Resume Guidelines
The resume is a focused summary of the qualifications, skills and background that you
have to offer a potential employer. It is an accomplishment-oriented document. A resume
forms the first impression an employer will have of you and represents you in your
absence. The primary purpose of a resume is to obtain an interview.
Guidelines
- Brief and easy to read.
- Concise action phrases rather than complete sentences.
- For scanned
resumes, use keywords; be specific in naming skills; avoid lines, graphics,
columns and italic type.
- Avoid use of personal pronouns.
- Well-organized headings and presentation that encourage the reader's attention.
- Boldface type, italic type or capitalization used very selectively to highlight
important parts of your resume (e.g.. your name, major, position titles). Remember that
what you highlight is what you especially want an employer to read; don't overdo a good
thing. Too much highlighting can be confusing.
- Balanced use of blank space and margins.
- Rough draft critiqued by a Career Counselor or other knowledgeable person. Resume must
be perfect with no spelling, typing, or grammatical errors.
- One (preferably) or two pages. Use a laser printer for quality results. Dot matrix not
acceptable. Print on one side only.
- Duplicate at a printer or professional copy center. Select good quality 8 1/2 x 11 paper
in off-white, beige, gray or other business-like color.
Sections of a Resume
Include only that information which is pertinent to the desired employment. Usually
this consists of:
- Contact information: name, current address and current phone number. You might also
include your permanent phone number for messages; a permanent address is usually not
necessary unless you are seeking summer employment.
- Objective: Optional. A more common use and explanation of this is in your cover
letter.
- Education: degree and date received, major, minor or concentration, name of
degree-granting institution, and grade point average (if it is 3.0 or higher). Listing
other schools or colleges attended or dates of attendance may not be necessary.
- Experience: summer, cooperative education, part-time, full-time, senior project,
class project, enterprise project, labs, entrepreneur, extra-curricular leadership -- paid
or volunteer; dates, employers, locations, position titles, and descriptions. Stress
accomplishments, variety of duties performed, progressive increases in responsibility,
percentage of college expenses earned; quantify when possible.
- Special Categories: professional honors and/or affiliations, professional
certification and/or licensure, computer applications (systems and/or languages),
technical skills, technical highlights, extracurricular activities, foreign languages
and/or awards.
- References: not necessary to list on your resume unless needed as a space filler.
Sample Resumes
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