Boston University - Office of Career Services - Resumes and Cover Letters - Resumes

Although the task of creating a resume might sound daunting, it really isn’t once you get the hang of it. We strongly recommend that you take the time to create your own resume format rather than using any pre-packaged templates. Templates lock you into a pre-set form, and can block your creativity. Additionally, they can be difficult to adjust, update, or customize.

Creating a resume is a process; don’t expect a completed and perfect resume to just appear on your first try. You might go through several sets of drafts and revisions, but this is not as bad as it might sound. As you learn to write your resume, you might even find that you can easily create two or more versions to be used in different job situations. (Note: there is nothing wrong with this, and you are not falsifying anything; you are just emphasizing different areas of your expertise.)

First, draft a “skills and experience” list; just start brainstorming and making notes. Write down every job you’ve had (paid or unpaid), any organizations to which you’ve belonged, any leadership positions you’ve held, any special projects you’ve initiated, any honors or awards you’ve received, any languages you speak, any special computer or other skills, any special interests or hobbies, travel you’ve done, or anything else significant to you. Remember that not all of these are likely to be included in your final resume, but at least get it all down where you can see it.

Next, clarify your career goals and current job objectives. Write several different job objective sentences, trying to honestly reflect what you’d like to do in a first job. Don’t worry about having these sound perfect; we’ll work on that later; this part is just for you.

Now think about the kinds of skills, experiences, and qualities needed to do the jobs you’ve described in your objective. Think about what an employer would look for in an employee doing those jobs.

Take a look at the items you wrote down in your skills and experience list. Think about which of those most closely relate to your objectives, and which will be valued by potential employers. Think about which demonstrate the kinds of skills that would be needed for the job described in your objective.

Now select those items that highlight your experience and relate your qualifications to the job in the mind of the reader. Don’t screen out too much; include major items even if they don’t seem immediately related. You now have the basic items for your resume. Next you will need to organize them into categories. (If you think of additional items along the way, add them!) Your aim is to highlight and present your skills and experience in a way that supports your candidacy for a given position. Don’t expect the employer to read between the lines; make the right conclusions easy to draw.

Header/Contact Info
This section tells the employer your name and how to reach you. It contains your name, address(es), phone number(s), and e-mail address. Choose an e-mail address that is professional-sounding, not cute or suggestive. Make sure your phone has a message on it that’s appropriate for a potential employer to hear. Always use your legal name on a resume; if your name is unusual or difficult to pronounce and you prefer to use a “nickname” when in this country, include both.

Objective
The objective is a short sentence or phrase including some, but not all, of the following: the kind of position you want, the functions(s) you want to perform, the skills you want to use, and the environment in which you wish to work. Be careful not to say things like “to sharpen my skills…” or “to learn more about…” Remember that employers are interested in what you will do for them.

Education
Name of the institution, city, state.
Degree, major, year of degree (received or expected).
Optional: G.P.A. (overall or in major), minor.

Optional: Relevant coursework. Be very selective here. Only list courses that might not be expected as a part of your regular degree work and that would be relevant to the job you are interested in.

Ordinarily, employers will not expect you to list your high school; don’t do so unless there is an unusual circumstance.

Experience
Include volunteer work, internships, student teaching, research projects, summer and part-time jobs, or other work experiences related to your field.

Include name of organization, city and state, dates of employment, job title, and description of accomplishments and responsibilities. Use short descriptive phrases beginning with “action words” to highlight your skills and accomplishments. Bullets can be useful here, but are not mandatory. Use your judgment; it might depend on the amount of space you have to work with.

NOTE: Space permitting, include other jobs that do not relate to your field of interest to show that you have had exposure to other work environments and have relevant transferable skills. You might want to use two headings, “Related Experience” and “Other Experience” instead of just one “Experience” heading. “Related Experience” would come first, and be related to your Objective. Use reverse chronological order within each category.

Descriptions should focus on skills and accomplishments relevant to your objective. Sometimes it is useful to quantify these accomplishments. For example, use “Hostess for a 200-seat restaurant” instead of “Restaurant Hostess,” or “Supervised ten 8-year-old campers” rather that “Supervised campers.”

