Tis the season for internship applications! While most students are focused on preparing resumes listing unlimited achievements, work experience and awards, there are a few details that will make your resume incredible! Here are a few tips to create a resume that is well organized, professional and to the point:
1. Check for mistakes: no matter how tired you are from creating and organizing your resume, it is crucial for students to check everything over; when I say everything, I mean everything. From spelling to punctuation, check for grammatical errors and awkward sentences. When internship coordinators see these mistakes on your resume, they are bound to think that these mistakes will appear again throughout your internship experience (in a press release, email to clients, letters to important partners, etc). One piece of advice I always follow is to print out your resume and check for mistakes the following day. In doing so, you have a “fresh” perspective and a better chance of catching the not so obvious errors.
2.O is for organization and order: Experiences and information shuffled on a resume is a sure way to frustrate and exhaust internship coordinators. Internship coordinators will want to toss your resume into the garbage if it has a lack a flow, smoothness and organization. In your resume, different sections (such as employment, internship experience, education, etc,) should be neatly titled on your resume with its relevant experiences under it. To make a great first impression on the internship coordinator, reorganize your resume so that your most relevant experience is the first one that they read about. For example, I am perusing an internship opportunity in the public relations industry. In order to guarantee that the internship coordinator will see that I have the necessary experience and qualifications to work well in the PR field, I listed my public relations internship at Ann Taylor as the first working experience under the heading “relevant experiences.”
3.Accomplishments: It is important to list any achievements you have had when outlining descriptions of each work experience listed on your resume. In addition to the responsibilities and tasks you were responsible for carrying out, it is impressive to see how you contributed to the company’s success. Internship coordinators love to see potential interns who would have no problem diving into the work experience, becoming a contributing member of the team and ultimately making a profound difference to the company.
With these small tricks, your resume will stand out from the crowd and in no time, an internship coordinator will be contacting you very soon and will want to learn more about you.
With love and luck,
Jacque