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Résumé Guide p. 1
Résumé Writing Guide for College Students
A résumé is a written summary of your educational background, professional experiences, and accomplishments used to
apply for jobs or internships. This guide will assist you in developing an effective résumé for your job or internship
search. A good résumé is the key to a job interview which can then lead to a job offer. Include information about your
academically or professionally related experiences to show you are a good fit for the job.
Before creating a résumé, determine the reason for doing so. Reflect on the following questions:
How will it be used…at a job fair, via a job application, sent online, via mail, shared with your network?
What type of job are you looking for?
What skills do you have?
What experiences do you have?
What qualities do you possess?
Do you have any areas of knowledge expertise?
Use the answers to these questions to develop and brainstorm what to include on your résumé. If this is your first time
writing a résumé you may want to use the Résumé Writing Worksheet available from the Career Center.
According to a study done by The Ladders, an online job search site, employers may only take as little as six seconds to
review a résumé. SIX!?! You have just six seconds to grab their attention and get them interested in reading further.
Being concise and organized in your format, along with only including relevant information to the job application, may
be the ticket to gaining employer attention.
This guide will take you through each section of a résumé and provide examples of each to form a completed example
résumé which can be found on pg. 8. Use this guide and its attached resources to assist you in completing each section.
Then have someone in the Career Center critique your draft résumé.
Types of Résumés
There are two distinct types of résumés.
Chronological
o Chronological résumés list experiences in reverse chronological order, meaning the most recent
experiences first and then working backwards in time. These are easy to scan through quickly for
employers. Chronological résumés are what most traditional students and entry level professionals
choose to use. The example résumé on pg. 8 is a chronological.
Functional
o Functional résumés are sorted by specific skills that relate to the application. Section headings are areas
of skill or knowledge expertise. Functional résumés do include a reverse chronological employment
summary section. This type of résumé can be most helpful for job seekers who are career changers or
have many years of experience.
There is a third résumé type that is a combination of the two main types. Most résumés have components of both types
by listing different functional sections, but using reverse chronological order for the experiences within each section.
For example, two types of experience sections may be included; a Relevant Experience section and a Work Experience
section. This would consist of listing most relevant information in the first section and other part-time, non-related work
in the second.