Whether you’re on the search for summer internships, or on the hunt for a full-time (sigh) job, your resume sends potential employers important messages about you. Consider your resume as a first impression – we all know that it is something you cannot take back! But, luckily, your resume provides a platform for you to hone in on only the crucial elements that you want to convey to potential employers. The key is highlighting specific background experiences and skills that you believe provide strong arguments as to why you make the perfect candidate for the position you are applying for. The resume is all about communication.
Here are a few easy ways to revamp your resume to score your perfect internship or job:
1) Be Consistent.
The individuals reviewing your resume read thousands of them, and sometimes they may take a first glance at a resume and automatically ignore it due to formatting issues, making the resume hard to follow and difficult to read. The more consistent your resume is in terms of formatting, the more reliable and professional you appear. Check for resume consistency in terms of: formatting and bulleting, the use of periods, and punctuation.
The Bullet: Bullets are great, as long as you use matching bullets throughout the resume. It appears untidy and unprofessional if the bullets throughout the resume are not in- sync with one another. Typically, using a generic circle, square or another standard bullet, is highly recommended. In addition, make sure your tabs and bullet indentations are consistent measures throughout.
Punctuality, Period: If you use bullets throughout your resume, technically you do not need to use periods after each line. Grammatically, there should be no period at the end of a fragment; however, there is some leeway in the resume. You can use periods if your bullet points are longer, and you want to add more “assertiveness” at the end of your bullet list. Just make sure that you use periods throughout the resume if you choose to do so at all. Generally, the first word after the bullet point should be upper-case. Company names and department names should also be capitalized. However, this excludes instances when you do not refer to a specific department at a company, and instead list a general type of a department.
2) Strong Verbiage.
In general, each section of a strong resume includes bullet points, or phrases, that begin with strong action verbs. Make sure to use different verbs for each bullet and steer away from repetition. Visit the Career Center to pick up a list of action verbs to use.
3) To Color or Not to Color? Be Bold but Simple.
Formatting & Neatness Count.
Bold, Italic, and Underline: These are important technical tools that really enhance the resume’s appearance, and make the resume easier to follow: score! A general rule of thumb is to use bolding and underlining for key categories. If you already have divided your resume into key categories (such as: “Education,” “Work Experience,” “Community Service,” “Skills,” etc.), then one way to take your resume to the next level is to add bolding and underlining to these “headlines.” Bolding your name and making it significantly larger than the text of the rest of the resume will make your name stand out more and will make it more memorable to the reviewer.
Color or No Color? From personal experience, I typically keep my resume in black and white because I tend to be more of a minimalist. Yet, adding color is a fine choice as well. You can add color to revamp your resume and to highlight your individuality. For example, you may choose to use a color for your name, and personal information; or when addressing your background experience, you can use color to make the job titles stand out. If you choose to add color to your resume, just be sure to choose a color scheme that matches and remember to stay consistent throughout.
4) Spell- Check. Twice.
Imagine you are the star candidate for your target position at your dream company. You have met with the recruiter at your school’s job fair, and you and the recruiter hit it off right off the bat. You even found out that you were exactly what they were looking for. You receive an email from the same recruiter after your school’s job fair, asking if you would be interested in an interview. Without any need for speculation, you reply that you will definitely be able to come in, right away, and attach your resume to the email. When the recruiter opens your email, and brings your printed resume to show the manager, the manager finds three spelling errors. Without considering the rest of your resume, the manager puts your resume aside and passes on the news to her recruiter, that you are not qualified for the position, pointing out three silly errors.
Spending one-third of the amount of time to review your resume after it is complete- for spelling errors and grammatical issues- is equally as important as writing the resume itself. Sometimes your computer’s spell-check is simply not enough. For example, “Asses” is correctly spelled. Yet, you did not “asses departmental concerns” at your previous job. You meant to say that one of your responsibilities was to, “assess departmental concerns!” Re-read. Re-view. And revise!
5) Tailor For The Position.
Create Different Versions of Your Resume. Many professionals have slightly different versions of their resumes, depending on the positions that they apply for. In fact, it is not considered cheating; you can create variations of your resume for different job applications in order to highlight your pertinent experiences to the role you apply for. That being said, clearly these experiences have to be true. For example, if you are a history and finance double major, and you apply to different types of jobs in both government and finance, you are the perfect example of someone who may want to tweak your resume for both jobs. It will benefit you to include your government and history related job background in your resume for the government job. Likewise, the resume that you send to your finance position application should focus on your business-related jobs and finance career- background.
Choose your focus, and tailor your resume to highlight only the jobs you want to show to your potential employer. You are in charge of your resume and your future.
I hope that these tips have helped you learn how to revamp your resume. If you have any other questions, feel free to email me!