Gordon Career Center’s Guide to Creating and Developing your Resume

• A resume is a one-page document that highlights your education and professional accomplishments and qualifications that are relevant to your desired internship/job/experience.
• Employers ask for resumes to get a summarized overview of your experience to determine whether you are qualified for the position and whether they are interested in interviewing you.
• A resume does not need to list everything you have ever done but rather highlight the experiences most relevant to the internship/job/experience you are applying for.
• Your resume is dynamic; you will edit your resume and add/remove categories, experiences etc. and/or change the order of categories, as you submit it for different purposes.

There are many ways to start the resume writing process. One way is to write everything you have done over the last five years from education, study abroad, jobs, activities, publications, honors/awards. Write full descriptions of your work/activities and do not worry about order, at first. After writing everything down, then, if you already have an ideal internship/job in mind, look at the description for that position. What are the qualifications the employer is seeking? Does your resume highlight what they are looking for? With that position in mind, keep the most relevant items on your resume and edit the descriptions to include key buzz words the employer is looking for. Reference our sample resumes and templates and meet with a member of our team to help develop, organize, and format your content.

• Tailor Content: Customize your resume for each application by aligning your skills and experiences with the job description.
• Clear Formatting: Use a clean and organize format with consistent fonts, bullet points, and headings.
• Contact Information: Include your full name, phone number, Wesleyan.edu email address, and LinkedIn profile (if appropriate).
• Education: List Wesleyan University, Bachelor of Arts, the month and year you expect to graduate, and any relevant academic achievements.
• Relevant Experience: Include internships, campus and part-time jobs, volunteering, research, athletics, or campus involvements that relate to the position.
• Action Verbs: Start bullet points with strong action verbs to describe your responsibilities and accomplishments.
• Quantify Achievements: Use numbers to highlight achievements and specific results (e.g. “Increased event attendance by 30%)
• Skills: Highlight relevant technical skills, language proficiencies, and certifications that align with the job requirements.
• Keywords: Use industry-specific keywords and action verbs to make your resume stand out to applicant tracking systems (ATS).
• Proofread: Thoroughly check for spelling, grammar, and formatting errors before submitting.

• Irrelevant Information: Avoid including experiences or skills that aren’t applicable to the position you’re seeking.
• Personal Details: Omit personal information like age and photos to maintain professionalism
• Generic Descriptions: Steer clear of vague statements like “responsible for various tasks.” Provide specifics about contributions and impact.
• Over-styling: Steer clear of complex designs, colors, or fonts, or graphics that could distract from the content. Use bold and italics sparingly for emphasis.
• Too Lengthy: Keep your resume concise and to one, single-sided page.
• Misleading Information: Avoid embellishing or exaggerating your achievements or responsibilities.
• Unprofessional Email: Use your Wesleyan.edu or a professional email address (e.g., firstname.lastname@email.com)
• References Available: It’s unnecessary to state that references are available; save space for more valuable content.
• Neglecting Proofreading: Failing to proofread can lead to errors that reflect poorly on your attention to detail.
• Inconsistent Tense: Use past tense for past experiences and present tense for current roles
• Ignoring ATS: Don’t disregard applicant tracking systems (ATS); use relevant keywords to increase visibility.

Page margins should be between no smaller than 0.5 inches and no larger than 1.5 inches all-around.

• Keep your resume to one page, single-sided.
• Use clear, readable font (size 10 or larger) in black.
• Maintain at least 0.5-point margins on all sides of the page.
• Organize content into different sections such as, “Experience,” “Relevant Experience,” “Leadership,” “Activities,” etc.
• Start with the “Education” section right after the header.
• Maintain consistent formatting including punctuation, dates, fonts, and headers.

A well-designed resume has a balance of content and white space. Too much white space might indicate that you haven’t flushed out your content enough. However, an overcrowded resume can be difficult to read, and your accomplishments might become lost. A balance of white space helps the employer to easily find the most important information on your resume and is more appealing to read than a resume that is crammed with information. Try adding space between each section, and potentially between each position on your resume. You can change the font size of the blank lines on your resume to create whitespace without sacrificing too much of the page. For example, add a space between each section by hitting return or enter, put your cursor on the blank line, and then change the font size to point 5. Make sure your spacing is consistent throughout (i.e., the same size between each section/position).

Your font choice sets the tone of your resume and can even be a subtle way to convey information about your style and personality to an employer. Choose a typeface that is clear and easy to read. While Times New Roman, Arial, and Helvetica are classic standbys, experiment with some of the suggested fonts below to change the look and feel of your document. Garamond is a smaller typeface that’s great to turn to if you’re short on space, while Verdana is a larger font that’s easy to read and an especially good option when you’re looking to fill the page.

