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Should I put my fast food job on my application?


TheLeo

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I am looking for an opinion or two here. I've had many longterm job opportunities. Little Caesars was among them. I spent almost 4 years working there part-time. Never ate so much garlic bread in my life.

I am concerned that Caesars will not add to the quality of my apps to Ontario medical schools... my other 5 job opportunities involved paid research.

I like to think that adcoms will recognize the potential value of working at a fast food restaurant. I personally learned a great deal- patience (usually when someone was screaming because "ITS NOT HOT AND READDYYYYYY!"), responsibility, organization, etc etc. But I also realize that "Little Caesars- Home of the Hot-N-Ready!!" doesn't have a super impressive ring to it.

What do you think?  

 

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4 minutes ago, Eudaimonia said:

I agree in the values of the experience you stated. If you have room in your application, definitely include it! It was also a long term activity which is always a good thing. 

Is anything more than 1 year considered a long term activity? Just curious. 

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Definitely include it! Depending on how you word your ABS, you'll be able to highlight certain CanMEDS roles that accompany working in a part-time job  (collaboration with coworkers, communication with customers, etc.) I had quite a few "non-academic" part-time jobs included on my application. 

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No reason not to include it if you have space.  I agree it probably wont add much. 

13 hours ago, Lactic Folly said:

Some people like to see such jobs on applications - the thought is less sense of entitlement.

This was often a theory people had when applying to med school.  After spending time as a file reviewer with staff I have to say I didn't see any evidence of this.  If anything, a lot of staff seemed to be looking for candidates that were "doctor-like, like me", which often meant entitlement/1%-er ness was not a bad thing.  (Sorry I know its annoying and kind of dumb but that is what I found)

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Most people in medicine did not have to climb the socioeconomic ladder as their parents, or parents parents, did it for them.

putting the fast food job on the resume wont hurt your chances (hopefully) but it wont help them either.

this is one of the many reasons why the upper socioeconomic strata is overrepresented in medical school. while the poor/middle class kids are working jobs to get by, the rich ones are starting "initiatives" and partaking in multiple variations of voluntourism. 

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16 hours ago, TheLeo said:

I am looking for an opinion or two here. I've had many longterm job opportunities. Little Caesars was among them. I spent almost 4 years working there part-time. Never ate so much garlic bread in my life.

I am concerned that Caesars will not add to the quality of my apps to Ontario medical schools... my other 5 job opportunities involved paid research.

I like to think that adcoms will recognize the potential value of working at a fast food restaurant. I personally learned a great deal- patience (usually when someone was screaming because "ITS NOT HOT AND READDYYYYYY!"), responsibility, organization, etc etc. But I also realize that "Little Caesars- Home of the Hot-N-Ready!!" doesn't have a super impressive ring to it.

What do you think?  

 

Of course, why wouldn't you? Working a crappy fast food job is much better than folding sheets at a hospital.

At EC heavy schools, it definitely helps. People are much more impressed by actual work ethic and experience than minimal responsbility hospital volunteering and mission trips to the developing world.

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also you can look for the same sorts of things in the fast food job that you would look for in any other EC. If you start as a cashier and end as a cashier if there was the possibility of more then that tells people something still. Does mean you will advance from every position - sometimes you simply can't. However usually I think there is room to do something. 

Ha, as a real world example - I worked at McD in high school after actually being forced to by my parents (get a job!), starting in the kitchen burning myself on the frier (and I mean repeatedly). I as soon as I could cross trained to the cashier and later to the holy grail of the drive thru (they were picky about that for some reason). In six months I was promoted to crew trainer and in 1 year I was promoted again to one of our 3 coordinators which put me in charge of the store for a few hours at at time mostly during breakfast. Finally I trained myself to be a member of the maintenance crew as that meant I universally could work any station/shift/position in the store - that meant I was the first person they called to fill any shift (and call they did ha). On the ranking scale they used I was put as the only top 1 employee in Ontario for the following 3 years. It got to the point ultimately where in the head office evaluation of the store (the most important time of the year - where only your best people assigned to work so you can keep the franchise) I was put in charge of the kitchen during the day, very likely the most critical position in the entire store with a team I personally trained, and trained hard, for the prior 4 months.  My dream team as it were ha. We achieved the highest score we ever did during that time, and were ranked near top in the province. In the end before I started university I agreed to be promoted to a manager (had decline prior as I was focusing on school now I was in university).  

I mention all that not to demonstrate the weirdly obsessive person I can be at times, but because I wanted to if possible show that just because it is a fast food job it doesn't mean that you cannot create an EC worth talking about. Even if you are doing it for just the money that in of itself is worth talking about. It almost doesn't matter what you start at with any of your ECs - it why are are doing it, and it matters what you do with it afterwards. 

 

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12 minutes ago, Organomegaly said:

DEFINITELY put this on! There is so much in medicine that is like working in a fast food restaurant. Patients are not unlike customers, and being able to communicate with people with often unreasonable demands and poor patience is such a helpful life skill

"The customer is always right, unless they're a racist bigot, then you have to deescalate and serve them anyways".

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3 hours ago, goleafsgochris said:

No reason not to include it if you have space.  I agree it probably wont add much. 

This was often a theory people had when applying to med school.  After spending time as a file reviewer with staff I have to say I didn't see any evidence of this.  If anything, a lot of staff seemed to be looking for candidates that were "doctor-like, like me", which often meant entitlement/1%-er ness was not a bad thing.  (Sorry I know its annoying and kind of dumb but that is what I found)

I did see it a bit. But as you might expect, the value assigned to these types of jobs came more from staff who themselves came from a working-class background. Goes to support the variability in file review dependent on the individual reading them, as well as the non-representativeness of the general population among those in medicine.

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18 hours ago, TheLeo said:

I am looking for an opinion or two here. I've had many longterm job opportunities. Little Caesars was among them. I spent almost 4 years working there part-time. Never ate so much garlic bread in my life.

I am concerned that Caesars will not add to the quality of my apps to Ontario medical schools... my other 5 job opportunities involved paid research.

I like to think that adcoms will recognize the potential value of working at a fast food restaurant. I personally learned a great deal- patience (usually when someone was screaming because "ITS NOT HOT AND READDYYYYYY!"), responsibility, organization, etc etc. But I also realize that "Little Caesars- Home of the Hot-N-Ready!!" doesn't have a super impressive ring to it.

What do you think?  

 

I would put it on. I think people do recognize the value of hardwork at a service job. Even I as someone who has never worked a retail job (got one for a summer, but got screwed over last minute) feels that service jobs are damn hard and teach a lot of good values. It doesn't detract from your paid research experiences either, i feel like it diversifies you. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Glad to see the tone of the responses here. Couldn't agree more with them :-) Tough job, lots of skill development and commitment demonstrated. This experience doesn't have to define you totally but it can illuminate aspects of you which can be valued by those schools/programs you are applying to.

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