How to Include Your Study Abroad in Your Resume

We’ve been writing a lot about studying abroad lately (see here and here). While your time abroad is fantastic, there are many questions when returning. One of those at the forefront is this: how can you include your study abroad in your resume? Luckily, we have the answers, which we break down below.

Awards + Scholarships

Was your study abroad paid fully out of pocket, or did you receive aid? This could be a great opportunity to shine as you include your study abroad in your resume. For any school or employer, this automatically shows two things:

• You took initiative
• You are competent enough that people previously invested money in you

So take advantage of this! Many resume formats give you a space to add awards/achievements. Scholarships are the perfect opportunity to advertise your success. Whether it is a small school scholarship that pays for your flights or a large program like Fulbright, you want to show it off! If possible or applicable, it also helps to add relevant details. For example, with my Fulbright Summer Institute, I wanted to highlight the competition and the rigor of the academic program. When you approach your resume, consider the same.

Prestigious programs that you should definitely showcase include Fulbright, Critical Language Scholarship Program, or a Boren Award. If you want more excellent study abroad scholarship opportunities, check out this link!

Soft Skills

While you study abroad, you also pick up many soft skills, many of which can make you more marketable. Because of that, this is what a majority of this article will be on. This article goes over 50 soft skills gained through studying abroad that you can list when including your study abroad in your resume; however, we are going to focus on seven.

Cross-Cultural Communication

When you study abroad, you naturally engage in cross cultural communication. This is a skill when, used properly, can be very useful. If you truly hone this skill, you’ll put in the research and be open minded with different cultures or customs you come into contact with. This goes beyond simply talking with people of different cultures. It means that you make an effort to understand, incorporate, and adjust to their cultural norms. It shows empathy and responsibility. Beyond that, it lets employers know that you have a tolerance for ambiguity, that you’re open, and that you can defuse situations with humor. All of these are highly desirable in an employee!

Adaptability

This is a critical skill you exercise daily when you study abroad. While not in your home environment, you must make changes. You no longer have Target/Walmart/Trader Joes at your disposal. You need to adjust to a different cuisine, different laws, and a different culture. This requires a constant restructuring of your brain and adjustments within your mindset. Resilience also ties in well here, as when things don’t go your way, you need to find a way to solve them in order to succeed.

Problem Solving

Almost everything you do includes problem solving, especially when you’re abroad. When you’re in a foreign environment, you need to learn to navigate everything on your own. When an issue arises, you need to resolve it. Most of the time, you’re all by yourself, so you need to be completely independent. Consider the following things: language barriers, public transportation, money issues, home university issues, and expectations. With each of these, you must adjust and resolve something. Make use of that and use it to your advantage on a resume!

Time Management

As I mention in this article, you really learn to manage your time during a college study abroad. You have school, exploring your city, meeting people, planning trips, staying in contact with friends and family, and taking care of business at your home university. All of this is difficult to balance! Because of this, you should consider how you can use study abroad anecdotes to show your employer that you will be able to handle many tasks and deliver on time.

Interpersonal Skills

Interpersonal skills are critical in daily life at home. However, when you’re abroad, you need to really tap into this skill set to thrive. Whether it’s other study abroad students, professors, or locals, you need to connect to make your time there pleasant. The initiative you take and the methods you use can help you market yourself well. Interpersonal skills also suggest leadership. Maybe you organized get togethers in a study abroad cohort or built comradery. All of this can be useful when highlighting your skillset to a future employer when you discuss your study abroad in your resume!

Empathy

Often, studying abroad allows you to connect with people more and understand them better. This is usually because you start to understand their culture better, and you might even try to walk in their shoes. You begin to understand new viewpoints and adjust your own. All of this increases empathy! Especially when it comes to jobs that include teaching or language learning, this is a very valuable skill to put.

In the world we live in, empathy is needed now more than ever. Generally, an empathetic person will be a better employee who will make more of an effort with other employees, and they also often possess conflict resolution skills. For this reason, especially if you think your field needs more of it, don’t hesitate to list empathy as a skill!

