10 Paying College Jobs That Look Good on Your Résumé

Reader Comments
Back to article

I started in hotel sales 20 years ago out of college. I started at the front desk, 6 mnths later I went to sales, within years I earned 75K, within 10 Years I consistently made 120K plus bonus per year.
What a great field. I sold Embassy Suites, Hiltons, Marriott - Sold there meeting space, room blocks, and amentieis and services.
There are lots of sales and catering people at hotels, from 1 - 10 or more. You can start at around 40-60K plus bonus.
Get a certificate on-line fairly fast at ecornell.com or www.aprinda.com

Dan of CA 10:47PM March 02, 2011

To Alex: "Insultive and appaling"? Do you mean insulting and appalling?
Colleges are businesses. They are educational businesses, but businesses nonetheless, and are always looking for ways to raise money. Since you are a high school senior and not even in college yet, you have no idea how brand partnership actually affects education at the school. The answer: little to none. My Atlanta college had a patnership with Coca-Cola and the major difference was that you couldn't find Pepsi products anywhere on campus (which is true in much of Atlanta, lol). An independent researcher getting pressured by a pharmaceutical company to hide results is nothing at all like a university partnering with a brand to build that student center you'll be using or a computer lab in that dorm you'll be living in. Where do you think universities get their money from, trees? Your tuition (if you pay all of it) won't even cover the cost of your own education.
To everyone else: I was interested in the fact that this article included bank telling and waitressing but left off research assistant positions...many professors need research assistants to help them with their work and will often pay for the assistance (either through work-study or out of their own grants). It's useful for PhD hopefuls, but also useful for anyone who wants to go into any kind of research position afterwards - a market research analyst, policy research analyst, operations research, whatever. I'm applying for these jobs now after having been a research assistant through college and graduate school, and many of them require or prefer that their applicants know several statistical packages and have strong analysis skills - skills I've acquired working as a research assistant. Even unpaid the experience can be valuable, and tends to look good on law and med school applications, too.

Melissa of NY 10:17AM February 28, 2011

This is for Justin & Alex. While I am completely stunned and impressed with the passion, I don't see where such intensity came from. This article is merely a suggestion of ideas students can try to obtain work while being in college. Who knows if there is some level of "brand" pushing behind the suggestions but this list of college jobs obviously came from a poll or survey of statistics. Plus, not to mention, but like it or not anyone who really makes a name for themselves at some point will need to market him or herself. That's why we have resumes and rankings of different schools. Also it's where the statement "don't mix business with personal" comes from. So while your views are honorable, this article is not as corrupted as the two of you make it out to be. The unfortunate thing is that Justin makes a good point of the fact that we are a society of social circles and backgrounds. In life it is more of who you know rather than what you know. But "what you know" will get you further.

Brian of VA 7:31AM February 28, 2011

I identify with four of these:
- I'm a campus tour guide (not paid, though)
- Brand ambassador (for Chegg)
- Writer (Freelance)
- Social media consultant (for an upscale restaurant in my collegetown)
They're great sources of income, I love doing them, and it helps my resume.

Marc of NY 2:11PM February 23, 2011

I was inspired when I read your comment- such passion!
Now let me crush your dreams. If you think any college or university is an "unmarketed" space, you will be sorely disappointed when you get there. Conservative politics since the 1980's has kept college costs rising on the backs of students who find it difficult to avoid student debt and everyone is looking for a way to distinguish themselves not to their peers but to prospective employers in the future. The bookstores are raping students on texts which become irrelevant by the end of the semester, and university administrations have become more detached as they take on a lobbying role, fighting for pension options and other trivial concerns for themselves and their staffs than for student rights.
"Social engineering" is the wave of the future. Companies will continue to use young people to push their brands- on Facebook, Twitter, and the Quad. While your examples of deplorable decision-making on the part of companies and academics alike prove a point on the educational-industrial complex, they fail to bring out the fact that students are engaged in this sort of soul-chilling deal-with-the-devil-making themselves. We students have traded our rights in for a ticket to "the future", fearing retribution for standing up to authority.
The American education system is broken. The ideals you mention- freedom of thought, independence- are all well and good until we see them in the world we have created for ourselves. A system which tells you what to think and what you need to know is hardly one promoting academic or intellectual independence. Furthermore, students engaging in such contracts as this article discusses may well be the most independent of them all. They are utilizing the connections and the experience gained by selling short to stock a resume which will take them into a life of severe, rewarding mediocrity.
I admire your passion and idealism, but I must take the opportunity to brace you for reality. In the brutal world of student rights and university education, there is no clear delineation between right and wrong. There are no boundaries of integrity. There is no black and white: only pass and fail. Over four years of "education", we put our heads down, keep our mouths shut, and farm money for a disgustingly privatized process that is creating a talent deficit between our country and more flexible developing nations.
Good luck.

