RESUMES
A guide for writing a compelling resume.
Almost all employers will require a resume when you apply for a job. On average, recruiters spend 8 seconds on each resume.
What? Why only 8 seconds?
They are very busy, sifting through 100s of applicants for each open position, and they probably have many open positions that they are trying to fill.
They have very specific qualities that they are looking for in candidates.
Why do they require a resume?
Concise and quick way to review your background
Summary of relevant experience that indicates if you can do the job
Signals if you want to work in their industry/role
Can keyword search in a database to narrow matches quickly
Where do their eyes go and how do they read it in 8 seconds?
Your name, then scan the left hand side
School, expected graduation date, and names of where you worked
First one or two words in your bullets hoping that the verbs match the skills they are looking for
Additional information section for skills, abilities, interests or interesting tidbits
Most of you created a strong resume while at Eastside. You should use this as a base and add new information to it.
Search Your Google Drive- Your resume should be a Google Doc, titled Your First Name Your Last Name Resume (e.g. Betty Cooper Resume).
Check with Eastside- If you cannot find it in your Google Drive (and know that you created one while at Eastside), reach out to your Career Coach. They might still have access to it.
Starting from scratch- If you attended Eastside before 2010 or if neither of you can find it and need to start from scratch, start with this resume template (link to college resume template).
Before anything: Change ownership of your resume
Right now, you are the owner of your Google Doc resume with your Eastside email address. Your email address will expire in one year and after that, you will not have access to this document.
To prevent that from happening, follow these steps:
In the document, click “Share” in the upper right hand corner of the document
Type a different email address that you would like to use to own this document (probably a personal Gmail account) in the “Invite people” field. Click send.
Log into your other email account (the one you just added).
Go to File → Make a Copy
Rename it, “Firstname Lastname Resume 2023”.
To the old version, add “Old” to the Name or leave the year as 2022 to indicate it’s no longer your most updated resume.
Make sure you change your sharing settings so it’s editable by anyone with the link (this allows all career coaches to have access to your resume, if need be). Go to Share → Get Link → make it shareable with anyone who has the link.
The title of your resume should be, “Firstname Lastname Resume 2023”
HEADER
Change your email address from your Eastside one to whatever email you use the most (maybe your new college email address).
Check to make sure your address on the resume is still your home mailing address.
Confirm that your phone number is your current phone number.
EDUCATION
Insert your college ABOVE Eastside in the exact same format (see example below).
In your Eastside section, delete “degree expected May 2022” and → “High School Diploma, May 2022” instead
For your Eastside education dates, change “Present” to “May 2022”
Double check your GPA - is it most recent? Remember, if your GPA is below a 3.4 probably take it off.
If you have a separate section for Foothill College, delete it and add in one bullet under your Eastside experience that says, “Foothill College (Dual Enrolled Student):” and then list the courses
If you have an awards section, make sure that it is updated
Example of what it should look like:
California State University, East Bay Hayward, CA
Bachelor of Arts, Psychology, Minor in Marketing, expected May 2025 August 2022 - Present
Eastside College Preparatory School East Palo Alto, CA
High School Diploma, May 2022 August 2018 - May 2022
Foothill College (Dual Enrolled Student): Introduction to Psychology, Composition & Reading, Composition, Critical Reading & Thinking Through Literature
EXPERIENCE
Add in your summer employer following the same format as the other experience sections. Insert a few bullets summarizing your work.
Review your Experience section. For any of them that you are no longer participating in, update the dates (e.g. “Present” should now have the end month and year)
For any that you are no longer participating in, review your bullets to make sure that all of your verbs are in PAST tense.
EASTSIDE ELECTIVE COURSEWORK
Unless the coursework is relevant for your future major, you can delete it. (Ex: If you want to be an engineer and you took the engineering class, keep it on your resume. If you want to go into graphic design and you have multiple years of art, keep it there.) But if those classes aren’t relevant, delete.
VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE
If you have a volunteer section, review your entries. Feel free to delete any sections that aren’t meaningful or add new skills to get your resume to one page.
FORMAT
We want to get your resume to one page - if you can do that, great. Otherwise, talk to a career coach and they can advise you on what to delete/condense.
Check all of your locations and dates on the right hand side. They should be right justified (line up on the far right margin). You can insert a right tab stop to align it easily by doing the following in Google Docs. If you prefer video instructions, click this link to watch.
Go to the top ruler and click on it
Three options will pop up. Choose “Add Right Tab-Stop”
Drag the triangle to align with the upside down triangle on the ruler so that it aligns with the right hand margin.
For each line, place your cursor to the left of the dates or location, click it and hit the tab key. The text should slide automatically to align to the right.
Find an example in the attachment.
