Sarah E. H. Lyons

In the previous post, I waxed poetic about résumés to highlight unique contributions instead of tasks, but in the job search thrash, your responsibility matters little if you cannot quantify the value you bring.

Part 1 tackled the purpose of the résumé and considerations for contact information, objective statements, and work experience. This post, Part 2, addresses education, skills, publications and miscellany, and parting thoughts.

Recall: Résumés provide employers a brief glance at your professional history, skills, education, and achievements. I recommend keeping the document to two pages as lengthier résumés are less likely to be read. Also, your ability to condense your work history demonstrates your knack for extracting the content that matters most.

I’ve attached a bare-bones résumé template that you may find helpful. Use it. Develop it. Make it work for you.

Components:

• Contact information (covered in Part 1)
• Objective statement (optional; covered in Part 1)
• Relevant work experience (covered in Part 1)
• Education
• Skills (optional)
• Publications and other miscellany (optional)
• Editing

Education

There are two situations where Education can arguably be placed ahead of Professional Experience: The first is you have no notable experience and are using your education as your credentials. The second is you graduated from an ivy league university and want to use your education as the hook. Beyond these situations, I would place Education after Experience since the latter should matter more.

For education, you will want to list your degrees and the conferring institution, ideally by most recent to earliest. Include the location since some colleges have satellite institutions across the globe. Also, if you are concerned that your graduation year could be used against you, leave it off.

Your education section could be as simple as the above, but if you were academically gifted or involved on campus (or grounds for my Wahoos), use what space you have to elaborate on the elements that can help you stand out. For instance, if your GPA was 3.5 or above, include that information. And you can toss in additional flair with the cum laude verbiage where appropriate. The following is a typical structure, but I recommend checking with your institution since scales can vary:

• 3.5–3:69: cum laude
• 3.7–3.89: magna cum laude
• 3.9–4.0: summa cum laude

Your focus or thesis can also be of value, particularly if it aligns with your desired role. For instance, for my current full-time position, I included my graduate work in disaster rhetoric, and while it may not have been the deciding factor, it certainly didn’t detract from my chances of getting hired. Thus, concentrations, theses, dissertations, special projects—the world is your sustainably farmed oyster!

Finally, include pertinent campus (grounds) activities that also align with your role. Consider memberships, leadership positions, honor societies, or other relevant activities.¹ 

And if you don’t have any fancy accouterments, that’s okay. Your professional experience should speak to your current capabilities, which are more valuable than what you did while in school.² 

Skills (optional)

Depending on space, you can choose to include or forgo this section altogether; however, I find that it’s underutilized, considering the unique qualities we can bring to a role.

This section is flexible and fluid to your needs, and there isn’t a right or wrong way to use it. I personally think of my skills in four bins that contain the following elements:

• Certifications: Include any official courses you’ve completed (e.g., Certificate in Editing, University of Chicago)
• Technical skills: List abilities or knowledge you possess for performing practical tasks (e.g., R coding, quantitative analysis)
• Languages: Identify the languages you can speak or understand and your level of fluency (e.g., French [basic])
• General: Capture other skills you feel are valuable but do not fall into a unique category (e.g., strong written communication)

For any skill listed, you can identify your degree of competency; however, I would also encourage you to show your capabilities where able under Professional Experience. (It is incredibly easy to list “Teamwork” or “Critical Thinking” under skills, but expressing how you have employed these competencies in your past roles speaks greater volumes.) 

Publications and Other Miscellany (optional)

Your average résumé will not likely need space to list publications, memberships, or other activities, but for the sake of the fringe groups—and for thoroughness—I cover these components in brief.

Publications and Lectures

Like professional experience, I recommend tailoring any publications or lectures to content relevant to the role and listing those items using whichever style you prefer (consistency is key).

The following are major styles and the disciplines they are typically associated with³:

• AMA: Medicine, health, and life sciences
• APA: Social sciences
• Chicago/Turabian: Business, history, and the fine arts (sometimes literature)
• MLA: Language, literature, and culture studies

I would avoid using automated citation generators if possible and check the style blogs for advice. (Purdue OWL—Online Writing Lab—is a resource I consistently use).

Awards and Honors

Some people add awards and honors to their résumés—which you can include if you believe this detail will help. If you choose to do so, include the honor, awarding agency, and date it was delivered for consideration.

Memberships

Like awards and honors, include pertinent memberships and highlight your date of membership and any positions held. 

(References?)

You should have references available to provide to potential employers upon request; however, don’t list them on your résumé. Save that space to highlight your achievements.

Editing

Once you have your content collected, please—please focus on aesthetics. Your résumé is not only a demonstration of your experience but a signal of your attention to detail. For instance, do you change fonts without purpose? Is your font size inconsistent? (Is your font size too small—below 10pt)? Is your spacing consistent? Do you overuse “Led”? Did you spellcheck?

To reduce the mental strain, I recommend checking the following before hitting send:

• Read aloud. This approach seems childish, but it is the single greatest way of uncovering errors since your brain has a knack for mentally correcting mistakes. Again, aloud. It will be worth it.
• Have a friend read your résumé. Another set of eyes will help you identify any lingering issues and if any of your statements are difficult to interpret. Take this person’s advice to heart. You don’t have to incorporate it, but you should consider it.
• Spell and grammar check. MS Word comes standard with this tool. Please, by God, use this (or something else).
• Check for font size, type, spacing, and punctuation consistency. While I won’t tell you double spaces after periods are wrong, single spaces are recommended by most style guides. Speaking of periods, if you use a period at the end of a fragment, do it for all fragments.⁴ 
• Identify any repetitive action words in your Professional Experience section. (If you must start two lines with the same verb, put some distance between them if possible.)

And there you have it: a brief guide to drafting résumés (remember to check Part 1 if you haven’t). I won’t say this advice is all-inclusive or the standard, but it follows years of reviewing résumés and reports—and the greatest divider between good and great is the ability to quantify your success.

Good luck and Godspeed, traveler.

* * *

1. I wouldn’t include that I played with the local symphony on a job application for threat analysis, but I may include my leadership or service roles.
2. There are people that are stellar performers in academics that lack sense in the real world. And your past does not dictate the person you are. You have freedom and agency, dear traveler.
3. But again, choose what works best for you; I usually use APA. (And yes, it’s fine to end sentences with prepositions. The rule was initially stolen from Latin and forced upon English in a feeble attempt to create an English Academy, but that ultimately failed. And most style guides think it’s a bogus rule too.)
4. I would love to write a post about creating your own style guide to elaborate more on consistency.