Building Your Resume
A resume is a powerful marketing tool designed to showcase your skills, experiences, and accomplishments to potential employers.
A resume is not an exhaustive account of your life rather a concise marketing document designed to demonstrate your suitability for a specific job. Tailor your resume to the position you’re applying for, emphasizing the most relevant qualifications and experiences that align with the job requirements.
Note the difference between a resume and a cover letter:
Resume
A brief one-page summary of your career experiences and skills that show you’re the best candidate for the job. It is succinct, uses strong action verbs to begin each bullet, and highlights relevant skills.
Cover Letter
A Cover Letter expands on your skills and experiences in letter form. It explains your interest in the role and elaborates on certain traits or accomplishments that would be unique or ideal assets for the particular job.
Typically, your resume will be an employer’s first impression of you. A well-written resume that effectively highlights your qualifications can be what helps you secure an interview. While you’re developing your resume, keep in mind:
- Reviewers are quick and skim through resumes, which doesn’t allow for much time to communicate your skills, strengths, goals. Be clear and concise to capture their attention immediately.
- Resumes are fluid and never “done.” Tailor your resume to the specific field or job in a specific company you are applying for. Resumes are also subjective and individualized– what works for one person isn’t always going to be the same for another. Your resume should reflect your unique abilities, skills, achievements, and aspirations.
- A resume alone won’t get you the job. A resume’s primary function is to get you an interview. Hopefully after the interview you will have convinced them to offer you the job.
Crafting Your Resume
Writing an impressive resume is essential to showcase your skills and experiences effectively. Let’s take a look at the different sections in resume, what to include in each, and how to highlight your skills and accomplishments throughout.
- Full Name, City & State, Phone Number, and email address should appear at the top of your resume.
- Include your LinkedIn URL and a link to your portfolio if you have one.
- It is optional to use a clear and specific job objective directly related to the position.
- Avoid creating a generic objective that does not state how you are uniquely qualified for the position.
- A resume for networking events or career fairs does not need an objective statement.
- Statement should be about 2-3 sentences that briefly showcases your core strengths and career aspirations.
- List your education in reverse chronological order. Start with the most recent degree and work backgrounds.
- Take high school off your resume after your freshmen year.
- Write out the official title of the degree you earned or are currently pursuing, your major(s), date of graduation, name & city of school.
- If you transferred and received an associate degree from another institution, include that as well.
- Listing coursework is optional. Only list relevant coursework. Stick to listing 2-5 courses that demonstrate a skill needed for the job.
Example
- Under each experience, include the name of the organization, job title, location, and dates.
- Provide a minimum of 2-3 bullet statements for each position that demonstrates a skill, experience, or ability.
- Use past tense verbs for positions you no longer work for, and current tense for any current employment.
Example
***An exception to reverse chronological order would be if older experience is more relevant. In that case, lead with a section called “Relevant Experience,” include those marketable experiences, then follow with an “Additional Experience” section.
Writing Strong Bullet Points: Action Verb + Skill/Task + Result
For each position, provide a concise summary of your responsibilities, and more importantly, focus on your achievements and contributions.
- Always start with a strong action verb that emphasizes a transferrable skill. Avoid repeating the same action verbs throughout the document.
- Use short and direct statements.
- Emphasize results produced, significant achievements, and recognition from others.
- Quantify when possible and use specific examples of impact or purpose to your accomplishment.
- Avoid listing unrelated or generic duties or starting bullets with “my responsibilities (or duties) included”.
When writing your bullets think of the context, the task involved, action taken, and the result. Each bullet should include the impact of your work.
- Specify WHY or HOW you accomplished what you did — focus on the value you bring to the employers.
- Don’t underestimate yourself! Think about your responsibilities:
- What was the purpose?
- What function did it serve?
- How did it further the company’s goals?
Results can be awards or illustrating your contributions to the efficiency or goal of the organization/event. If you can showcase your results with numbers, percentages, it’s always great!
Examples
- Write, edit, and produce over 15 stories bi-weekly for multiple platforms, including digital and print media.
- Identified and secured multiple information sources for each story to provide accurate, credible news coverage.
- Executed direct-mail and opt-in campaigns via Mailchimp, securing response rates of up to 15%
- Focus on hard skills, your ability to use software platforms, and other technologies.
- Ex. Microsoft Suite, Google Analytics, Adobe Creative Suite, Canva, WordPress, etc.
- Soft skills (communication, teamwork, etc.) must be conveyed throughout how you describe your experiences. Do not list them here.
Example
- If you received any significant awards or made special contributions to work/school.
- List any honors (Dean’s List, honor societies, scholarships awarded, etc.) and the year in which you received them.
- Start with most recent and move in reverse chronological order.
- List the activity, your role if significant (e.g., president, XYZ committee member), and dates you participated.
- Great way to highlight skills that are difficult to quantify but still important to potential employers (e.g., leadership, teamwork, time management)
- All dates, bullets, sections are aligned evenly and consistently throughout the resume.
- Easy to read, with proper grammar, punctuation and spelling.
- Avoid the use of personal pronouns (i.e., “I”, “me”, “you”, “we”)
- Your 1-page resume does not use a template with tables to separate each section.
- Your document does not change font sizes or use multiple colors.
- Omit personal information such as address (city, state is fine) nor include a photograph.
- Margins are consistent, 0.5 inch to 1 inch for each side.
- Use correct tenses, and most importantly, maintain consistency within each separate entry.
- Past experiences are written in past tense.
- Current or on-going experiences are written in present tense.