A résumé is a professional document highlighting your skills, education, goals, and experience. Employers will often spend less than 30 seconds looking at each résumé, so yours needs to stand out while clearly demonstrating your qualifications for the job, internship, or other opportunity. 

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Use these resources curated by the Career Center to help you craft a strong résumé.

Why do you need a strong résumé?

  • Your résumé is a tailored document that conveys to a potential employer the skills, experiences, and qualifications you have for a position you are interested in pursuing.
  • In most cases, your résumé will be part of every job, internship, or graduate school application you submit.
  • Your résumé—along with your cover letter—is what will determine whether you are invited for an interview.
  • Your résumé is one of the few parts of the job search process over which you have 100% control. The effort you put into your résumé also sends clues to potential employers about the level of effort you put into your work. If your résumé looks like it was put together quickly with little attention to detail, what message might you be sending? Make sure your résumé is excellent!

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Once you have a draft of your résumé, stop by our office for a 15-minute résumé review.

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Key Points

  • Content and formatting matter. If you have great content, but your reader can’t easily make sense of it or find it, you won’t get invited for an interview. Likewise, if you have a beautiful document, but don’t articulate your skills and experiences effectively, you won’t get invited for an interview. 
  • Your résumé should be one page. For nearly all students, the résumé you submit for any job or internship will be one side of one page. That said, you can create a longer master résumé that includes all your experiences and pull the most relevant information each time you apply for a position.
    • If you're an advanced graduate student, you may, at times, submit a résumé of no more than 2 pages.
  • Use keywords wisely. Be sure to include keywords from the job description that can easily be picked up by an Applicant Tracking System (i.e. human resources software used by many organizations to collect resumes and organize the recruitment process). 
  • Your résumé is a dynamic document. Continue to add to and edit your résumé on a semesterly or annual basis as you gain more experience. If your career interests change, it is recommended you rethink how you convey your experience on your résumé to align with your new field of interest.
  • Artificial intelligence (AI) tools, such as ChatGPT, can be used to enhance your résumé. Read our best practices for appropriately leveraging AI in your application materials.

How to Write a Strong Résumé

Start with a blank document or our ATS-friendly, editable template. We don’t recommend using templates from sites such as Pinterest or Canva as they become restrictive when you are trying to adjust formatting later. Then add each of the sections detailed below.

Use this worksheet to help you plan and develop your résumé content. 

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Career Field-Specific Résumé Tips

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Action Verbs and Keywords

Can one word make a difference? Yes! Strong action verbs provide power and direction, so start each line of your résumé with an action verb instead of more passive words. Use keywords to make sure your résumé gets noticed. 

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Keyword Strategies

  • When you’re applying for a position, be sure to include keywords or skills from the job listing in your résumé.
  • Browse online job listings in your field. Words that appear consistently in a variety of ads are your "key" words. Company pages on LinkedIn are another good resource.
  • Talk to professionals in your industry.
  • Include at least four industry- or job-specific keywords in your résumé. The ideal number is 12.

Keyword Examples*

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY: Award-winning corporate controller with more than ten years’ experience in two $500 million corporations. Impressive record implementing financial record database architecture that saved over $2 million annually. Proficient in Oracle, Prism, Red Brick, and SAP systems, as well as MS Project, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and FrontPage.

SKILLS
Languages: C, SQL, C++, Assembler, Pascal
Software: Oracle Developer 2000, Informix NewEra, FoxPro
OS: UNIX, Windows NT/95/3.11, MS-DOS
RDBMS: Oracle7, Informix 7

*Pam Dixon, Job Searching Online for Dummies

 

Résumé FAQs

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