1. Email address: Make sure your email address is the one that you check most regularly
2. Phone number: Make sure that your phone number is up to date
3. Mailing Address: Make sure that your mailing address is up to date
Which address to use?
If you are looking for jobs near your home, then include your home address. For example:
Betty Cooper
coopb@riverdale.edu 555-555-5555
125 Main St. East Palo Alto, CA 94303
If you are looking for jobs near your home, but go to school out of state, or if you are looking for jobs near your out of state school, then you can use your school address or include both. For example:
College: If you are still in college, it should be at the top.
What about Eastside? If you are a 1st or 2nd year, you can still have Eastside, but that should go beneath the entry for your college. Delete the Eastside section around your 2nd year of college. As you get more recent and relevant experiences you’ll need more space on your resume and your high school experiences will feel outdated.
Graduation date: Make sure your expected college graduation date is updated.
College GPA: Double-check your college GPA: is it updated? Reminder, if your GPA is below a 3.0 do not include on your resume
Dates: These can be expressed in numbers (8/2015) or words (August 2015). Just make sure to be consistent in your choice throughout the resume.
Example of Education section for a 4th year:
Example of Education section for a 1st year:
This step is optional, but if you worked on relevant class projects that an employer would care about, include them in this section.
Read job descriptions of roles that you are interested in applying to.
Identify any skills or tasks that they are seeking in candidates that you don’t have in work experience, but do have experience from classes.
Create a projects section and label it in a way to catch the reviewers attention (e.g. Lab Experience, Technical Projects, Marketing Projects, etc.)
Draft impact statements (see Step 6) that include as many buzzwords from the job description as possible.
Example 1:
Research Experience
Conducted a change blindness research study; conducted one-on-one interviews, created, distributed and analyzed survey results, coded data, interpreted results, and wrote a 10 page final paper
Researched 12+ primary sources and wrote a 25-page paper on the effectiveness of programs to reduce juvenile recidivism
Example 2:
RELEVANT ENGINEERING PROJECT EXPERIENCE
Design of Optimal Drying Processes 1/2018-6/2018
Course: Mechanical Engineering Senior Capstone Design
Project Engineer
Collaborated with a team of five to investigate potential solutions to optimize the dehydration of food products for a manufacturing company, Olam SVI
Researched and developed a preliminary MATLAB model design and simulation for the optimization of a dehydration system based on principles of heat and mass transfer
Redesign of a Contaminant Bowl Used in Fuel Filter Applications 11/2017-12/2017
Course: Computer Aided Design
Collaborated with a team of six to conceptualize new designs for a contaminant bowl used in fuel filter applications
Developed a 3D model of the new design using Pro/ENGINEERING software and tested the principal stresses on the model using Mechanica
Successfully managed to improve the failure due to bulging experienced by 90 percent
Organize your Experience section(s) in a way that best highlights your achievements and best tells your story. Talk to your Eastside Career Coach for help.
Some Experience section labels to choose from are:
Work Experience
Volunteer Experience
Leadership Experience (include if you hold a leadership role in a club(s))
Extracurricular Experience
Experience (this is a generic catch all header that many students use)
Create targeted resumes. You can be creative and label the sections in a way that would target and stand out to a recruiter.
Examples:
If applying for a teaching internship, label a section “Teaching and Tutoring Experience” and place all experiences related to kids there and then have another section called “Other Experience” and place any other experiences there.
If applying for an art-related internship create and label a section “Art Experience” and place any experiences such as summer programs, classes, volunteering or work experience related to art in that section.
Order your entries within in section so that the most recent experience is at the top.
Create impact statements for your bullets.
Read a typical job description of the types of jobs you are interested in applying to.
Identify the skills (verbs) that they are looking for in that job.
Reflect on your experiences and think about when you’ve used those skills in the past.
Write impact statements highlighting tasks and projects using this structure:
Power Verb (tied to skills they are looking for) + What you did = Results
Example:
Analyzed class of 25 students’ performance, identified problem areas, and customized lessons to focus on each student’s gaps, improving all students’ grades to A’s and B’s by end of year
Start each impact statement with a power verb. Click here for a list of power verbs.
The middle should include as many buzzwords and keywords that they list in their job descriptions.
Show results and your impact!
Add in numbers whenever you can to quantify scope.
Show results. Reflect on what the organization was able to do better, faster, cheaper, and differently based on your help.
Order your bullets with the most important ones at the top.
Foreign languages
Label your language abilities appropriately. If you list yourself as fluent, be prepared for your interview to be conducted in that language.
Choose from this list to label your language abilities.
Technical skills
Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, computer programming languages (Java, C++, Python, R), social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat), etc.
Label your skills appropriately.
Hobbies
Any hobbies or interesting tidbits that would be great conversation starters in an interview.
