5 great resume tips for college students

A week before your finals, your professor talks to you about an amazing internship opportunity that you need to submit a resume for right now. You start panicking because you know you don’t have enough experience to put on a resume or the skills to make your resume look impressive. Whether you are writing a resume from scratch or updating your resume for a job search, the Resume Mansion team has some great resume advice for you to write the perfect recent college grad resume.

1. First, get the resume format right

The chronological resume, the functional resume, and the combinational resume are three types of resume formats out there. Out of these, the combinational resume works the best for college students and recent graduates.

The chronological resume

If you have not had any traditional work experience, the best move for your resume would be to avoid the chronological resume format. This kind of resume puts the focus on a detailed career history.

The functional resume

The functional resume seems ideal for college students, but don’t do the mistake of using a functional resume format. Employers and ATSs alike have trouble reading and understanding functional resumes.

The combinational resume

The hybrid resume format combines the qualities of both chronological and functional resume formats and is the best choice for college students. It will allow you to demonstrate both your marketable skills and work experience.

2. Forget the one-page resume rule

The one-page resume rule is one of the resume myths you must discard straight away. As long as the information you include on your resume is concise and relevant, you can go up to two pages for your college resume. The extra resume space would give you the opportunity to emphasize the impact you created with your volunteer jobs and give you the floor to talk about the academic achievements you’ve earned.

3. Summarize your qualifications for the reader

Resumes no longer feature a resume objective at the very beginning. Today, hiring managers prefer when you lead your resume with a qualifications summary. One of the best resume tips we can share with you is to create a killer resume summary. Not sure how to? Read this article to learn all about writing the perfect resume headline.

4. Place the education section wisely

As a recent graduate or college student, you are less likely to have a strong career summary for your resume. Hence, you must lead with your biggest strengths. At this point, your education is the biggest asset for your resume. Write an excellent education section for your resume and place it immediately beneath the resume summary section. Here’s what your education section must include:

• name of the college or university
• city and state
• degree program
• major or concentration
• anticipated degree date

Mention other additional details to enrich the education section of your resume. These include:

• relevant coursework
• team projects
• internships
• extracurricular activities
• field experience
• volunteer roles

Have a lot of academic awards you want to display on your resume? This article explains how you can impressively showcase your awards on a resume.

5. Be smart about the way you describe jobs on your resume

You may not have done any job related to the job description in the past. But if explained right, even those unrelated jobs can add value to your resume. Here’s what you must do:

• Don’t describe daily job duties of unrelated jobs
• Describe the achievements that emphasize leadership, teamwork, drive, and determination
• Give priority to accomplishments that portray transferrable skills
• Show how you trained and mentored juniors on your resume
• Strategically move related jobs higher up on the page even if they are not recent