Not all resumes are created equal. There are short resumes, long resumes, confusing resumes, boring resumes — and your job as a potential employee is to try your very best to avoid all of these. It’s not an easy task, especially when putting together your resume for the first time.
So you don’t get overwhelmed, here are our top tips to perfect one of the most important documents of your life.
When writing your resume, first ask yourself some essential questions: what am I using this resume for? What is my goal for this resume? What is the most important thing for the reader to know about me? Do they really need to know that?
Write these questions down and try to answer them the best you can, don’t overthink it! This might be your only chance to show your potential employer who you are as a person, so don’t be shy. However, keep in mind that there is a very fine line between giving too little information and giving too much information.
Once you have these answered, read them aloud to yourself or to a peer or family member. The more eyes and ears on what you have to say, the better idea you’ll have as to how you’re coming across. You can use these questions and answers to help gain a better understanding of what you’d like to include on your resume.
Once you have a general idea of what you want to include in your resume, it’s important to consider your overall aesthetic and formatting. This part is more important than you think and a hard one to nail down.
Generally, it is safe to assume that this is not the time nor the place to exhibit your creative freedoms. Simple, clean and easy to read is the key to getting across everything you want to relay to your potential employer.
Now I’m not saying it needs to be boring and uncreative. But things can easily be easily overlooked if there are issues with the formatting, file type, and file size.
A PDF-file is the most recommended amongst professionals, as it retains all of your formatting and style choices and can be easily opened on most devices.
If you want to add style, make sure it also accentuates your goals and highlights important information. You don’t want your resume to look cluttered and become hard to read with so many different font styles and sizes.
Make sure to keep your structure and style uniform and simple. If it’s easier, use a template from Microsoft Word. There are a lot of interesting, yet refined, options if you feel like you can’t come up with something on your own.
One of the biggest questions you could be asking yourself at this point is: bullet points or paragraphs? This can be quite the conundrum. Bullet points are best for short, descriptive phrases. A short paragraph (no more than 2-3 sentences!) can be useful if more of a fuller description is needed.
It is key to have the right amount of content and the right kind of content on your resume. This is where we think back to the questions we answered in the first step of our resume drafting process. Be sure to reference these to make sure you stay on track for your objective.
There are five main sections you should be sure to include in your resume:
After listing your contact information, the other four sections can be organized how you think best shows your qualifications.
Certain creative fields may want links to portfolios and to see where you studied. Technical fields are more interested in which courses you’ve taken and the skills that you possess: programming, math levels, software knowledge, etc.
Lastly, share your resume with someone in a similar career or in the human resources profession. As a mentor, they should provide you with honest feedback from putting themselves in the hiring manager's shoes.
All of Global Experiences’ intern program participants (abroad and virtual) go through significant professional development prep before their internship. So sign up for an internship program with us and we’ll review your resume and cover letter to get you on your way to your dream career.