A resume allows you to showcase your skills and experience to employers. Your resume should market yourself to a potential employer for a specific job. A recruiter wants to know what you know and what you have done. The key to a good resume is giving the recruiter this information simply and effectively. Your resume should be tailored to the job and company you apply to! There are a couple general rules to keep in mind:
- Keep bullet points concise and to a single line
- Order of your resume sections after listing education is important. Sections of the resume should be reordered based on most important (and strongest) area
- List dates for all necessary items on your resume
- List locations for all items on your resume
- Be sure to include company or organization names for all items
Six sections should be in generally included on an undergraduate resume:
- Heading
- Include name, address, phone number, e-mail, citizenship status, and portfolio address (if applicable)
- Education
- Only list college experience, not high school, unless you are a 1st year
- List college name and degree field. List minor or concentration if applicable
- Provide expected date of graduation
- Only list overall GPA if above a 3.0. List Major GPA if higher than overall GPA
- Can list major GPA if above a 3.0
- Experience (Work for Compensation)
- List any internship, or research experience that is relevant to the job posting
- List the organization name followed by your position title the line below
- Put major tasks from each individual experience as bullet points under each
- Bullet points should be a summarization of work rather than everything you did
- Academic Projects
- List relevant school projects accomplished during classes or organizations
- List the class/organization followed by the school (if applicable)
- Below the title, add the title of your role in the project
- Summarize project tasks and important results during the project
- Skills
- Break down your major into category of useful skills. For example, Mechanical Engineering would be Instrumentation, Mechanical, Manufacturing, Software, Communication.
- Use concepts/skills you learned in individual classes
- Only put skills you have knowledge of
- Do not list class taken, but rather, the concepts from each course
- Leadership
- List leadership positions you have had (i.e. sports clubs, academic clubs, fraternity positions)
- List the organization followed by your position title below
- Describe responsibilities of each position as bullet points