Justin Buck of AR 2:02PM February 21, 2011

I'm a psychology major - but, photography seems to be a passion. Just out of curiosity, I was wondering about what kind of scope it has, in college, and in the real world.

Jitendar of ID 4:10AM February 21, 2011

If you're about to go to college, you have no reason to care about "walking billboards." If you do well in school you won't notice.

Aaron Rogers of CA 9:58AM February 19, 2011

2. Brand Ambassador --
Reading this was absolutely insultive and appaling to me and, I can hope, anyone who respects integrity on a college campus, which is supposed to be an environment that fosters independent thought. Using college students as billboards or having college students attempt to market major brands is the very antithesis of independent thinking.
Before I continue, I'd like to comment that I have no intention of "stirring the political pot" on this one -- I don't wish to bring up any talk about capitalism vs. socialism, and I do not wish to be labeled as the definitive "college hippie" that hates "the man." I am an eighteen year old high school student and prospective college student who would actually consider himself economically conservative.
But corporate sponshorship should be a phrase feared on a college campus. For example, Here's a "non-disparagement" clause almost signed between the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Reebok -- "During and for a reasonable time after the term, the University will not issue any official statement that disparages Reebok. Additionally, the University will promptly take all reasonable steps to address any remark by any University employee, agent or representative, including a Coach, that disparages Reebok..."
Or even worse is in 1998, at the University of Toronto, Dr. Nancy Olivieri, a scientist and expert on the blood disorder thalassemia, entered into a research contract with the drug-company giant Apotex. The company wanted Olivieri to test the effectiveness of the drug deferiprone when Olivieri found evidence that the drug might have life-threatening side effects. of course, Apotext pulled the plug on the study and threatened to sue Olivieri if she went public.
It is illusory to think that corporate interest is aligned in a similar fashion to academic interest, and working as a "brand ambassador" (which is in itself a clever euphemism for "social engineer") is less a great way to get noticed than to perpetrate needless consumerism in one of the last unmarketed spaces in this country.
I am also very offended that the article believes shamelessly promoting mass-market products will make a student "a commodity among your peers." Were this trend true, perhaps my best friends can be telemarketing agents? Nothing speaks "man, that guys cool" to me like a guy trying to get me to try this free trial of Proactiv.
Thanks, RepNation, for effectively transforming college students into corporate prostitutes.

Alex Hubers of IA 1:44AM February 17, 2011

Don't discount the idea of "working for free" in an internship position. Many small businesses are delighted to have an offer and will often entertain paying you even if you approach them with an "I want to work for you for free" style pitch to get your foot in the door. Looks great on a resume too. I know as a small business owner (who offers paid internship positions to both high school and college students) that I'd rather hire someone with experience in my industry than someone who worked at the campus coffee shop...
Brannon Lloyd
www.TheCollegeMoneyGuys.com

Brannon Lloyd of TX 6:38PM February 14, 2011

While reading this article i came across a few jobs that that i would be interested in one being a bank teller. I Think that would be a great part time job while going to college. Because you dont only get the experience and the pay but you gain customer service skills, and learn about the job and that goes with you as you expand you reducation and job expewriences.

Carla Gregory of TX 5:12PM February 07, 2011