A few tips:

• Be sure to choose a typeface that is standard across operating systems
• Maintain a consistent font throughout your resume. Two fonts maximum, one is generally preferred.
• Text should be black; avoid using color
• Body text should be no smaller than point 10

Suggested Fonts:

There are a number of ways to create emphasis on a resume by using bold, italics, underlining, and CAPITALIZATION. However, it’s best to use emphasis selectively and not all at once. Overusing emphasis styles will make your resume hard to read and limit its effectiveness. It’s best to avoid using underlining in a resume as underlining can make text difficult to read. Be sure to keep your use of emphasis consistent throughout—if you capitalize one section header, capitalize all of your section headers. Good items to use emphasis for include your name, section headers, position titles, and organizations. Look through the resume templates to see examples of proper uses of emphasis.

The header of your resume tells the employer who you are and how to contact you and should include at least your phone number and email address. The font size of your name should be bold and larger than the rest of the text on your resume.

You may choose to add your LinkedIn profile link. Did you know that you can customize your Linkedin URL? We recommend choosing something short and professional such as www.linkedin.com/last_first to be used on your resume.

Examples:

Organize your content by grouping similar experiences and activities together. The first (top) section of your resume should always be “Education.” Other section titles to consider include: “Experience,” “Leadership Experience,” “Related Experience,” “Honors and Awards,” “Activities,” “Research,” “Volunteer Work,” and “Skills and Interests.”

Consider using a larger font size and emphasis to make your section headers stand out. You may choose to type the section title in all capital letters or divide the sections of your resume using lines. Rather than drawing a line with the shape tool, use the auto- format feature.

Microsoft Word:

• Place your cursor where you want the line to appear
• Type the three characters noted below for the line style you want to insert
• Press enter and the line will appear across the page.

Google Docs:

Note that Google Docs only has a single, thin option for lines.

• Place your cursor where you want the line to appear
• Click ‘Insert’ menu
• Select ‘Horizontal line’ from the drop-down

Arrange your education institutions in reverse chronological order with the most recent experience at the top of the section. For currently enrolled undergraduate students, “Wesleyan University” will be the first entry at the start of the section. If your high school or other former institution holds networking value, you can include it in this section. See the examples in the drop down below.

Required information in the education section include:

1st Line:

2nd Line:

Examples

There are several ways of listing your experiences. In some cases, you may only need an employment section which can be titled in a few ways such as ‘Experience’, ‘Related Experience’, or ‘Work Experience’.  

You may also choose to break out certain facets of your experience to highlight those that are pertinent to the job you are applying for.  These other facets may include but are not limited to ‘Additional Experience’, ‘Volunteer Experience’, ‘Related Experience’, or ‘Leadership Experience’. 

Experiences should be ordered in reverse chronological order by section. Place the most recent experience at the top of the section.  Date format should be consistent. Dates being aligned at the right-hand side margin is a common style. If you choose or need to abbreviate months, do so throughout the entire resume. 

A-P-R Formula Examples

Common Resume Experiences 

These are sample ways to describe common experiences that Wesleyan students tend to include in their resumes. Do NOT copy these bullets directly. 

Teaching or Tutoring

Retail or Service Jobs

On-Campus Jobs

Research

Athletics or Coaching

TA or CA Positions

Volunteer Experience

You have the option to omit one or both of these sections if you choose. However, if space permits, this section provides an excellent opportunity to share your hard skills, hobbies, and diverse range of interests with potential employers.  When including language skills, indicate your level of proficiency accurately. It’s important to provide an accurate assessment of your abilities without overestimating.  

• Keep your resume to one page, single-sided. 
• Use clear, readable font (size 10 or larger) in black.  
• Maintain at least 0.5-point margins on all sides of the page.  
• Organize content into different sections such as, “Experience,” “Relevant Experience,” “Leadership,” “Activities,” etc. 
• Start with the “Education” section right after the header.  
• Maintain consistent formatting including punctuation, dates, fonts, and headers.  

• Eliminate typos, spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors.  
• Header includes name, phone number, and Wesleyan.edu email address; Consider adding address, LinkedIn URL, or link to a professional site or portfolio. 
• “Education” section includes: 
  • Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT 
  • Your expected graduation date (e.g., May 2025) 
  • Bachelor of Arts 
  • Optional: Add major, minor, certificates (declared) GPA (overall /4.00, optional major GPA /4.00), relevant coursework, study abroad, honors and awards, senior thesis, etc.  
• Describe every experience with accomplishments/skills relevant to the position/industry you are pursuing. Demonstrate measurable contributions and impact. Use bullet points for readability.  
• Start each bullet with an actin verb; use present tense of ongoing past tense for completed roles.  
• “Skills” section includes hard skills only – technical (computer), language, and certifications. Soft skills should be demonstrated in experience descriptions.  
• Avoid personal pronouns such as “I,” “my,” or “we.” 
• Don’t include an “objective” or “summary” section. 
• Don’t list references or use “Available Upon Request”; employers will ask if needed.