About Resumes

The sole purpose of a resume is to get you an interview!!!

A resume is an advertisement of the skills and qualifications you have to offer employers. It may be your first contact with an employer, whether applying for an internship, co-op or job opportunity.

Research indicates that most hiring managers make an initial decision about a resume within about 15-30 seconds. Therefore, your resume must be well-written, concise, extremely organized, and easy to read in order to be effective.

There is no set guideline on how to organize your resume. Ideally, you want to organize your resume so that whatever is most prevalent is listed first. Therefore, you should customize your resume for the reader. It is a good idea to have different versions of your resume depending on the job type/industry that you want to target.

General Tips:

Highlight skills and achievements instead of a duty list.
Use appropriate fonts (Times, Arial, Calibri, Garamond, Georgia, etc.)
Font size should be between 10-12 point.
Stay consistent with your formatting throughout.
Quantify your descriptions and years of experience.

Commonly used sections of a Resume may include:

Education
Skills
Activities/Involvement
Civic Engagement
Relevant Coursework/Projects
Experience
Honors/Awards