Contact information
Your name as you want to be referred to professionally (Jon Baker, Jonathan Baker, Jon E. Baker) and formatted to stand out appropriately using larger font, bold, etc.
Current address and home/permanent address (if looking for employment in that area)
Phone number with area code, cell phone is best. Voicemail should be set up so that your name is stated to indicate to employers that they have the right phone number.
Email address (professional addresses only)
LinkedIn profile link if your account is up-to-date (optional)
Example 1:
Example 2:
First Name Last Name, PhD
1324 W. Wisconsin Ave | Milwaukee, WI 53233
firstname.lastname@gmail.com | (414) 288-7423
Objective or summary of qualifications
Objective
A clear objective helps focus on select information. Although you may wish to make your objective broad, do not make it so broad that it says nothing. If you are pursuing employment in more than one field, simply create different objectives for each field and job application. There should only be one objective per resume. Also, remember to omit personal pronouns like I, me, and my.
Your career objective should answer the question, “What do I want to do?” Is it for graduate school, a part-time job, an internship, a professional position after graduation, a scholarship? Make sure your objective is clear.
Example:
Seeking a summer internship in a communications related field to utilize skills in organization, public speaking, and media communication.
Summary of Qualifications
Another option, instead of having an objective, is to have a “summary of qualifications”.
A Summary of Qualifications should summarize your resume and accomplishments much like an introduction might summarize a book. You could also think of this as a "tagline" for yourself and the rest of the resume will have the supporting information for your "advertisement". You can use this space to match your accomplishments to the qualifications of the job to which you are applying.
These should be written in the third person, not using "I" or "me" throughout, and should provide the top items that set you apart as a candidate. Think of the top three or four things that highlight you as a candidate and differentiate you from the other candidates in the pool.
If you speak other languages, you could highlight it here. Additionally, if you are from abroad, your work-authorization status may be mentioned in order to reduce confusion with prospective employers.
Example 1:
Personable and motivated entry-level marketing professional with experience in both non-profit and for-profit environments. Skilled in marketing plan design and implementation. Efficient presentation and communication skills acquired through student leadership positions.
Example 2:
- Two years of internship experience within a Fortune-500 company
- Proven leadership experience with a student organization
- Fluency in Spanish
Education
For each degree-conferring institution beyond high school:
- Name of educational institution or specialized training program
- Location (city, state) of each institution
- Degree or certification obtained
- Major/minor/area of concentration or emphasis
- Actual or anticipated graduated date (month and year)
Additional/Optional items to include:
- GPA/Major GPA (if proud of it, usually > 3.0) Include all decimal points with the scale. If you include Major GPA then you should also include your cumulative GPA.
- Certifications and/or licenses related to career goal
- Relevant coursework, projects, and/or thesis
Example:
Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI
Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology, May 20xx
GPA: 3.207/4.0
High School Information
If you are a first year or sophomore student, having high school information is acceptable on your resume. Once you have enough experiences during your college years, we recommend all high school information be removed.
Transfer Students
Do not list schools from which you did not receive a degree.
Experience
This part of your resume may include several sections such as:
Career Related, Related (or) Relevant Experience, Work Experience, Additional Work Experience, Internship Experience, Volunteer Experience, Campus Involvement, Service, Leadership, Activities
Career Related or Related or Relevant Experience: really any area in which you may have significant experience and is related to your career goal, even remotely.
Additional Work Experience: use this to list jobs you have had to show consistency, longevity, or just simply that you know how to work. Sometimes this section does not include bulleted action word statements because what you are doing may be obvious such as Bartender.
Briefly describe for each position:
- Job title, organization name, city, state, date (month and year)
- List your responsibilities for each position using bulleted action statements to describe situations and achievements (see Writing Bulleted Action Statements)
Example:
Office and Employer Relations Assistant
MU Career Center Milwaukee, WI August 20xx- May 20xx
- Greeted and assisted all clients, students and visitors of the Career Center
- Provided administrative support to all functions of the Career Center
List your most recent experiences first, and your oldest experiences last. If your most career-related experience was a year ago or more and is listed towards the bottom of your resume create a new section to highlight that experience. The section can be titled many things such as career-related experience, related experience, relevant experience or any title which groups your most significant experiences related to the position together.
Optional Elements
Coursework
Courses you took related to the position you are applying for can be included on your resume. List the title of the course (course numbers are not necessary). Include the semester and year taken.
Example:
Computer Literacy in Business (Spring 20xx), Media Writing (Spring 20xx), Public Relations Principles (Fall 20xx), Media Law (Fall 20xx), Ethical Problems of Mass Communications (Fall 20xx)
Class projects
If you have little experience related to your career objective, think about class projects that demonstrate your skills. List these just like a position with the name of the project, name of the class, Marquette University, and semester (Fall 20XX). Then list the objectives, tasks and accomplishments of the project just like you would list bulleted action statements under each position.
Example:
General Psychology Course, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI
“Be Well Marquette” Class Project, Spring 20xx
- Collaborated with student project team to identify and implement one wellness initiative to offer to incoming freshman students
- Coordinated event planning and marketing for event with attendance of over 100 students
Honors, activities, leadership, or special skills
Front load these with those most important or most pertinent to your objective (career goal). You may want to use specific headings such as professional organizations, computer skills, and leadership positions. Include any honors, scholarships or recognition awards you have received. If you were actively involved in any clubs, teams or committees while in college, those may be included also. If you want to include more details about these activities, use the guidelines from the Experience section and make it a complete section.
Interests
The trend is to keep away from any extraneous information that does not clearly connect to your career goal. However, if you are applying for a position in which you have experience through a hobby or leisure activity, you may want to consider adding it to your resume.
For example, if you are applying for a forest ranger position and you enjoy hiking in the wilderness, include it by stating: Skilled in all-terrain hiking, camping and navigating. What you need to ask yourself is, “Will this information help the potential employer learn more about how well I can do the job?” If your answer is yes, then be sure to include the information.
Technology/ computer / language skills
More employers are asking about these skills, and many assume college students today are very tech-savvy. Many of you do not have industry-specific tech skills, but if you do, then those need to be highlighted. It may be that you do not have space for a separate "technology" section, in which case a "Computer skills include ..." line could be added to your profile, or you could address the skills in the description of the job in which you used them. You do not need to list Microsoft Office programs or other commonly used applications. You should include your level of proficiency for each skill, such as Advanced or Intermediate.