Include instances where you:

Developed new strategies or procedures.
Utilized resources effectively such as reducing expenses.
Created ideas which resulted in successful adoption by others or which you have implemented yourself.
Demonstrated effective leadership or management, particularly of large scale projects.
Managed or supervised other people well.
Received promotions or increased your responsibilities.
Increased the profits or services of an organization.
Produced a specific result or product.
Solved a problem.
Received recognition by others.

Computer Skills
List specialized skills or knowledge of software relevant to your industry or desired job type first, then general computer skills next.

Languages
Languages can be listed according to your level of mastery: native, bi-lingual, fluent, proficient, conversant, or basic.

Activities/Memberships
List organizations to which you belong or have belonged. In general, do not list high school activities unless you are a first- or second-year student. An exception might be where a high school activity has been ongoing and extends into the present, or demonstrates an early interest in the career field you are now pursuing.

Honors/Awards
List any honors or awards you have received, whether academic or non-academic, including scholarships.

Other headings
The headings above are suggestions; you might or might not use each one. There are other headings you might want to use instead of, or in addition to, those already listed. Here are a few examples:

Leadership
Community Service
Travel
Interests/Hobbies
Or any other category which is particularly relevant to your resume

“References Available Upon Request”
is no longer needed on your resume. It is sometimes used to signal “The End,” or used as a space filler when there isn’t much else on the page. In general, you can leave it off your resume.

Things NOT to include on your resume
While some countries and cultures have different standards, it is important in this country not to include things on your resume such as:

Age
Marital status
Health
Nationality or ethnicity
Religion
Salary requirements
References

Some of these things might be apparent from other information you include (such as Activities/Memberships), and that’s OK, but you don’t want to explicitly state something which could potentially be considered discriminatory information.

In the initial employment screening process, your resume might get as little as 15-30 seconds of consideration. An effect resume should be easy to read, logical in layout, and highlight relevant information. It should also be error free; that means no misspellings, typos, grammatical errors, inconsistent use of language, inconsistent date formats, or inadvertently mixed printing fonts. In general, use 10-, 11-, or 12-point type for the text, and only slightly larger for section headers.

Make good use of white space; keep adequate margins, and don’t over-crowd the page. On the other hand, don’t stretch out the information unnecessarily by using too much white space. Try, to the extent possible, to keep the content of your resume to one page. The document should be visually pleasing, regardless of content.

Be aware that information presented at the beginning of a section, in the left hand margin, or in a column, gets extra attention. For this reason, we suggest not putting your dates in a column to the left of your content. “When” you did something is not as important as “what” you did. Remember, a resume is a summary of your experience, not an accounting of how you spent your time.

Be consistent. If you use bold for one employer name, use it for all employer names. If you use italics for one job title, use italics for all job titles. You can choose to end phrases with a “.” or not, but whichever you choose, make sure you do the same thing throughout the document.

Be careful of too much CAPITALIZATION and bolding. A little emphasis can go a long way, and you don’t want various areas of your resume fighting each other for attention. Remember, the section heading is not the most important thing on your resume, the section content is; the section heading is merely a guide.

If you are going to print your resume, use the best quality printer you can, and use high quality paper.

When your resume is complete to this point, you still have a few steps to go. The next thing to do is to give it to someone else to review. Ideally, this person would be a member of the professional staff in one of the BU Career Offices. Professional staff have a great deal of experience reviewing resumes, and can make suggestions as to content, layout, wording, etc., as well as making sure the message you are sending in the overall document is the message you intend to be sending.

If you don’t come in for a resume review, you still need to have another person review your resume for typos, etc. It is very easy to read something you have written and see what you meant to write rather than what you have actually written.

Be particularly careful about phone numbers, numbers in addresses, ZIP codes, etc. Numbers are not things that can be easily proof-read, and believe it or not, people do make mistakes in typing their own phone numbers.

If a reviewer suggests a change, don’t be disheartened; chances are it won’t take long to make corrections at this point, and it will probably be well worth it.

If you want to have a career services person review your resume while it is still a “work in progress,” come in at any time and we will help you.

Resume reviews can be done in a one-hour appointment or in a 15-minute walk-in (Noon - 4:00).

Resumes

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