If you’re a college senior, it can be intimidating to send your resume out–especially in this job market. However, with a little research and some thoughtful proofreading, you can create a strong resume to send out. Here are seven resume tips for graduating seniors, updated for 2024.
1. Choose your template carefully
If you’ve Googled “resume templates,” you’ve probably found about a million examples. It’s difficult to know which one to choose, and it can be frustrating to sit down and look through them all.
This is where some research comes in handy. Before you do anything, make sure to search for your specific field. For example, do you work in computer science? Google “resume templates for computer science.” This will narrow it down, and you can parse through what has worked for others. Remember my general rule of thumb, which I mention below: keep it clean and simple. Don’t go crazy with the colors or the formatting. This article from Indeed also offers great tips regarding choosing a resume template.
Alternatively, you can ask your major advisor in office hours if they have any examples of student resumes they can share. You don’t need to re-invent the wheel! Another helpful resume tip for graduating seniors is to utilize your other campus resources. Does your college have a career center or career counselor? Visit them! See what resume templates they have to offer and ask if they can review your resume. Remember that you’re not alone in your career journey.
2. If you don’t have much work experience, include your school leadership activities
It can be hard to create a resume when you don’t have a ton of work experience. Before you sit down to write your resume, brainstorm everything that you have done over the last four or so years. Have you had a part (or full) time job? What about internships, volunteering, research, and fellowships? As I mention in my article about creating a starter resume, it is critical to put anything that will show your potential employers what you can bring to the company. This includes soft skills and experience.
And perhaps more relevant to you, this includes school leadership activities. Are you the president of a club? Part of student government? A mentor student or school ambassador? Have you TA’d at all? Maybe you’ve done a leadership certificate, volunteered at an event for your school, or won any awards? Use that in your resume! Don’t sell yourself short. This article also has some great advice about what to include if you don’t have much experience.
3. Include specific action verbs
When you write the description for each position, you want it to stand out. While you must obviously remain truthful, you want to use powerful words to emphasize what you have done. Most recruiters see the same dull words over and over again: led, participated, taught, served. To make your resume stronger, you want to spice it up with some more powerful, action-packed synonyms. This article has a great list of alternate words for commonly used verbs on resumes.
Like the other resume tips for graduating seniors in this article, you’ll notice that this might take a little extra time. However, it will pay off. When you go to apply for your next position (after breaking that entry-level barrier), your resume will already be in great shape.
4. Tweak your resume for each position
As I mention in this article about cover letters, it is critical to tweak your resume and cover letter for each position. No position is exactly the same, and you want your resume to stand out amongst the others. To do so, you want to fit your experience as closely as possible to the job description. Use what they are looking for to help you succeed!
One of my best resume tips for college graduates is to put in the extra ten minutes to stand out. There will be hundreds of other applicants who use the same resume for each position. From what I have observed, hiring committees usually can tell when you haven’t spent the time to personalize your resume. It might be tedious, but it is worth it in the long run.
5. Consider ATS and how that will read your resume
This is one of the less fun resume tips for graduating seniors. Most resumes go through ATS, or Applicant Tracking Systems. This basically scans through your resume and helps companies to narrow down the resumes without having to manually review each one. Although ATS has been around for decades, it has changed over the years, and it’s good to read the latest information. This article and this article have great tips about how to optimize your resume to get through ATS in 2024. Especially if you’re applying to a big company, don’t expect your resume to go into human hands on the first round!
6. When in doubt, stick to the basics
The first of my resume tips for graduating seniors was that it is critical to select an appropriate template. However, it also pays to look at the format of the resume and the final product. Ask yourself:
- How are you using white space?
- Are there too many words crowded onto the page?
- Can you rearrange your format or use bullets?
- Are the font and size legible?
- Are you using colors or special features?
Through all of this, consider your reader and research what is standard for your field. If you aren’t sure, stick to black and white. Most of the time, the simpler and cleaner, the better. You want your potential employer to see you as professional and put together. This is a great way to show it.
Extra hint: make sure that your formatting looks good when you send it! Before you upload or email your resume, always re-download it and check that nothing got messed up in the formatting.
7. Focus on accomplishments, awards, and achievements
Your resume is not the time to play your accomplishments down. You should absolutely be honest. I.e., if you took two Spanish classes in high school, don’t say that you’re fluent. However, if you have accomplishments and achievements that could set you apart, highlight them!
Some resume templates (and LinkedIn!) have an entire section for achievements. Ask yourself: did you receive any academic accolades, scholarships, honors, or research recognition? Add those to your achievements section or your academic section–wherever it fits better. Similarly, have you won any recognition at work? Maybe you were promoted to a leadership position, won a service award, or were employee of the month.
As this article mentions, this is one of the best resume tips for graduating seniors because it allows you to shine on paper. It also provides great advice on how to include specific accomplishments, as well as some examples to inspire you.
A Final Word
Very few people find resume writing fun. Especially when you just want to focus on finishing your college experience, it can be difficult to find the motivation to fine tune your resume. However, using these resume tips for graduating seniors and the resources provided, you will be off to a great start!