5 Resume tips for college students & young professionals
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Now, let's go over 5 resume tips curated for students and young professionals.
#1 Use a resume objective instead of a resume summary
Although these terms are often used interchangeably, a resume objective is not the same as a resume summary!
● Resume summary highlights your past experience, skills, and achievements to show why you're a great fit for the job. It’s ideal for seasoned professionals.
● Resume objective highlights your future career goals and your enthusiasm for the job in question. It’s a great choice for students and first-time job seekers.
Naturally, then, our advice is to go with a resume objective and show the employer why this internship is the perfect next step for you.
#2 Tailor the resume to each job you apply for
Applying to 5 different jobs? You'll need 5 different resumes.
But it's not actually as bad as it sounds. The key lies with keywords.
Here's what you need to do:
1. Review each individual job description and scan it for keywords that pop up often. These can really be anything–computer skills (Adobe, Figma), a certification (CPE), or education level (Master's degree).
2. Sprinkle these keywords throughout the resume. Sections like Work experience, Skills, or even the Objective provide plenty of opportunities to include keywords.
Doing so will make you appear as the perfect candidate and give you a head start before candidates who don't invest that time and energy into tailoring their CVs.
#3 Make use of your education section
Don't just include your school, degree, and graduation date. Go a step further and consider including also:
● Relevant coursework
● GPA (3.5 or higher)
● Awards (Dean’s list, subject-based awards)
● Thesis (if relevant for the role)
● Scholarships
● Relevant student societies (especially if you were in the committee and played an active role)
● Studying abroad
● Internships
Also, if you're still a student (or a recent graduate), place your education section above your work experience. Especially if you have a degree from a prestigious university like Harvard.
#4 Use action verbs & quantify your achievements
Let's have a look at an example of action-oriented vs. non-action-oriented phrases:
● Non-action phrase: I have been a part of the employee performance evaluation process.
● Action-oriented phrase: Evaluated employee performance using available data.
Action verbs are shorter, clearer, and bring a level of confidence to your resume. These are verbs like: designed, engineered, generated, implemented, launched, led, reduced, wrote, etc.
Also, quantify your achievements. The recruiters adore seeing numbers in your resume!
It allows them to better assess your abilities; and it adds more credibility to your words at the same time.
For example, you could say something like this:
● Reduced project turnaround time by 30%.
● Led a team of 12 sales professionals.
#5 Get feedback on your resume with Resume Checker
Finally, you shouldn't underestimate getting your resume reviewed. This could be as simple as forcing your friends to proofread your CV, to catch any typos or other imperfections.
Alternatively, you can use Kickresume's Resume Checker which scans your resume for issues and compares it against other resumes in our database.
You'll also get a detailed resume review report and personalized tips on how to improve your CV.
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