The first time I created a resume, I had no idea what I was doing. I believe I was a sophomore in high school when one of my teachers introduced the concept to us. Of course back then, almost none of us had work experience, so my resume looked different than it does now.
Fast forward all the way through college and now in the real world, my resume has gone through countless edits, restructuring, and rewording. An even crazier concept? I've met some people my age who have never even sat down and created a resume for themselves! So for those of you who are struggling with your resume, here are my top five tips that I have learned over the years when it comes to resumes. And thank you to all the professors and managers that have helped me over the years with my resume!
1. You Will Have More Than One Resume
Wait, what? Yes, that's correct, you will have more than one resume. The main resume you will have is called your master resume, where you will list all of your skills, work experiences, affiliations, education, and more. This is the one resume that will be over the one-page limit, because it has your whole life on there. The other resume(s) you'll have will be dependent on what jobs you apply for. For example, I have both retail and social media work experiences and skills listed on my master resume. When I go to apply for social media jobs, I'll usually only list the work experiences relevant to that job to highlight I have that specific experiences. I will also make sure the skills that I have are also related to the work responsibilities outlined in the job listing. You want to prove to the hiring manager (or the automated key word system) that you have relevant experiences for that job and they should take a chance and learn more about you.
2. Formatting Is Everything
One thing I cannot stress enough, is resume formatting. Everything has to line up with the margins. No one likes a messy resume, because it makes it look like you don't pay attention to detail. I always struggled with this, but learned a tip from a career counselor at my university. When in Microsoft Word, play with the paragraph rulers at the top of the document. Those are what control the alignment of the document. Once I understood those, everything was a breeze!
3. Save And Send As A PDF
Everyone has different computers, meaning your resume may look good on your computer, but when it's opened up on Microsoft Word on someone else's computer, the whole thing can be thrown off. To avoid this debacle and make you not look bad, I always recommend saving your resume as a PDF, which can be done in the Save As function on your computer. This basically saves it as a picture and it will look the same no matter who opens it. Another bonus is that this avoids anyone messing with your personal resume, since PDFs really can't be edited like Word documents.
4. Ask Other People's Opinions
Remember peer editing in high school and college? I know no one really took it seriously then, but having other people's opinions when it comes to resumes is huge. I've turned to countless career counselors and managers to help me look over my resume and get their honest opinions on what can be reworded, reformatted, and more. Even your friends are helpful as well. During college, I had a few friends who were human resource interns, and there insights were so helpful! The more eyes on your resume, the better.
5. Always Stay Updated
There's nothing worse than finding your dream job on the Internet and then realizing you can't apply for it right away because you haven't updated your resume in so long. If you ever get a new job, learn a new skill, or move to a new place, update your resume as soon as you can. It's better to do that in the moment instead of when you absolutely need to. This will avoid rushing through your resume and not making it as perfect as possible. Also, stay updated on resume ideas on job sites like LinkedIn and The Muse. These sites are great on not only listing jobs, but giving advice on how to land the job.