For example:
Hiked for 30 days in the Alaskan wilderness with NOLS
Enjoy creating and sketching superhero characters
Passionate about English Premier League Soccer
Self taught jazz pianist
Other things relevant to the job
Anything that shows interest in the organization that you are applying to. For example:
If applying to a gaming company include, “Avid role-playing and strategy gamer”
If applying to an environmental organization include, “Passionate about environmental issues, particularly in water conservation”
To choose what bullets to include in this section on your resume, follow these steps:
Read job descriptions of jobs that you want to apply to.
Identify what technical knowledge they require.
Identify any other types of skills, foreign languages that they are looking for.
Think about the industry they are in and the services they provide.
Identify what you could include about yourself to highlight numbers 2-4.
Example of an Additional Information section:
Additional Information
Fluent in Spanish
Proficient in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Google Drive and Adobe Creative Cloud; familiar with Excel
Passionate about digital photography and filmmaking
Hiked in the Alaskan tundra for 30 days with National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) in summer 2015
Dates can be numbers (08/2015) or words (August 2015), but just make sure to be consistent in your choice throughout the resume.
Margins are between .5 and 1; most common margins for our alums are .7.
Font are between 10-12pt and in a professional font (e.g. Times New Roman, Arial, Cambria, Calibri).
Do not include a picture on your resume.
How to Right-Justify (Add Tab-Stops) to Your Entries
AKA how to save yourself hours of time when formatting!
In order to align dates or locations to the right-hand margin, follow these steps:
Go to the top ruler and click on it.
Three options will pop up. Choose, “Add right tab-stop.” This should create a little triangle that points to the left.
Drag the new triangle to align with the upside down triangle on the ruler where the right-hand margin is. They should now be in the same spot.
For each line, place your cursor to the left of the dates or location and then hit the ‘tab’ key. The text should slide automatically to align to the right.
You can do this for each of your entries as you type them out OR you can do it for the entire document
To do the latter, highlight the entire resume and add a right tab-stop. Now, every time you hit ‘tab’ throughout the document, the text will then move.
Note that when you change your margins, you need to then change your right tab-stops.
Formatting Rubric
Bullets are no longer than 2 lines. There are no paragraphs/long narratives
Each bullet starts with a capital letter
Bullets do NOT end in periods (your bullets are not complete sentences so they should not end with a period
Header names of companies, organizations, classes should be bold
YES:Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula
Titles of roles should be capitalized and italicized
YES:Cashier
NO:cashier
Label the title of the role, not description
YES:Cashier
NO:Rang people at register
All bullet points are exactly the same font, size, and alignment
All text in same font and font size (other than the name) in 10-12pt font. There should be no unusual fonts, colors, unusual symbols, photos, or other visual “clutter.”
Entries within each section are listed in reverse chronological order by completion date. The most recently COMPLETED (end date) items are at the top within each header.
Content Rubric
Leading verbs should be in the tense that correspond with whether or not you are still involved with that organization or company. (Present = present tense. No longer involved = past tense)
YES: Communicate(d)
NO: Communicating
No personal pronouns (I, my, me, myself)
Every bulleted task or accomplishment begins with an action verb.
YES: Presented
NO: Gave Presentations
NO: Responsible for giving presentations
NO: I presented
Verbs are varied and highlight a variety of skills.
YES: Analyzed, Collaborated, Created, Motivated, Developed, Organized
NO: Helped, Helped, Helped, Worked, Worked
Bulleted statements show what you did, NOT what you learned.
YES: Presented recommendations to 5 staff members and gained approval to move forward
NO: Developed communication and persuasion skills by presenting to staff members
NO: Learned how to communicate and persuade
Bulleted statements highlight transferable skills.
YES: Organized napkins, silverware, and salt and pepper on each table to make them tidy
NO: Cleaned tables, swept floors, washed dishes
Bulleted statements include sufficient detail.
YES: Tutored 5th grade students in math, reviewing long division, exponents, and prime numbers
NO: Tutored students
Bulleted statements use numbers to quantify scope and detail to make accomplishments clear.
YES: Collaborated with 5 students to plant 25 trees over 3 days
NO: Collaborated with students to plant trees
Bulleted statements quantify results when possible.
YES: Re-organized shelves in supply closet to fit 20% more cans
YES: Re-organized shelves in supply closet to make it easier to find appropriate cans
NO: Re-organized shelves
Edit your resume to fit on one page.
Proofread! Then have a friend proofread it. Typos are an automatic, “no” from the organization.
Save your document as Your First Name Your Last Name Resume The Current Year
Example: Jughead Jones Resume 2018
Share your resume with your Career Coach in a Google Doc for feedback.
When you send your resume, download as a PDF to send:
In case they do not have access to Google Docs or the same version of Word as you.
So that they cannot see comments, edits and revision history on your resume!