Hiatt Career Center

• Spacing and layout of information should be consistent including: tabs, bolded, italics, bullets, indenting, punctuation, dashes, capitalization and state names (e.g. MA, NY, CA)

• Avoid gimmicks such as pictures, graphics, bright paper or creative fonts

• One professional font throughout, such as Arial, Calibri, Garamond, Helvetica, Times, Verdana in 10 to 12-point font

• Use section headers (e.g. Education, Experience) to break up information and draw the reader’s attention, these should be flush with left margin

• One-page resumes are preferred for most positions and when you plan to bring a resume to a networking event

• Two-page resumes may be accepted for some non-profit, government, education, science, graduate school or fellowship applications

• The second page should be at least half a page of text, with your name and "Page 2" on top of the second page

• Keep it clean, simple, consistent with margins of .5" to 1"

• Any graphic lines (optional) should begin at left margin and end at right margin

• Your name

• Your current address (home or school depending on where you are applying to)

• Include one phone number with a professional voice mail message (don’t forget to check your voicemail)

• Include your Brandeis email, or a professional, appropriate email address -- creative, silly or offensive usernames are strongly discouraged

• You can also include relevant links to professional online content (LinkedIn page, Twitter handle, portfolios)

• School Name, flush with left margin

• City, and state

• Degree earned, abbreviated or written out, flush with left margin

• If you are double majoring only list one bachelor's degree — either a BA or a BS; consult the registrar's office with questions

• Include any declared major(s) or minor(s)

• Date of graduation/attendance aligned on the right

• If degree is incomplete, include "Anticipated" or "Expected" before date of graduation

• Coursework: select only classes that are substantive and relevant to your audience

• GPA: Use only one or two numerals after the decimal point. Do not round up your GPA (e.g. 3.457 becomes 3.45 not 3.46)

• Study abroad programs or previous schools

• Certification/licensure(s) with correct title, number and date completed (or indicate in progress)

• Latin honors (cum laude, etc.)

• Awards and honors

• Thesis/ independent research/significant academic projects

  • Include name of project and short description if necessary
  • Indicate title and if the work is still in progress
  • May include advisor’s name if relevant to audience

• Use headers: "Relevant Experience," "Additional Experience," "Research Experience," "Leadership Experience," "Volunteer" and/or "Activities" as needed

• List experiences in reverse chronological order within each section

• Employer/Organization name, flush with the left margin

• Title/role: under the employer, flush with left margin

• City, state (or employer, city, country if outside of the US), aligned to the right

• Dates (month year – month year) aligned on the right

• Current experiences are listed as "Start Date – Present" (e.g. Aug 2013–Present)

• Use bullets to describe responsibilities, tasks, and accomplishments for each position

• Begin each bullet with a descriptive, action verb and avoid "Duties included" or "Responsible for" and "Worked"

• Use past-tense action verbs for previous experiences and present tense action verbs for current experiences

Consider What you did (an overview of your role), How you did your work (what tasks were you responsible for) and Why (what was the result or outcome of your work). Use numbers to quantify your experience and help the reader understand your role.

• These optional categories help demonstrate additional skills, if they are relevant and related to the positions you are applying for, they may be included in a "Relevant Experience" section

• Use the same format as other experience sections

• No matter where your experience takes place, employers want to see your experience on a resume. 
• Describing virtual work allows you to demonstrate skills including communication, organization, time-management, technology, productivity, and more in a virtual space.
• Be sure to showcase these skills in bullet points to demonstrate the range of your abilities and strengths.

Examples: 

• Built strong relationships with corporate clients through prompt and professional virtual communications, oversaw billing and payment for over 5,000 clients
• Designed reports in Excel for monthly accounting audits to identify revenue sources and ensure accuracy
• Developed and relationships with recruiters, clients, and vendors to better promote the company’s services and talent

Educational Productions Intern May - Jul 20xx 

WGBH Public Television, Boston, MA 

• Supported on-air talent virtually by creating daily news summaries on current events in the Boston market and researching story ideas
• Performed maintenance and xml coding on national scale public television database for educators, www.teachersdomain.org 
• Organized and compiled legal clearances for an online media collection about civil rights 

• Use this section to showcase relevant skills

• Include skills such as Language, Computer, Certifications, Laboratory Techniques

• Avoid generic qualities "good with people," "hard working," or "excellent communication skills” in the skills section, incorporate these skills in the descriptions of your experiences

• Spell out the full month or use standard abbreviations (Sep – Dec 2015)

• Do not use seasons such as fall or summer

• Periods are not required after bullets

• Semicolons can be used to join related items in one bullet, do not use colons in section headers

• Do not use dashes in place of a comma, if you have dashes between dates be sure to use a space before and after the dash

• Use colons to list items (e.g. "Collected items for shelter: batteries, dry food, water, clothing")

• Use colons in formal title such as Bachelor of Arts in Health: Science, Society and Policy

• Use ampersand (&) for industry terms or branded company (e.g. Bain & Company)

• Do not use ampersands as substitute for "and" within titles such as Bachelor of Arts in Health: Science, Society and Policy & Near Eastern and Judaic Studies

• Use ampersands to connect compound titles such as in the example above