Resume Guide

Amy Miller, Psy.D.
Career & Leadership Coach

IMPORTANT RESUME PRINCIPLES

MAKE IT SO EASY FOR THE READER! Assume they are reading quickly and not thinking that hard. Don’t assume they will figure it out. Hand it all to them so they don’t have to think about it.  Move important points as far to the top as possible, such as rearranging bullet points to suit a particular job, or putting the most important skills first. Do NOT use abbreviations or acronyms even if you are almost sure the reader will know what it means.

MAKE A RESUME YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE AND HAPPY TO SHARE WITH ANYONE.  The point of a resume is to get it out to everyone that may be able to help you, so if there is anything on there which makes you feel shy about sharing, you may just have to leave it out. This is also the reason not to include your full home address on it! Just City, State, Zip, so it doesn’t make you nervous to put/share with strangers. 

CREATE A RESUME PROTOTYPE, WITH A SPECIFIC JOB IN MIND. You don’t need to fully write a new resume for every job, but I encourage you to avoid any resume writing that is generic/template. Instead, make a “prototype”  (same for cover letters and any other job search materials!). Your brain will be more creative and focused if there is a sense of purpose and target audience when you are composing your resume. When you prepare your other resume “versions” for different jobs, you will have some things to adjust but you will be bouncing off a resume that was also created for a specific job in mind.  

PROFESSIONALISM AND ACCURACY IS AN EASY WIN.  You can’t stop in the middle of your resume writing process to get another degree or complete a few years at a company, obviously, but you can take a few minutes to ensure that your resume is polished, proofreading, and presents you in a professional way.  A few things to watch out for are old or weird email addresses, information that is personal or irrelevant (take off your hobbies!), words that are too informal or cute, abbreviations. And of course, make the formatting (bolds, italics) consistent and fix spelling and punctuation.  Tip: Enlist 2-3 possible proofreaders before you start working on you next /updated resume!

SIMPLE DESIGN IS BEST.  Do not over design. If you must do a 2 column design make sure it looks clean, clear, and isn’t too colorful. I prefer just a basic format with no colors or interesting visual features.  One or two pages is okay, but never more than two.  Only use two if you can almost fill the two pages, not only with a little extra on the second page. Good font sizes are 10, 10.5 or 11.   .

STUDY JOB DESCRIPTION FOR KEY REQUIREMENTS AND KEY WORDS.  Use ChatGPT or similar to paste in a few of the  job descriptions in a category you are applying in and ask “ “What are 10 of the most common responsibilities across these job descriptions?” and “What are 10 of the top keywords in these job descriptions?”  When you adapt your resume for a job, just find ways to drop in the key words related to that specific job or type of job. When you study job descriptions, notice the kinds of words they use to describe things that can be described in different ways. You want to make your materials most relatable to that employer and their word choice. (Example: if they say “coordinate” and you used “plan”, then change it to coordinate.)   Before you start writing, think awhile and explore “What do these people REALLY care about?” 

ALWAYS USE A PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY AND/OR LIST OF SKILLS.  There are many examples of these online. Adding these to the top is a way to redirect the reader to exactly what you want them to think about you, make it easy for them to see, and easily adapt resumes to different jobs without having to rewrite the whole resume. Do not say what you are looking for. Do adjust this for each job so you are basically saying, “What you need, this is what I do!”  Focus on what you have done and do and what are the results of your work, just like in any part of the resume. 

THE RESUME SECTIONS

Heading. Name, City/State/Zip, Email, Linked in (with Link).

Professional Summary.  Write a 3-4 sentence summary, bullet point or paragraph form are both ok. The purpose is to make this easy for your reader, control the message they have about you, and make it easy for you to adapt your resume for different job descriptions without having to make a lot of changes throughout the document.

  • Areas of expertise. Include 9 bulleted items, tailored with key words for that job. You may want to start with a list of more (even 20) so you can pull from these as a kind of “menu” for each resume.

  • Professional Experience.  

    • 2-5 bullets per section. Most recent or most relevant should be about 5.

    • Can be paid or unpaid. Can use title like contractor/consultant (these are better than “freelance”, “short term”, etc)  

    • Use the full month and year like this: December, 2013 - May, 2015 even if it was a summer job. Just put the month/year range unless it was only one month. 

    • Each bullet starts with an active verb and the outcome that happened because of what you did. Use as many specifics/numbers as possible. 

    • Be concise, delete “filler” words and avoid repetition. 

    • Do not use general, passive, and vague words that are boring and humble like worked, assisted, responsible for, supported.

    • Don’t write “responsible for” or what you were expected to do - write what actually happened and why it mattered and made a difference to someone.

  • Education. After work experience. Just college, not High School. Keep any “extra” info like courses or activities brief and only if they are relevant. Starting with the most recent - “Degree, Subject, School, Year,” Under each school, add significant extras like study abroad, certificate/license involved, honors. 

  • Community Leadership. This is optional and can also be called something like “Leadership & Volunteer Experience” or other versions of a similar title. Can be a simple list that includes title, place, and year, or can be a bullet point format similar to work experience.

  • Technical Skills, Languages. Simply list anything you want them to know you can do that has to do with computers and technology. I do not like qualifying the experience with a word like “proficient” or “expert,” but just list and you can explain more in an interview if asked. Include language with basic, conversational, or fluent. Do not lie/exaggerate the language skills.