By Bailey M. Gamberg

What is a resume?

A resume is a personal document highlighting someone’s qualifications for a job, scholarship, internship, or another opportunity. Resumes are meant to be streamlined and concise, in order to give the reviewer a quick overview of experience, with optional details. Unless otherwise noted, most resumes should only be one full page.

What information should be included?

The best option at first is to create what is called a “Master Resume.” A Master Resume can be multiple pages long and will include all of your history. Different sections of information can include but are not limited to: Education, work, extracurricular activities, community service, publications, awards and scholarships, skills, references. You can pick and choose which sections are most relevant to your experiences.

In each entry within each section the following information should be included:

• Name of job/organization/award, applicable years, position, location (city and state), and what was accomplished.
  • Try and include anywhere from one to three (1-3) bullet points that describe what skills you gained, what experiences you had, or what type of tasks you completed to provide the reader with a greater insight as to how this entry is relevant.
  • Start each of these bullet points with an action verb, and ensure that this verb is present tense if you still hold the position or past tense if you no longer do.

Example entry

Undergraduate Writing Center | University of Nevada, Reno

Writing Consultant | 2015-present

• Provide consultations with students regarding any stage of the writing process they find themselves stuck in
• Maintain a working knowledge of grammar, citation formats, sentences structure, and brainstorming techniques
• Work with various types of papers such as rhetorical and literary analyses, research papers, journalistic reviews, lab reports, and more

Once your Master Resume has been completed with all of your past experiences, a single resume will be hand-crafted for each application. You should pick and choose which entries are most applicable to the job or scholarship at hand, and what the reviewers will find most impressive.

How should I format a resume?

Resumes are supposed to look concise and streamlined, so deciding on a clean and professional format is important.

• Use a standard font, such as Times New Roman or Calibri, and a readable font size, anywhere from 11-14. The only exception to this would be your header, which should include your name and contact information. The header should be centered and bold in order to attract the reader’s attention.
• Format the resume with traditional one-inch margins
• Print on quality, neutral-colored paper for a clean finish.

How can I get further help?

The best place on campus to get help with a resume is at the University Writing & Speaking Center on the 3^rd floor of PSAC and at the Career Studio on the 2^nd floor of PSAC. The Career Studio has specific worksheets to help with different formatting styles, power words to use, and what stands out to recruiters. The University Writing & Speaking Center can help with grammar, word choice, brainstorming, and other specific writing-related issues. For the best possible resume, try going to both centers for career and writing advice.