Your resume is the lasting impression an employer sees of you. When you leave a resume with a company, it becomes the face of your qualifications that that employer is looking for. Halfway through your freshman year, you should already have a basic resume ready to be given to employers. Sometimes it’s not easy to know where to begin. If you have never written a resume before, it’s difficult to know what to write, how much to write, and how can you stand out in the sea of many other resumes of your competitors.
1. Header. Your resume should have your name, address, email, and phone number that the company can easily contact you with. Your email address should also be business appropriate. Leave that middle school email for your online coupons. I suggest using university email addresses or other email addresses with your last name and first name (nothing else) within them.
2. Objectives. You can chose to have an objectives section in your resume, keep it short. An objective section is an opening statement about what kind of worker you are and what you aspire to be. If you add an objective section, make it specific to the industry you’re targeting. Many hiring managers are going through plenty of resumes and sometimes they don’t have time to read a paragraph about all the things you want to accomplish within your career. For example, if you’re a hospitality student and are going into the food and beverage industry, reference qualities of yourself that pertain to that industry.
3. Qualifications. Your qualifications segment of your resume are the highlighted specific experience you have. Your qualifications should also support your objective. Also, be specific on your skills. For example, if you’re an art design student, mention that you are proficient in Photoshop or adobe.
4. Education. List your college, your degree and major, any emphasis’s, and minors.
5. Professional Experience. Any jobs that pertain to your target career is preferred. If you have a limited work experience (because this is your first basic resume!) it’s okay to put those jobs down for now. I suggest having the timelines organized for each job, your most current employment at the top. Also, add your job title and what you did while working at that business. Don’t forget to keep it short though.
6. Affiliations/Organizations. Any activities, organizations, charities, etc… that you work closely with should be mentioned in your resume. This includes volunteer organizations (i.e. Habitat for Humanity, March of Dimes, or the Humane Society), sororities or fraternities, military affiliations, college sports teams, and extracurricular organizations (i.e. swing club, LGTBQ+, or HerCampus). Try to avoid high school affiliations on your college resume.
7. References. Have a separate reference page. This will consist of people who can back up your qualifications and have worked closely with you to say nothing but nice words about you as an employee. The most qualified candidates for the reference page would be bosses, managers, supervisors, or professors. Ask these people first though, if you can mentions them and their contact information on your reference page. This separate page will include their name, their chain of command in the business, the business, their phone number, and email address.
Once you have the basic elements together to build a resume, you’ll be able to hand your dandy document to employers who are seeking out driven individuals like you! Outshine the competition with your multitude of qualifications and solid references.