Conveying work experience in the b-school app

Question

So, after graduating college, I didn't have a job lined up and didn't quite yet know what I wanted to do with my life. I moved in with my parents, which lasted all of three days, then immediately found a job in restaurant, so I could make enough money to live on my own. My title was "hostess" but I essentially was the daytime manager. I worked in this restaurant from June to November, and in the meantime was looking for jobs. I found an internship I really liked and started interning there in January of the following year. Concurrently, I took another restaurant job in November, this time as a fine-dining server, and stayed at the second restaurant while doing my internship until June, when the company I was interning with hired me full-time.

I don't list my restaurant jobs on my resume, simply because they're not particularly relevant to my current industry. I wasn't planning to list them in my full-time work experience on my b-school apps either, but then I realized that that this might raise questions about the gap between my graduation and the first job listed on my resume.

So, do I count the restaurant jobs in my months of full-time work experience? Do I list the jobs in the work experience forms on the applications? I'm leaning towards just putting everything down on the forms and counting the work experience in my total months of full-time work experience at time of matriculation, but would like some second opinions before I do this.

Thanks for the feedback!

Jerz · Answer

It really could go either way for the restaurant work between graduation and the internship. It would count as full-time work, but I don't think people would be too concerned if you didn't mention it either. A lot of people don't start working full-time until the fall after graduation, so that gap wouldn't raise red flags on its own. For the restaurant work during the internship, I would probably see that as a part-time job, and not include it.

staind · Answer

It could possibly be explained in the Optional Essay since the reviewer might wonder why the gap between graduation and start of work. They might assume it took you that long to find a job.

Writing it in the essay would also allow you to frame it in a positive way like you've done here rather than just listing out the job title, duties and dates.

Conveying work experience in the b-school app

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