Resumes

What is a resume?

A resume is a document you will use to apply for jobs, internships and other professional opportunities. It provides an overview of your relevant education, skills, and experiences as they relate to the opportunity you seek, and should present who you are as a candidate in a clear, concise, and compelling way. Resumes should be well written, perfectly punctuated, honest, concise, one page, organized, and consistent in formatting.

Customizing Resumes

If you apply online for a job or internship (as opposed to emailing your resume to a person), your application will likely go through an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) also known as a resume robot. ATS are software that help employers manage many applications by pre-screening resumes according to job qualifications and keyword matching between resumes and the job posting. ATS don’t read cover letters, but they do comb through resumes carefully so you will need to customize your resume for each job to make it through this system. 

In addition to being formatted for an ATS, your resume needs to function well when a human being reads it. Hiring managers do a first read-through of applicant resumes surprisingly quickly – spending 10 seconds or less on each to determine who warrants a closer look and discarding most of them. Employers are looking for directly relevant information that matches their job description and discarding applicants with generic sounding or ineffectively-written resumes. They are determining the handful of applicants to invite to interview. If they can’t find what they are looking for quickly on your resume (even if it’s there), they will not consider you further.

The Basics

It takes time to prepare an effective resume. These guidelines will help you get noticed by employers with the goal of gaining an invitation to interview for the position you are seeking.