AdComs, what jobs you found impressive that one of your applicants/interviewees had?

[ayjaystudent]

AdComs, what jobs you found impressive that one of your applicants/interviewees had? Let's say you already held a scribing job.

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[gyngyn]

Green Beret, Navy Seal, presidential advisor, Olympic medalist.
Next tier, Miss USA/America/California, NFL player, Google exec.

 

[Med Ed]

Food service, retail.

 

[Goro]

AdComs, what jobs you found impressive that one of your applicants/interviewees had? Let's say you already held a scribing job.

Military, especially pilots
Cops
Teachers

 

[DrRiker]

Green Beret, Navy Seal, presidential advisor, Olympic medalist.
Next tier, Miss USA/America/California, NFL player, Google exec.

I guess I'll be an MA for life then

 

[Walter Raleigh]

Green Beret, Navy Seal, presidential advisor, Olympic medalist.
Next tier, Miss USA/America/California, NFL player, Google exec.

Any MacArthur Genius Grant winners or NASA rocket scientists?

 

[gyngyn]

Any MacArthur Genius Grant winners or NASA rocket scientists?

Plenty of rocket scientists.

 

[LizzyM]

Guy who circumnavigated North America in a submarine. On the government's dime.

 

[stayathomemom]

Food service, retail.

Interesting.

So here's my scenario. I've taken...a lot of gap years, during which I've done a lot of things. Mostly volunteering. I have more than 15 experiences (or whatever they're called) so I have to pare down my list when it comes time to apply. One of the things I've done was that I was an employee of a well-known home goods retail store (not "Home Goods" the actual store, but along those lines). I worked there for two years, and while I started as a general employee, I eventually was promoted to full time front end lead, which means I was responsible for setting up the merchandise at the front of the store, handling customer issues, overseeing the cashiers, and training new cashiers. I was thinking this was just a job, and possibly excluding it from the Top 15, but do you think I should reconsider this and include it after all? If it matters, I quit because I moved across the country; I wasn't fired or anything.

Edited to include: also if it matters, this was the last paying job I've had and it ended long ago. It was also the only full-time job I had. (I have other college-related jobs that I am definitely putting on my app.)

 

[Walter Raleigh]

Guy who circumnavigated North America in a submarine. On the government's dime.

Nuclear engineer, or was he the captain of that submarine? A crewmember?

 

[shtumpa]

I worked in a bakery - I was quite surprised at how interesting interviewers seemed to find this....even now during clinicals when I say that to people I often get that classic surprise facial ejaculation [raise upper eyelids + “reeeeeealy!”]

I’m not sure why...perhaps it’s because my general appearance is more toward the plumber side of the spectrum than the baker side.

 

[shtumpa]

Guy who circumnavigated North America in a submarine. On the government's dime.

Lol know a professor who got a government grant as a graduate student to rent a submarine and scrape seaweed from the Great Lakes for some study or other. A couple million from Uncle Sam.

 

[Med Ed]

One of the things I've done was that I was an employee of a well-known home goods retail store (not "Home Goods" the actual store, but along those lines). I worked there for two years, and while I started as a general employee, I eventually was promoted to full time front end lead, which means I was responsible for setting up the merchandise at the front of the store, handling customer issues, overseeing the cashiers, and training new cashiers. I was thinking this was just a job, and possibly excluding it from the Top 15, but do you think I should reconsider this and include it after all?

I would definitely include this. Handling customer issues and overseeing/training new cashiers are skills transferable to medical practice. It will also clearly broadcast that you were not born with a silver spoon in your mouth. I rarely see 15 quality ECs, btw, so be judicious and consider consolidating if possible. We get a fair number of people who try to stretch out their ECs by making separate entries for every 4-8 hour activity, and that gets annoying.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I know the USUHS 4th year class president in 2013-14 was a a naval academy graduate who drove subs for 10 years before going to med school

As someone who spent the first few years of my enlistment driving a warship, I’m impressed he stood that watch for 10 years without killing himself or dying of boredom. Driving was my least favorite watch on the boat, and I’m including standing aft lookout alone in the middle of the night in freezing weather and 30 foot seas.

 

[LizzyM]

Nuclear engineer, or was he the captain of that submarine? A crewmember?

Nuclear engineer, I suspect. Certainly not the captain and he was an officer (and a gentleman).

 

[stayathomemom]

I would definitely include this. Handling customer issues and overseeing/training new cashiers are skills transferable to medical practice. It will also clearly broadcast that you were not born with a silver spoon in your mouth. I rarely see 15 quality ECs, btw, so be judicious and consider consolidating if possible. We get a fair number of people who try to stretch out their ECs by making separate entries for every 4-8 hour activity, and that gets annoying.

Thank you for your opinion! I will include it. Yes, because I've taken so much time off (15 gap years) and I've had so much time to volunteer as a stay at home parent, my ECs are definitely overflowing. I'm also struggling to decide whether or not I should lump some minor (but mostly unrelated) ones together as general "minor service volunteer experiences" or something like that. Also, I have no room to put down hobbies, which I'm afraid makes me look like a slave to volunteering. On the other hand, most of my hobbies are stereotypical "PNW hippie mother" hobbies (hiking, knitting, cooking, gardening), so maybe it's best to leave them off anyway.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

Nuclear engineer, I suspect. Certainly not the captain and he was an officer (and a gentleman).

There are nuclear power officers and three nuclear enlisted rates. But there are quite a few other rates and officer positions onboard a sub. No real reason to assume he was a nuke, though it’s definitely possible.

 

[LizzyM]

There are nuclear power officers and three nuclear enlisted rates. But there are quite a few other rates and officer positions onboard a sub. No real reason to assume he was a nuke, though it’s definitely possible.

MS in nuclear engineering which makes me suspect that he was a nuclear power officer.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

MS in nuclear engineering which makes me suspect that he was a nuclear power officer.

Probably then. You didn’t say that. Someone just asked nuke (or captain or crew), so it seemed like you were just assuming based on knowledge of subs. But thanks for the snark when I didn’t know something I couldn’t have known without you providing that info.

 

[LizzyM]

Probably then. You didn’t say that. Someone just asked nuke, so it seemed like you were just assuming based on knowledge of subs. But thanks for the snark when I didn’t know something I couldn’t have known without you providing that info.

I'm sorry, I did not at all mean to be snarky. Someone gave me multiple choice and I picked the one of the three that seemed most plausible given what I recalled of the guy. I didn't feel the need to give his CV.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I'm sorry, I did not at all mean to be snarky. Someone gave me multiple choice and I picked the one of the three that seemed most plausible given what I recalled of the guy. I didn't feel the need to give his CV.

No worries. It’s late and I’ve eaten too many brownies. Probably was just sensitivity on my part.