The Office of Career Counseling

Your Excellent Resume

(first name, middle initial, last name)
E-mail

Education

Williams College, Williamstown, MA
List the degree you expect to receive as well as the major(s).
List the month and year you expect your degree.
GPA - if you elect to include it. Always indicate a 4.0 scale. Round to the nearest tenth.
Coursework: a carefully selected and edited list of relevant courses (by name, not number).
Honors can be included here. Edited versions of award names are preferable.

If appropriate, use this next line to report the percent of educational expenses you are financing. Have a job during the school year? How many hours per week?

Study Abroad or work at other institutions? List institution name and city. If relevant, take one line to list courses taken. Don't forget the date (e.g. Summer 1996).

High School is the last entry, if you elect to list it (again, where and when). List when it might be key for networking (a prestigious school or when job hunting in your hometown). Include any special activities that support your career interest.

Experience

Think about all your paid or unpaid summer jobs, internships, and extracurricular activities. Highlight those that the employer will value most. Put these combined items in one section labeled appropriately, e.g. Marketing Experience, Sales Experience, Arts Experience, Research Experience, Technical Experience, etc. List less relevant, but important experiences in an Other Experience or Additional Experience section.

The organization, your job title, the city and state, and the dates are necessary in each listing. Use action words to describe your accomplishments. Give it some perspective by using numbers, percentages, dollar figures, etc.: e.g. Wrote 60-page report distributed to all senior officers. Also, if you reported to someone fairly senior in the organization, put that down this way: “Reporting to the senior marketing manager, prepared and reported . . . . .” This conveys your poise and maturity to deal effectively with important people and projects.

Activities

This section shows your ability to manage your time. Many interviewers will ask questions about these items. Order of importance is more important than chronology; dates are optional. Unless obvious, give a brief description, e.g. The Record, Williams's daily, student-run newspaper. Listing an activity implies membership; no need to say "member" each time. If an officer, list just after the activity, or indent under the activity if you have had more than one office. List high school activities only if you have none at Williams as replacements. Best is to list one activity per line if you have the space.

Skills

Language skills are important and should simply be listed, unless you are fluent, in which case you should say “Fluent in _______.” Nowadays if you have basic word processing and spreadsheet skills it is not necessary to indicate this on your resume. Of course, technical resumes will require detail listing all your software and hardware skills, and you may want to move Skills up on the page and rename them Technical Skills.

Interests

Employers like people who share more than just career interests. You may have some unusual interest (e.g. skydiving, writing plays) that adds a new dimension to your qualifications. Be specific, too, for example, instead of saying you like “reading and hiking,” try “reading mystery novels and hiking the Appalachian Trail.”

References

This section is optional. If you have room, simply say “Available upon request.”