Whether you’re applying for jobs or for an internship, the most important thing you send on a job application is your resume—so it’s important to make it clear and concise. As a staffing firm, we know plenty about the hiring process, and can help you create a brilliant resume based on our free sample resume. In every resume, you split your education, work experience, and achievements into subheadings, which vary based on your experience. If you left college over two years ago, you can write more about your work, so there’s no need to go into detail about college clubs. If you’re still a student, or are a more recent grad, writing about your experience in college gives you the ability to mention your skills and demonstrate leadership. Read on to find out more about writing a resume and to use our sample resume.
Sample Resume
Split Your Resume Into Sections
Your resume should be split into a few sections detailing different activities you’ve done. Every resume should include a section on education and work, but other sections changed based on your experience.
EDUCATION
Include your college, and information like your major, any academic scholarships or honors. If you graduated college over a year ago, this should be a short section. If you’re in school and have a high GPA, you should include it. If you aren’t at university or have an average GPA, it isn’t important to include.
WORK
Include jobs you’ve held and a description of key responsibilities. Include positions as research assistants and jobs you’ve had while in college. Write about skills you gained from these jobs. If you don’t have much work experience, change the section heading to ‘WORK & VOLUNTEERING’ to write more in your section. If you have a lot of professional experience, delete jobs you held in high school.
CLUBS
If you’re a recent graduate, or a student looking for an internship, write about clubs you participated in, and skills you acquired. If you finished college over two years ago, it’s probably not helpful to include college clubs on your resume–just add your major, date of graduation, and any major awards, honors and scholarships.
SKILLS
It isn’t always necessary to include a skills section—if you mention skills under jobs, education and interests, you can write about skills you acquired there. If you do include a section on skills, add soft skills such as teamwork and hard skills like technical experience.
Resume Etiquette
- Date everything in reverse chronological order.
- Include your most recent experiences first. Include the month and year for previous jobs and clubs to let recruiters know how long you worked somewhere.
- If you held multiple positions at the same company, mention all the positions you’ve held.
- Keep resumes to a page if you are a college student, or a page and a half if you have substantial professional experience.
- Avoid referring to high school experience.
- Don’t include photos.
Avoid Fancy Formats
Plenty of websites like Canva have downloadable resume templates with fancy formats. But when a recruiter downloads your resume, you want to make sure that the format is clear and can be downloaded easily. Using google docs should make sure that your formatting stays consistent when downloaded, but if you used a fancy format with multiple text boxes, the formatting may change when a recruiter downloads your resume, making it messy and hard to read.
Link to Your LinkedIn Profile or Website
If you have a website that showcases your portfolio, include a link. If not, include a link to your LinkedIn profile. If you don’t have one, that’s ok—it isn’t essential to include one, but setting up a LinkedIn profile may help you find jobs more easily.
Apply for a Job at Barton Associates
Looking to put your new resume to use? Apply for a job with Barton Associates to work at any of our nine locations!
