Hi everyone! Today I wanted to talk a bit about writing resumes, and what you should include and/or leave off of yours. Internships, student employment opportunities, and even study abroad programs will require a resume as part of your application, so it's important to know how to write your resume appropriately.
Always begin your resume with your name, local address, and other contact information (phone number or email). This will be the header for the rest of your resume and will allow employers or program directors to know exactly how to contact you if need be.
As a college student, make sure to include what university you attend as well as your year. Don't forget to update this information frequently as you get older (same goes for the local address if your dorm changes year to year). Then, list your major(s) and any minors you might have, and your GPA.
When it comes to involvement, you want to list the activities you participate in at your university. When applying to colleges, you can include your high school extra-curriculars, but after you graduate be sure to remove most things you did in high school and replace it with the clubs and organizations you participate in at college, especially noting any leadership roles or special positions you might have. Special skills and awards you have from high school have their own section, but this is not the place for them.
The next section of your resume should list work experience. Include any summer jobs, part-time jobs, or work you do outside of school that you get paid for. Be sure to have contact information and a person of reference from each workplace in case future employers want to know.
If you have any personal experience (writing my blog falls into this category) you can certainly include it on your resume! It may even be useful to have two copies of your resume, one with and one without personal experience, depending on who it is that needs your resume. For environmental science work, employers probably don't need to know about my blog as an asset to my application, but a marketing firm might want to know about those online endeavors.
If you have any major awards, grants, or scholarships that you feel are essential to list on your resume, you can include another section to highlight those. Only include the most important items, not every award you received on your Senior Award Night in high school.
Lastly, be sure to include any valuable skills you have. Knowing a second language, proficiency with a type of software, and personal skills are good to include here.
Some last minute pointers: Keep it simple! You should avoid hard-to-read fonts, bright colors, or crazy templates. If you want to use bullet points, make sure they are generic bullets and no wild swirls, stars, or other motifs. Headers (Work Experience / Skills / etc) should be bolded, and years should be included where necessary. Also, don't go overboard! Your resume should fit onto a single page.
Writing a simple resume definitely doesn't need to be as difficult as it seems. There are also tons of templates, guidelines, and mock resumes online that you can use to get some ideas. Good luck landing the position of your dreams!
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