How to Build it From Scratch and Make Each Section Stand Out

You have likely heard the importance of a resume in applying for jobs, research positions, and undergraduate programs. Thus, it is critical for you to take the time to build a resume and understand its components to make each of your skills and experiences shine to interviewers, hiring managers, or program directors.

The 4 sections of your resume

1. Basic Demographic Information

In most cases, application reviewers will use your resume to search for your contact information. It is important that you include the following details at the top of your resume:

• Your Full Name
• Your Primary Phone Number
• Your Primary Email Address
• Your Location (City & State at Minimum)
• Optional: social profiles, portfolio links, etc.

Tip: It is best to use a professional email address, rather than a work or school email.

2. Academic Profile: College and High School Education (If Applicable)

Resume reviewers want to know your education, primarily secondary education. Make sure to include the following:

• Name and Location of High School, College or University
  • Major
  • Awards and Achievements
  • GPA
• Name and Location of High School
  • Awards and Achievements
  • GPA and Relevant Courses
  • Class ranking (if applicable)

Tip: Only include your GPA and/or class ranking if it is going to stand out. For example, you should not list your GPA if it is below a 3.0 (on a 4.0 grading scale).

3. Experience

Your “experience” section is the core of your resume and likely will be the longest out of all of the sections. To start off, you’ll want to identify what positions you’ll want to include. Think about your career journey to this point, and which experiences will tell your story to reviewers. Again, this will be discretionary and vary based on where you are in your career, whether you are a high school, undergrad, or postgraduate student. Once you’ve identified where to start, it is common practice to list your relevant experience in order from most to least recent.

For each position, you’ll want to include your job title, company as well as the city and state where you worked (include country if applicable). It is also important to include the timeframe that you worked at the organization. It is recommended to use month and year for each beginning and end of the positions listed. Next, your descriptions of your experience should be clear and concise. Use bullet points to highlight your responsibilities and accomplishments at each position. This is also a good area to include keywords in your resume. We will touch on the importance of these later in this post. Regarding the length of your descriptions, we recommend sticking to 3-5 bullet points for each position.

Make sure you have:

• Each Relevant Position Listed
• Job Title
• Company Name
• City & State
• Duration at Company (Month & Year Started – Month & Year Finished)
• 3-5 Bullet Points for Each Position

Tip: Try to quantify your experiences with as much detail as possible. For example, “I managed 2 direct reports and led conversations with administrators as a part of my student council vice president role.”

4. Skills

The skills section is a great area to show off both your hard and soft skills. Whether your area of expertise is more technical or not, this section is an opportunity to show interviewers more about your abilities. We recommend featuring your hard skills first. As a reminder, hard skills are specific abilities that can be measured and evaluated. Do you know any programming languages or software programs?

These are definitely important to include, especially if they overlap in the job posting you are applying to. If you don’t have very many hard skills to include, consider incorporating soft skills in this section. Soft skills are interpersonal skills such as “leadership,” “time management,” or “communication” and are harder to quantify. In conclusion, try to narrow down the skills that portray your abilities best for the position you are trying to land.

Make sure you have:

• Hard Skills (programming languages, software systems, technical abilities, etc.)
• Soft Skills (decision making, problem-solving, conflict resolution, etc.)
• Keywords that match the job posting
• Languages

Tip: If you only speak one language, you do not need to include it in this section. For example, if English is your first language and you do not speak any other languages, you do not need to specify English as a language you speak.