Ability to Think Quickly

This is similar to problem solving and adaptability, but it narrows in on your ability to think on your feet. This is a critical skill, especially if you’re faced with a crisis or hard decision at work. Not everybody can make those decisions under pressure or function effectively. You want to highlight your ability to do so. Maybe you needed to figure out a way to communicate with locals or remedy a public transportation situation. Adding onto your problem solving skills, find a way to highlight how you fixed the situation without missing a beat.

Hard Skills

Along the way, you might also pick up some hard skills. This is especially true if you do an internship or volunteer abroad. An internship abroad can have many benefits, one of which is that it teaches you to work in a foreign professional environment. This can be very appealing to employers!

Within foreign internships/volunteer opportunities, much like domestic opportunities, you learn about various new technologies and platforms. These are critical to include when writing about your study abroad in your resume. Some of these might include:

• Construction–did you help to build anything? Did you work with engineering design?
• Design–did you do social media campaign? Engineering design? Photoshop?
• Social Media–did you work with B2B or B2C? Did you use any special platforms?
• Software–did you work with coding or anything IT related?
• Management–did you oversee anyone? Did you have to communicate with and coordinate international teams?

Additionally, you can add skills like public speaking if they apply. The idea is to get creative with it. Chances are that you had to work harder on these hard skills abroad than you would have had to domestically, so market that!

Languages

One of the most obvious resume skills you can gain from studying abroad is a language. When you study abroad in a place that does not speak English, the chances are strong that you will need to speak a few phrases to get by. Many study abroad programs also have you take a language class while you are at that location. This can help you to get a start, but it often won’t help you with fluency. However, if you really put in the effort to learn the new language, it can have so many personal and professional benefits. This might require studying on your own time, getting a tutor, intentionally conversing with natives, and stepping out of your comfort zone, but you will thank yourself for doing it in the long run.

If you are considering putting a language onto your resume, you should evaluate your actual proficiency in the language. Do you have a basic grasp of it, or can you carry on a long, detailed conversation with a native speaker? Can you speak proficiently but not write well? You shouldn’t lie about language proficiency, and it helps to be specific about your abilities. When filling out an application, companies often give you the options for basic, intermediate, proficient, fluent, and native. It helps to read about what each category really means, which you can do here.

Language Level Resources

There are also resources to formally or informally test your abilities. You can find information about the ILR test (used by the US government) here. Similarly, you can find information about the CEFR test (used by most European countries) here. While you have to pay to get a formal rating for both of these, you can usually find online tests that can approximate your level.

Statement of Purpose/Cover Letter

Almost every job will require you to write a cover letter. Some jobs, as well as many graduate programs, also require you to write a statement of purpose. Both of these are an opportunity to share a bit about you and why the company should hire you. In a resume, you only really get this opportunity through the short objective at the top. Even still, that’s optional. A cover letter does a much better job of giving you a voice and setting you apart.

In your SoP/cover letter, you have the chance to explain a bit more about your experience. This can be the perfect way to ensure you sound like you embody the soft skills listed on your resume. You can incorporate your study abroad into the letter in the following ways:

• Discuss how it impacted who you are today
• Mention how it influenced your decision to apply for this job
• Focus on a few skills gained while abroad
• Talk about how these skills would make you a uniquely competent employee
• Highlight soft skills!
• Work in any accomplishments or achievements while abroad
• Pick a few aspects of yourself that studying abroad enhanced

Whatever you do, make sure that you connect your study abroad with your application! It doesn’t do much good to solely ramble about a study abroad. Instead, neatly tie in your study abroad in your resume. Show your future employer that you are a master at making connections. Let them get to know the real you!

A Final Word

Studying abroad changes your life in so many ways. Beyond the personal growth, make it work for you in your professional life! Did we miss anything, or is there anything that you used to boost your resume? Let us know in the comments.