Resumes are an integral piece to any job application and can be started as early as your first semester of college.
What does a resume do?
A resume is a summary of your experiences and skills relevant to the field of work you are entering.
A resume is an accomplishment-driven marketing tool for individuals seeking employment.
A resume relates your experience to your career objective.
The goal of any good resume is to show that you are a qualified candidate and a good match for the job.
The resume motivates employers to interview you!
Formatting
Formatting (or lack thereof) is a great way to show your attention to detail. If an employer reviews your resume and finds grammatical errors or formatting issues, what does that say about you as a potential employee?
Use standard font. Calibri, Times New Roman, Garamond. Don’t get crazy
Use black font. Utilize bolding, underlining, and strategic capitalization of words to differentiate headers, jobs, and subheaders.
Paper is important. If you are passing out printed copies of your resume, buy resume paper. White or cream with texture.
If you have a multipage resume, paperclip… do not staple. Print single-sided.
Utilize a resume template. Microsoft templates, online, or use a friend's whose format you liked! No sense wasting your time creating a format when they already exist online! See Resources below for some templates.
If you are emailing your resume or attaching it to an online application, convert it to a PDF. Title it “Last Name.Resume.Year” for clarity and professionalism. Ex: “Powell.Resume.2016.pdf”
Contact Information:
Your resume should include your full legal name (not nicknames), your school address, your permanent home address, your cell phone number, and your email address.
If you are still in college, use your university email and if you are not in college, use a personal email account. No work emails.
Format this area so that it takes up as little space as possible (to save for later more important resume information)
Examples:
Headers/Sub-Headers:
Headers should be used to define sections of your resume (Education, Experience, Leadership & Extracurricular), and sub headers should be used to divide those sections. (universities, various jobs, different leadership positions held).
Capitalize the entire word or the first letter of every word in a header.
Only capitalize the first letter of every word in a sub header (no all caps).
Consider bolding the headers and/or sub-headers to further differentiate from the rest of the resume.
While you have “creative freedom” in the way you indent your resume or structure your job descriptions (either in complete or incomplete sentences, periods or no periods, etc.), consistency is key. Commit to one format and stick with it.
When it comes to action verbs, make sure that your entire resume is conjugated in the same tense (or tenses)… Your current job should include “present tense” verbs: provides, executes, maintains. Past jobs or single-occurrence projects should include past tense verbs.
Sections:
Education Section
Include every university you have attended, including study abroad. Include years attended, expected graduation, majors, minors, and grade point average. No need to include your high school unless you are a first-year student and don’t have a college GPA.
Indicate the type of degree and make sure your apostrophe is in the correct location in the word “Bachelors’ “… it is not “Bachelor’s”
Always include your GPA. If you exclude it, employers will assume it is very low and doesn’t meet their minimum requirements. If your technical or major GPA is higher than your overall GPA, break it out and show both.
For dual-degree engineering majors:
Order your education in order of “newness”: Notre Dame on top, Saint Mary’s below.
Indicate under Notre Dame that you are in a Dual Degree engineering program.
You tend to have to do some math in order to determine your GPA for each institution since your Saint Mary’s transcript includes all ND classes, even those that aren’t relevant for your SMC degrees, while your ND transcript doesn’t include your SMC classes that count toward your ND degree. Look at the degree requirements for each degree and include the relevant coursework for each when calculating your overall GPA for each school.
For study abroad:
Put your study abroad experience at the bottom of your education section.
Indicate that it was a study abroad program and the months that you were there.
Experience Section
This portion of your resume is the most important and should take up a majority of your resume. Include all job experience, research projects, REUs, and on-campus jobs here. Some people divide internships/jobs in one section and research in another section. Either is fine as long as you clearly label which experiences are which. If you have had a number of positions and must remove them to create space, remove them based on time of role (remove your high school jobs first) or job relevance (remove your job as a summer lifeguard before you remove your job as Theater Costume Manager because Costume Manager shows university involvement)
Do not be modest in explaining your accomplishments or your roles in a group project. Remember, you are selling a product on this resume: you! Be strategic in the verbs you select as action verbs. See the appendix for a list of action verbs.
In STEM, we operate on proof & quantifiable facts. Your resume should also reflect that. Show proof of your success in projects and jobs by quantifying your claims (where applicable) in “dollars saved” or “hours saved” or “people included.”
Examples of Quantifiable Resume Claims:
You created a product or idea that cut down on time (it takes John Smith 2 hours to complete a task instead of 3)
You created a product or idea that reduces loss (with a new tool, your company loses less product… quantify how much product you have “saved”)
You took over a group or leadership role and positively impacted its success (your attendance grew by 30% or you raised 50% more funds for Events)
Your research project shows improved efficiency (your group now sees 30% more yield or your product uses 15% less plastic than before)
Show total sales or total dollars of business completed at your job
Sub Header should include the company, title, and location(s) you completed this job. On the far right, include the month/year when you started and completed the role
The longer you were at a job = more bullets describing projects, responsibilities, examples of professional growth
Extra-Curricular Section
As a college student, it is important to highlight what else you have been doing in addition to your classwork. Employers want to see that you take initiative, work well in groups, are comfortable leading a team, and can integrate well in social settings.
Include any regularly attended community service clubs/events, musical/theatrical/artistic clubs/activities, sports, and any clubs or organizations you have been a member of for a number of years and/or hold official positions in.
Include years you have been a member/participant + year/description of any leadership positions.
If you have the space, consider quantifying your leadership activities as well to demonstrate to potential employers what you are capable of. For example, if you increased organizational funding by X% or increased the number of attendees/members.
Skills Section
Include any languages you are proficient or fluent in. DO NOT exaggerate your proficiency. If you aren’t really fluent, don’t claim to be. For fluency, you should be able to immediately answer questions in your field in that language. If that isn’t something you are comfortable with, don’t put that language on your resume.
Include relevant technical skills, specific software, or coding languages that you're experienced (e.g. HPLC, NMR, PCR, FIJI, MatLab, LaTeX, Python)
Resources/External Links:
Action Verbs to use on your resume.
Example Templates:
These office templates are more traditional. We DO NOT recommend using a resume that includes your photo. https://templates.office.com/en-us/resume-templates
These templates are more modern, and may be good for positions with biotech startups, or non-traditional STEM fields, etc. These are NOT recommended for traditional fields (grad school, med school, law, large pharma companies, government labs, etc). https://www.beamjobs.com/resumes/college-student-resume-examples
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