Resume Building Basics

A decent resume is the most important tool for getting interviews. It’s especially important at junior level positions where you’re more likely to get lost in a lot of other applicants and the hiring manager is less likely to call you to try to interview you for a position you aren’t fully qualified for. <br><br>I’ve seen a lot of decent resumes with a silly mistake that makes it seem like the person is a lot less qualified than they are. The most common being typos and misspelling people’s names.<br><br>Before we get into the basics I want to state that this is for junior level resumes. I assume people applying to senior positions know all the things on this list already.<br><br>So here are my tips in order of importance:<br><br>1. **Use spellcheck properly:** Spellcheck isn’t perfect. It won’t catch some things and will encourage you to use words you may not mean to use. I work in medical research and I do a lot of stuff with mice. Sometimes when I’m writing papers that need to be published, spellcheck will change mice to mice. The first time I used spellcheck I missed that and it was very embarrassing for me. The hiring person has to read hundreds of resumes for the same job. They won’t be as understanding as I was. So it’s crucial that you double check your resume.<br><br>2. **Double check people’s names:** If you’re not sure how to spell the name of someone you used as a reference, make sure to check before you send the resume. Even if the name is common, always double check to see what spelling they use. I had a colleague who got rejected on the interview because she got his first name wrong. It was common but spelled incorrectly though and he felt it showed she wasn’t paying attention.<br><br>3. **Make your resume easy to scan:** Hiring managers often don’t have time to read every word of every resume. They’ll usually read the summary, ignore whoever is in the skills part unless they’ve never seen those skills before, and then scan the experience and honors section. If you have a lot of experiences or honors, break them up by section. I usually do work experience, volunteer work, honors, and references in that order.<br><br>4. **Make sure your email address is professional:** If your email address is something stupid like [email protected], create a new one with your initials or name or something. A professional hiring manager won’t want to see a resume with a stupid email address.<br><br>5. **Have a professional summary:** The professional summary is the first thing they see. It should be a summary of the important stuff on the resume, most of which is in the skills section. The main thing most hiring managers look for is education. If you are in high school or went to high school, don’t put high school in your summary. That is actually offensive because it implies you think they would be impressed with something basic. Senior positions will often list all the jobs the person has held in the summary. It’s okay to list a few jobs in junior resumes but it should be more related to the field you want to work in.<br><br>6. **Don’t lie:** Please don’t lie. This is probably the most important thing on the list. If you get busted lying on your resume, it’s handled the same way as it would be at school. Usually you’ll get fired and a bad reference from that company. If you get busted before you get hired, you’ll never get hired by that company. In my field, lying can get people hurt or even killed. It’s also extremely difficult to get a job in the field after that.<br><br>7. **Don’t be too humble:** If you are in school, don’t say you are a student. Say you’re an intern/student researcher/TA/teaching assistant/etc. This makes it seem like you’re doing something instead of just sitting in a classroom. If you are doing fieldwork, especially in a research setting, don’t say you’re a volunteer. You’re a fieldworker. Again, this makes it seem like you’re doing something important instead of just filing papers. If you’re working a job that you don’t think is impressive, make it sound impressive. I work as a pet groomer on the weekends and on my resume it says I’m an animal groomer. It makes it sound more impressive.