and your coworkers.

6. Moving forward 1 2 3 Connect with your diverse network
Market your self and your skills appropriately 3
Practice narratives to highlight your skills
You now have a diverse network of friends and contacts all over the world. When you are looking for a job, reach out to these people to see if they know of any opportunities that may work for you!
When applying for jobs make sure that you communicate your cross-cultural skills on your resume and your cover letter.
When you land an interview, take the time to think about the job and your skillset before going to the interview. Make sure you practice weaving your skills and experience into questions you can anticipate based on the nature of the job so that you can really show how valuable you are as an employee.

7. Questions?
Want to speak more about this? me at