If you haven’t already created your first resume, it’s time to do so now. Why? They are extremely helpful for the adults writing recommendations for you. You may be able to cut and paste portions into college applications. It’s time.
When writing a resume, parallel construction means everything. What do I mean? The description of your activities need to match. I like a list of bulleted action verbs: it is easy to follow and allows me to focus on the content of what you have done rather than having to mentally toggle back and forth between verbs and nouns.
A person reviewing a poorly-written resume that is not streamlined may not even realize how distracted he/she is by the poor formatting, but if they have to pause to make sense of what is on the page, those are precious moments lost that could be devoted to focusing on you in action.
🗝️ In short, you must share your personal information at the top: your first and last name, home address, email address, and cellphone number.
You may center it or left or right justify it, but all of that is essential.
🗝️ The most important information should be at the top, and you need to list your activities in reverse chronological order.
🗝️ Your headings may or may not be the same as the ones you see on this sample resume.
You may have work experience to share. Perhaps you have a section solely for athletic activities or performing arts activities. There are many templates out there. This is just one example.
As you get involved in college activities, your high school activities will fall off. Once you have your first version of your resume, you can continuously update it for the rest of your life.
You will be stunned by how many of your friends in college have never tackled a resume.
You don’t want to waste precious time creating your first draft when you learn of a leadership opportunity on your college campus when you also have to prepare your application and possibly interview for the position.
Having a resume already in hand will lighten the load with your overall stress level.
Making sure that everything matches is difficult. It’s hard to see the mistakes in your own resume.
When I updated my resume, I gave it to my final group of seniors and offered them an extra credit point for every error they found.
I must have invested at least 6 hours formatting that resume.
Sure enough, the next day, one of my seniors, Karina, came in with a big smile on her face and pointed out three missing periods. At the end of each of my bulleted activities, some of the lists ended in a period, and some didn’t.
I failed to catch it.
🗝️ As you work on your resume, have a friend peer edit your work. That person will have distance that you simply don’t have.
🗝️ Tools & Resources Here is my sample student resume to give you a framework to start from. |
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