Here are a few tips for composing and designing your resume. Most of these come from my own experience, some come directly from the advice given to me at the WFU career center.
1.) Be accomplishment-driven not responsibilities-driven
Eliminate phrases like “duties included” and “responsible for” from your resume. Most employers can easily infer from a job title the basic responsibilities you had. Instead of listing them, describe how you applied your personal skills on the job – your work ethic, ingenuity, etc. These are the skills that translate across jobs, and that employers are looking for.
2.) Focus on describing skills demonstrated, not activities done
When writing about your past experiences, try to focus on the skills you demonstrated at that job, rather than just describing what you did there.
3.) Use powerful verbs
Don’t start sentences with “I”. Rather, begin with an action verb such as “managed” or “coordinated”. The noun is unnecessary, clearly you’re describing yourself!
4.) Justify your text, don’t use left align
Justified text looks better on the page, because it fills up the entire line. It will also help your resume stand out from everyone else’s with left aligned text.
5.) Use a standard font, but not Times New Roman
Another tip to make your resume stand out in the pile. Don’t be temped to use any curly or outrageous fonts. Pick something businesslike and relatively plain, such as Georgia, Arial, or Trebuchet.
6.) Send your resume in PDF format, not MS Word
When sending your resume electronically, make sure you save your resume as a PDF file. The best advantage to you when using PDF is that you ensure your formatting remains intact. Spacing, fonts, emphasis, margins, everything is preserved when you convert to PDF. No matter what, your resume displays the way you want it to. The only exception to sending in PDF is when a company specifically requests a resume in a certain format (usually because they plan to process it electronically).
I hope these tips are useful to all the job/internship seekers out there, especially college students who may not have written a resume before.
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