There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to get a resume just perfect — trust me, I know first hand. Whether it be the formatting, font type/size, word choice, or page count, sometimes building a resume could make even the most calm and collected student a little crazy. After doing this a few times in the past seven months (thank you, senior year), I like to think of myself as somewhat versed in making a resume look great. Now, that being said, a resume is an incredibly personal thing, something that a lot of people don’t realize. Most importantly, you want your resume to reflect you as a person as well as a potential intern/employee. And since no one can really portray yourself on paper besides you, it can be difficult to get constructive feedback on resumes – a lot of it is personal preference on the ratio of professionalism v. individualism.
However, here are 5 of your basic tips to help you start somewhere:
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Always pick a classic font. Anything too fancy detracts from the content of the resume – which is ultimately what you want to get across to your potential employer. You can’t go wrong with Times New Roman, Arial, or Georgia.
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Highlight your strengths at the top of the document. So many people make the mistake of putting their skills or most relevant experience at the bottom of their resume – myself included! Putting these things at the top of not only makes them one of the first things that prospective employers see but could also be the only thing that ends up making or breaking your chance to get an internship or job.
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Use the email address that you actually check. This day in age, almost everyone has more than one email address. But the question is, do we check all of them regularly? If you know that there is an email address that you favor, use that on your resume as you are guaranteed check daily.
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Don’t list insignificant extracurriculars. A lot of times, we tend to want to showcase absolutely everything we have ever done on a resume to prove that we are the perfect, well-rounded candidate. But, to be brutally honest, potential employers don’t care how many ice skating trophies you won in elementary school. Shed the weight and just keep important college extracurriculars, hopefully related to your major, and ones that let readers know that you have some leadership skills.
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Keep it one page. Once again, this ties into shedding unnecessary weight in certain categories of your resume. Once you have the important points all down, play with the formatting so it stays on one page. If you have to, make it more than one column. But remember, keep it neat and tidy!
As long as you have these five down, personalize and make your resume reflect you. Whether you do that with a little bit of color, list style or headings is up to you. Get writing!