You Need to Start Somewhere! Resumé Dos and Don'ts ✅
- Courtney Murphy
- Jun 18, 2024
- 5 min read
Resumé building is a crucial first step in your career journey. It essentially gives a one-page summary of your time as a student. However, resumé building requires certain stylistic choices that are crucial to include or avoid altogether.
These dos and don’ts of crafting a resumé are a good place to start when you’re starting to draft your first resumé. In this guide, we dive deep into these stylistic choices and why they are crucial to your resumé or should be entirely avoided.
DOs
Keep to One Page
On average, recruiters take around six to seven seconds to look at a candidate’s resumé. That’s one of the big reasons why it’s crucial to keep your resumé down to a page. Everything important you want to convey about yourself should all be on this one page. Some exceptions to extending to a second page are if you’ve had multiple years of professional experience or are in higher executive positions.
2. Use Bullet Point Descriptions
Bullet point descriptions are much easier and quicker to read than paragraphs. Bullet points also make your resumé cleaner and more concise. You want to have around three to four bullet points per job, on average. These bullet points should describe what you did at this job. These are not duplicates of the job descriptions.
YES!!!!
News Intern
WWRD | September 2024 to Current | Philadelphia, PA
Wrote ten news stories a week for the evening newscast
Edited two videos a week for the evening newscast
Compiled potential stories to pitch for weekend news coverage
NO❌
News Intern
WWRD | September 2024 to Current | Philadelphia, PA
I compiled potential stories to pitch for the weekend news coverage. I wrote ten
news stories a week for the evening newscast. I edited two videos a week for the evening news.
3. Maintain a Simple Layout and Color
Yes, designing your resumé can involve a certain level of creativity. Keep in mind, though, that many of these resumés may go through ATS or Applicant Tracking Systems, a computer system that filters resumé out for certain keywords and doesn’t always read designs or vibrant colors. It’s advisable to stick to simple formatting with neutral colors that don’t affect the readability. Black and white resumés are always a safe option. Format your resumé so it’s easy to read from top to bottom.
4. Place Experience in Reverse Chronological Order
When listing your experience, you want to ensure that the most recent experience is on the top and the oldest experience is closer to the bottom. Recruiters will likely want to know about your current or recent experience first.
News Intern
WWRD | September 2024 to Current | Philadelphia, PA
Social Media Intern
Fashion Company Inc. | September 2023 to December 2023 | Philadelphia, PA
5. Tweak your resumé to the job you’re applying for
According to JobScan, 97.4% of Fortune 500 companies use an Applicant Tracking System. That means it’s vital that you include keywords from the job description in your resumé, though that doesn’t mean copying and pasting the job description in your resumé. For example, if a job description had the words “deadlines,” you would want to incorporate this word into some of your bullet points when it’s appropriate. There’s no limit to how many words could be screened for the ATS, so covering your bases is important.
6. Use a professional email address
Make sure your contact information is professional. If you’re using a student email, avoid any alias email that comes with a few letters and lots of numbers. It’s acceptable to use an email address that’s your first and last name with a university handle. If you’re using a personal email, make sure it’s not an alias you would be embarrassed to say aloud.
Good: first.last@xxxxx.edu
7. Make sure your fonts and sizing are consistent
Resumés are all about being consistent, so that means making sure that your fonts and sizing are all in unison. When choosing fonts, it’s best to keep it traditional with an Ariel or Times New Roman. Regarding sizing, stay between 10-12 point font for bullet points, skills, or other body information. The exceptions to this rule are your names and headers.
Accepted fonts: Arial, Times New Roman, Helvetica, Verdana, Cambria, Georgia, Calibri
Acceptable sizing: 10 to 12
8. Proofread! Proofread! Proofread!
This is the most vital step in resumé writing. Once you’ve drafted your resumé, it is best to get a second pair of eyes on it whether it’s a professor, colleague or career counselor. It’s easy to lose sight of grammatical errors, sentence structures or spelling mistakes. There have been numerous times when I’ve caught dozens of mistakes on one resumé. A second pair of eyes on each draft can make a huge difference.
DON’TS
Never use First-Person Pronouns
It’s implied that everything on your resumé is something you’ve done, so using I, me, or myself is unnecessary. What you can use “I’ for is making sure your bullet point descriptions would be complete sentences if you added the I. All your bullet points should make sense if you place an I before the verb. For example:
Resumé Says: Managed a team of seven in developing a new website
You talking: I managed a team of seven in developing a new website
2. Don’t put “Reference Available Upon Request”
Most applications will request references, so only place them in an application when asked to.
3. Don’t use Photos or Bright Colors
As we touched on earlier, it’s best to have your resumé as clean and clear as possible. Depending on your industry, try to avoid bright colors, such as neon. Often, they make the page hard to read. Colors certainly unleash creativity; however, ensure it’s professional and not distracting on paper.
Photos are also things to leave out in your resumé. ATS may not be able to read through it, and it can take up valuable space when you need to update your resumé.
4. Avoid Google Docs or Microsoft Templates
This one is more of a warning than a don’t, but try to avoid the pre-made templates in Google Docs and Microsoft Word. While yes, these are convenient and easy to add to, be mindful that other students are probably doing the same thing. It’s best to start your resumé from scratch and format it to your needs rather than try and fiddle with the template.
Takeaways
This may look overwhelming, but the rules listed here are key items you can take beyond your college years. Resumé building is all about matching everything to what your current experience is.
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