Your Resume
A resume is a personal summary of your professional history and qualifications. It includes information about your career goals, education, work experience, activities, honors, and any special skills you might have.
General guidelines
- Length: It is best to limit an entry-level resume to one typed page. Be as concise as possible in stating information in each section of your resume.
- Font: Avoid fonts smaller than 10 point and larger than 12 point.
- Paper: Use 8 1/2" x 11" 20 lb paper. Print your resume with a laser or high quality ink-jet printer.
Preliminary research
- Find out
- General job information
- Desired qualifications and skills
- Key values and words
- Check with
- Placement office files
- World Wide Web
- Trade journals, magazines, and newsletters
- Directories
- Professors
- Company literature
Objective statement
- A one- to three-sentence summary of your area of expertise and career interest.
- Write as complete sentences or as descriptive phrases with minimal punctuation.
- Relate your existing skills directly to the job you are seeking. Demonstrate what you can do for the company rather than what they can do for you.
- Avoid overgeneralized statements:
A position allowing me to utilize my knowledge and expertise in different areas. - Avoid statements that focus only on what a company can do for you:
A position where I gain experience in working on biological problems. - Make the statement as specific as possible:
A position which allows me to apply my background in engineering and high performance computing to biological problems.
Summary of qualifications statement
- This statement can replace or be used in addition to the objective statement.
- Write one short paragraph or a bulleted list of qualifications.
- Use a summary of qualifications statement to emphasize skills you possess that aren't obvious from your past work experiences.
Education
This is an important section for recent college graduates or students seeking internships or summer jobs.
Beginning with the highest level of educational achievement, include information such as university attended, degrees earned, major, minors, grade point average, date of program completion, and so forth.
Employment experience
- Include positions you have held which are related, in some way, to the job you are seeking. These might be both paid and volunteer positions.
- Be creative with this section of your resume by describing and emphasizing your experiences in the most relevant way possible.
Action phrases
- Action phrases will help you avoid being too brief and from understating your qualifications.
- Think about your qualifications as a professional would.
Example:
Hospitality Intern
(May 1999-August 1999)
Mountain Jacks, Lafayette, IN
Oversaw the planning, production, preparation and prompt delivery of food
Assisted in training and retaining new and experienced employees
Created a positive and healthy atmosphere in the restaurant
Parallel phrases
- Make your descriptions easy to read through parallel structure.
- Set up a pattern and stick with it.
- In the example, all the verbs are parallel: "oversaw," "assisted," and "created" are all past tense verbs.
Example:
Hospitality Intern
(May 1999-August 1999)
Mountain Jacks, Lafayette, IN
Oversaw the planning, production, preparation and prompt delivery of food
Assisted in training and retaining new and experienced employees
Created a positive and healthy atmosphere in the restaurant
Activities and honors
Include relevant activities and honors that you could discuss with your prospective employer or that have given you valuable experience or skills.
Specialized skills
- Include skills that make you unique, such as computer skills, foreign language skills, or military service.
- Be specific in describing your special skills; name computer programs you know, how long you studied a foreign language, or your dates of military service.