Your resume is more than just a piece of paper — it’s your ticket to internships, job opportunities, and future success. By refining your resume now, you’re setting yourself up for career growth and making a lasting impression on employers. Highlight your skills, showcase your experiences, and tailor your resume to stand out in a competitive job market. A strong resume today can set you apart from other candidates. Update and upgrade your resume and take control of your career journey. Throughout college, my resume has developed and continues to. Recently I completed a resume class, went to the career center, and attended a career fair, so I have picked up a few key tips. Here are my top four tips to upgrade your resume.
- Want to land a job out-of-state? Do not put your location on your resume.
This was something I picked up from a career event that seems like a no-brainer, however, it’s easy to forget. Originally at the top of my resume, I had my location as I thought it was required. However, I am hoping to land a job out-of-state and don’t want my resume to limit that. Artificial intelligence is now our biggest enemy as employers use it to weed out resumes that don’t fit a job posting’s requirements. If your location does not match the jobs, then your resume may be automatically weeded out. If you are applying for jobs in the state then it’s OK to leave your location there, but maybe take it out for out-of-state ones.
- Keep things organized in a simple way.
The structure of my resume was something I overcomplicated for a long time. I kept adding more design-wise, doing what I thought was making the content digestible, however it was instead doing the opposite. Before, I had my experience and extracurriculars separated with headers breaking them apart. After going to the career center, I was advised to combine them all under one header of “experience.” This completely changed the flow of my resume and only improved it. I had not even considered this before because I felt like it would be too much in one column. The career center advised this because they felt if I separated my paid experiences and extracurricular experiences it would draw away from one over the other. Looking at the way my resume changed when I made this adjustment, I couldn’t agree more. I also made the margins on my resume 0.5 by 0.5 and this significantly helped, as it not only made it look more professional but created more space for content.
- Simplify your bullet points and make them ATS compatible.
Creating bullet points that summarize and present your positions well can be the most challenging part of making your resume. Two to three bullet points is the key amount if you have lots of experience to fill the page with. If you have a little less, go for three to four bullet points. Since you have limited bullet points, it’s important you are intentional with what you include to summarize your position thoroughly in a way that will grab the employers’ attention. To do this, a good tip is to always add numbers and specifics of the position, specifically soft and hard skills. When writing them, you also should ensure the points are Applicant Tracking Software (ATS) compatible since AI is often filtering through resumes for companies. To check if your resume is ATS compatible you can run it through ChatGPT and prompt it to check your resume that you upload.
- Place bullet points in chronological order.
Bullet points should be organized in a way that is easy and understandable for employers to follow. They should be placed in chronological order of the dates of your positions. They should include your start and end date, along with the location of the position. To get even more technical you could include the location type of the position such as part-time, remote, hybrid, etc. Additionally, it’s important to include the word “present” for the positions you currently hold. Those positions should be placed at the top and all the others should follow. Then you organize based on month and year for the remaining positions.
Implementing these tips will not only help you stand out more but will bring you closer to landing your dream job. Focusing on your resume being ATS compatible, organized, and digestible for employers is key. With these tips, your resume will not only impress employers but will set you up for continued resume success. Investing time in updating your resume now can open doors to countless opportunities in the future.