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apesoli @TheGoodIntern Any suggestions for resume layouts?
Of course! Having a resume that's up-to-date and ready to go is so important for young professionals, because you never know when an opportunity might arise where you need to give someone a copy of your resume pronto. Not only is the information included on your resume important, but the look and feel of it can say a lot about you as well. As you've probably heard, potential employers only spent a few seconds looking over a resume, so make sure the design of your resume is great in order to capture their attention for a bit longer.
Layout
When working on my own personal resume, I like to look for a template that I like and then change the order of things around and mess with the formatting to make it more suitable for my needs. If you're going to use Microsoft Office, this website is a good place to start. Just a warning that it might take a few tries to find something that you really like or are able to easily change (some templates make it hard to re-format). Look for a layout that is well-organized and easy to read instead of too cluttered or distractingly colorful.
Formatting
One sure-fire way to NOT get your resume read is to use all 12-point Times New Roman font with no special formatting to break up the text... boring! Instead, stick to one font, but use bullet points under each job or internship to list what you accomplished. I also sometimes use bullet points under my student organizations to explain how I was involved or under community service to detail what I did. Just make sure to keep each bullet to one line of text, and use semi-colons to include two topics on one bullet point to avoid lines that are too short and taking up space. This keeps things stream-lined, but adds a little extra to keep it visually appealing.
Font
Mix in bold and italic font to draw the readers eye where you want it to go. For example, on my resume I have in bold my major and minor, my GPA, my job titles, and the headings of each section. I also have the name of my school and the businesses that I worked at in all caps. The result is that my resume looks clean and professional, but still has different elements that keep it interesting.
Length
One of the things I have the most trouble with is keeping my resume to a manageable length. The general rule is to keep your resume to two pages at most, and preferably one, the reason being that recruiters want to be able to scan the resume quickly, get what they need, and move on. Remember that your resume is not supposed to be a comprehensive history of your professional and academic experiences, just a highlight of what parts of your background make you a good fit for the job. Sometimes it helps me to have one resume saved that includes every job, internship, community service project, etc. that I've worked on, and then pick and choose information from that resume to paste into a new one specific to whatever opportunity I'm needing a resume for.
Keep reading for advice on the content of your resume coming soon!
If you would like to ask The Good Intern a question regarding anything dealing with internships, either send a tweet to @TheGoodIntern or fill out the form on the Contact page of this site, and you will receive a response either on the blog or by email.
