Resume Advice

Your resume has to be tailored to two main audiences:

  1. Automated HR screening tools that check for keywords.
  2. People on the search committee who decide if they want to hire you.

General Advice

  • Keep it to one page unless you have 5+ years of full-time experience.
  • Tailor your resume to every job. If you apply to 20 jobs, you should have 20 distinct versions of your resume. Use words included in the job description.
  • Have several people review your resume. Get somebody in your industry to review it.
  • Use a screen reader to read it out loud to yourself to check for spelling and grammar mistakes.
  • Delete "objective statements." These take up valuable space with content that should go in a cover letter or an introductory email.
  • Use AI tools to give you recommendations on your resume drafts.
  • Keep the formatting simple and consistent. Use a single font. Be consistent with font sizes and styles. Every section header should be formatted the same way. Use the same bullet points throughout your resume.
  • The information you want to highlight most should be at the top of the page. Within each section, the most important information should be at the top of that section.
  • Do not apologize for anything in your resume. Don't write things like, "I don't have much experience." Instead, write about what you can do and what you have done.

The following advice applies to specific sections of your resume.

Education

  • If you have not graduated, yet, put your anticipated graduation date. Write "anticipated" so that it does not appear that you are claiming to have a degree when you do not.
  • You might list relevant coursework. Avoid course numbers. Feel free to describe the courses instead of using official course titles.
    • Bad: CIS 226, IS 435, CIS 250
    • Good: Project Management, Network Administration using Cisco Hardware, Penetration testing
  • Include any awards or a high GPA. If your GPA isn't terribly impressive, leave it off.
  • Put your education section at the top of your resume before work experience, especially when seeking entry-level jobs.

Work Experience

  • Use metrics if possible. For example, you might have sped up a process by 50% by thinking of a better way to get work done.
  • Write bullet points that describe what kind of person you are. Avoid listing job duties. The bullet points should tell the employer about your character and work ethic.
    • Bad: Report writing.
    • Bad: Performed duties as assigned.
    • Better: Developed a reporting dashboard that provided real-time insight into X.
    • Better: Managed the employee schedule to achieve 100% coverage for all shifts.
  • Emphasize leadership skills:
    • Managing others
    • Scheduling others
    • Training people
  • These bullet points should convey the kind of person you are by describing the things you have done.

Service

Describe what you did instead of just listing roles. This might include:

  • Leadership in student clubs
  • Volunteering to support conferences
  • Helping the community in general (e.g., being a youth counselor at the YMCA)

Skills

  • Include skills relevant to the job description. Use the exact words from the job description if possible. Some automated HR screening tools will reject your resume if it does not include the exact words from the job description.
  • Write what you can do.
    • Bad: Cisco
    • Good: Configure switches and routers using the IOS CLI.
    • Bad: Python
    • Good: Build websites using Python and the Django web framework

Personal

  • Include hobbies if you want. Sometimes these can spark interesting conversations during interviews.