Resume

Students - Get your resume critiqued:

  • All Students: Walk-in Hours (during school year only) with UACC Staff: Monday-Thursday, 12-2pm, Hood House, Room 11.
  • Paul College Students: Check the schedule of walk-in hours and appointment times at the Paul College Career Services office.
  • Other times by appointment. Make an appointment in TimeCat

Writing Your Resume

A resume is a targeted marketing tool that highlights your skills, education, experience, and accomplishments for a particular position and organization. Employers take just 20 – 30 seconds to review a resume – make the most of their time.

What You Need to Know

This is important: tailor the experiences and skills on your resume to each specific opportunity to which you are applying – a one size fits all resume will end up in the recruiter’s recycling bin. Bulleting your accomplishments and skills will make the resume easier to read. For students and new graduates, one page is best; some professions are open to longer resumes.

PDF your online resumes and cover letters – this will ensure employers are able to open the documents and you are able to control your formatting. Be prepared to print your resume on high quality white or off-white paper. Make sure your formatting is consistent throughout the document and that verb tenses match the experience.

Your Resume Should Include:

  • Professional contact information: including name, address, and phone number.  Your email address should also be professional, i.e. avoid addresses like crankywriter@ hotmail.com.

  • Education: Highlight your educational degree(s), major, university, city, state, month and year (or anticipated month and year) of graduation. You should include applicable minors, honors, awards, special projects and relevant coursework. Include your grades if they are above average or better (3.0 or higher). If you financed a large portion of your education, say so: ( “Financed 55% of university education through employment, scholarships and loans.”).

  • Experience: Place experiences most relevant to your objective together under a heading like “Related Experience.” You don’t need to have separate sections for paid and unpaid experiences, so include related internships, class projects, research, or volunteer experiences in this category. 

  • Unrelated experiences, such as summer jobs, can appear under a heading like “Other Experience.” In each section of a resume, list experiences in reverse chronological order with most recent experience first.   Other Headings to consider include Leadership, Technical Skills, Lab Skills, Licenses and Certifications, Languages, Research and Publications, Community Service, Memberships/Affiliations.

  • Emphasize: your experiences and quantify accomplishments using action verbs, superlatives and numbers
    Examples:“Only student rep. on the sub-committee,” “Trained 8 lifeguards,” “Supervised a caseload of 6 clients,” “First undergraduate ever selected to research.”). Use verbs to showcase specific and transferable skills you have acquired in and out of the classroom.  See verb lists and sample resumes on the following pages. Remove all personal pronouns.

References

  • References should not be included on the resume itself.

  • Create a separate reference page listing 3 or 4 people with their contact information who have supervised your work (employer, professor, advisor, etc.).

  • Always ask your references before listing them—you do not want them to be surprised by a call from an employer.

E-Resumes

For the latest information on e-resumes, refer to http://rileyguide.com/eresume.html

CV's

Our Curriculum Vita guide has tips and links to additional cv writing resources.