Let’s move on to Leadership.  Any organization is going to have some type of leadership structure, managing board, etc.  Get involved with this.  That’s the very best thing I can tell you to do.  Get involved, elected, appointed, whatever.  Once you do that, the rest will follow: hairy situations, confrontations, tough decisions, etc.  How you respond to deal with these situations is what gives you your examples to share with recruiters and to put on your resume. 

As a recruiter, we look for people who have demonstrated that they are capable of handling the responsibility of leading an organization (generally the size is not important) to get quality results.  The most basic way to show this is in the title of the office you hold.  Being the president, vice president, treasurer, etc almost automatically shows a significant time commitment that you have put forth to help guide the organization.

To me, Leadership and Initiative are hand in hand, and I don’t think you can do one without the other.  Having the initiative to get involved usually puts you in the position where you are a leader (or where can be if you want to).  Leading almost always requires initiative.  This dovetails into… how do you get yourself elected a leader if/when you just joined the organization and don’t know the first thing about leadership?

Initiative is the answer!  You may not know the first thing about the organization and what the president of it does, but you darn well can start asking questions to find out.  You can take the initiative to go to most of the events, to join committees, to be a fully active member, and to help out beyond what everyone else does.  From my experience in Triangle Fraternity, if the current leadership is good, they will identify people who have high initiative, and will actively develop and groom them to lead the organization in the future.  

If the leadership is not really aware of this, you might need to take a little more initiative on your part by going to them to ask the President/VP/whatever: “I want your job.  How can I get there?”  Hopefully they will point you in the right direction.

Expect it to take some time to get there too.  You will need to learn the organization inside and out, and continually demonstrate your commitment to it.  You will need to earn it.  If it is that easy to attain, chances are the rewards won’t be that great either.

In sum, if you’re going to be part of an organization for fun, why not add some value to your resume at the same time?  Adding this extra effort will pay you dividends well worth the extra time spent with your friends doing activities you love with the organization you are proud to be a member of.

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