Applying to jobs or internships can be daunting as you’re competing with hundreds to thousands of other applicants. Some of us have received formal advice on how to format resumes and cover letters in school, if not, here are some helpful links for both resume and cover letter. What these hiring coordinators and professionals fail to mention, however, is that there are endless possibilities to help stand out during the application process.
1.) Don’t confine yourself to the templates that Microsoft Word provides for you.
There are so many ways to format your resume to reflect your more creative side. Photoshop is a good platform to use to position text boxes freely and even create unique fonts and graphics to emphasize your work experience. Simple altercations can make the biggest difference when being compared to a sea of resumes.
2.) Relevance is key.
An important piece of information that I’ve received while applying to internships is to only include relevant information in your cover letter and resumes. Yes, resumes are supposed to showcase all of the relative experience that you have had, however, it’s important to get rid of irrelevant information to a job you’re applying to. For example, if you’re applying to a research internship, it may not be useful and even take up space to include that you’ve worked at a restaurant.
3.) Advice for relocating
The most shocking advice that I’ve received during college was to exclude your address if you’re trying to relocate. For many companies, relocating employees tend to be expensive and seeing that you’re not a local often times kicks you out of consideration. Excluding your address from your resumes or cover letters prevents companies from skewing to this bias and may help land you a job in New York or wherever your heart desires!
The job hunting process is intimidating, but the most important part is expressing yourself through the process of it all. Don’t let rejection get to you and keep applying!
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