What you did on summer vacation

Labor Day weekend is traditionally the time we say goodbye to summer, and, if we’re historically aware, pay our respects to the labor unions and leaders who helped attain so many advances for the American worker. There’s another tradition you may find yourself recalling this week, especially if you’re homeschooling your kids: The clichéd essay assignment, “What I did on summer vacation.”

Remember the headscratching you used to do, trying to conjure up three months of activities? Lucky were the kids who’d been on a family vacation, because that was good for at least three paragraphs and maybe even a little drawing on the bottom of the page.

If you thought those days were behind you, here’s news: Points will be given to the job seeker who can offer an upbeat recital of how they spent their pandemic furlough. Not that you’ll be frowned at for not having a good story — but you’ll stand out if you do.

Although we can expect interviewers to be more empathetic than they were after the last recession, it’s hard to forget tales of employers who wondered why someone would be out of work for so long. Candidates learned to craft stories about the classes they were taking and the work skills they’d gained from volunteering.

Along the same lines, career counselors learned to push their clients to sign up for classes and volunteering, while taking side jobs where possible, all in a bid to demonstrate motivation and ongoing work skills to future employers.

Which brings us to an awkward reality of our current situation — many of those activities are simply not advisable or available at the moment. And even if they were, pandemic time pressures for some people have been more intense, not less, making extra tasks seem impossible to squeeze onto the schedule.

Even if employers do show more compassion this time around, that won’t erase their underlying questions about long-idled candidates. Can you still do the job? Are you motivated to work? How are your communication skills, and will you take instruction?

And the main thing that every employer wonders about every candidate, regardless of their recent work history: What can you do for me?

Whether you’re planning a job search in the near future or not until further down the road, now is a good time to take stock of what you’ve been doing since the pandemic upended everyone’s life. Even if you’ve kept your job during this time, there’s no doubt that you’ve been doing things differently. Waiting too long before you capture your thoughts could mean missing something a future employer would want to hear about.

Here are some writing prompts that might help:

Did you learn any new communication tools, such as Zoom? What was your role — did you host any meetings, or get others together online? Is organizing groups one of your skill sets? Do you feel you’ve mastered this communication tool?

Did you adopt any home schooling processes to help your kids (or yourself ) transition to online learning? What did you discover about digital learning tools and systems? Would you be able to assist with an organization’s video training programs? Did you complete or oversee any home improvement projects? What did you learn about pricing materials, or managing project schedules? Did you meet a budget or timeline you’d set for yourself ? What skill set can you transfer to your next job?

What about neighborhood or family gatherings? What kinds of accommodations did you make to ensure safety while still connecting? Is there knowledge or process here that you can bring to a new work situation?

And how about navigating a sudden influx of digital processes, ranging from enrolling in unemployment to helping a family member with health care billing issues? Is patience one of your attributes? Do you turn out to be good at finding answers online? How can this help your next boss?

You’ve got the idea. In every case, the example is a two-parter: What did you do, and what does that mean for a new employer? One without the other won’t hold meaning in an interview. Even if you’re not planning a job search anytime soon, there’s another benefit to putting your thoughts on paper about this past summer: Perspective. Without some kind of summary of what you’ve been through and what you’ve learned to handle, it’s easy to downplay the achievement of simply surviving the past few months.

At the same time, those wonderful bonus moments of joy and accomplishment can also slip past, leaving you to remember only the challenges. Capturing them now can be a gift to your future self.