Résume 101

Ah, my little résume, how you confuse me so. You either bring me heaps of paychecks, or just heaps of rejection. I hate you.

By CC Staff

During college, we all must put on our serious face, and begin working on our “real” résumes that will hopefully lead us into the scary, professional world. Not those stupid résume templates they made us fill out during high school, where the only jobs we could list were babysitting, JV Cheerleading, and serving frozen yogurt at T.C.B.Y (for three weeks before getting fired for not “taking the job seriously”). Well…that was what mine looked like, anyway.

The dreaded résume is inevitable, and there are definitely rules to follow if you want to create one that is kick-ass, as opposed to one that gets shuffled in with the masses, never to be seen again. There are tons of sites out there that will tell you what you SHOULD do with your résume.

MSN.com has a helpful article about what NOT to do on your résume. Such as, don’t type out your résume on stupid, girly, pink paper that smells like flowers and is covered in glitter. It may have worked for Reese in the unrealistic Legally Blonde, but it won’t work for you. Don’t let your résume go over one page, even if you have worked thirty jobs – condense everything to one or two bullet points if you have to, and make the text smaller. And, make sure everything on your résume specifically applies to the job you’re applying for. Hiring managers can sniff out generic résumes like it’s their job. Oh wait….it is.

If you want to graduate and have a shot at a real position, working on your résume should feel like you’re taking yet another class, as tiring as it may be at the end of a semester. I say, spend a few hours at Borders, get some coffee, eat a muffin, break out the note pads, and really study those résume and cover letter books until you have a firm grasp on the do’s and do not’s. Atleast at Borders, you can take breaks and wander into the erotica section. Can’t do that in Statistics!

Or can you….hmmm….

Happy résume-writing and job hunting!