College Guide in Creating a Resume that Stands Out

“You need a good resume.” We often hear it from career mentors and other professionals. That’s absolutely true as it is your first gate pass into that dream job. The thing is, we’ve seen a lot of people doing it the wrong way. And that is why we would like to share with you several tips on how to create a CV.  

Start as Early as Possible

More often than not, a lot of college students start drafting their CVs too late. In fact, they don’t do it until they have officially graduated from the university. But that’s not a good practice. 

If you wish to fill your resume with the best achievements, you have to start doing it the soonest possible time. You don’t have to make it perfect for now. But instead, include all the conferences you’ve joined, organizations you are affiliated with, and research papers that received commendations. That way, you won’t miss anything worth adding to your resume. Trust us, you will never know when these things will come in handy. 

Add Relevant Job Experiences 

Apart from your education or academic history, including your relevant job experiences will give your resume so much weight. It could be your asset. You can add your internship, part-time gigs, or even the so-called ‘odd jobs’ like babysitting, housesitting, and the likes. With these, employers will realize that you are already exposed to work. If you volunteered or organized an event, you can include those as well. 

Tailor-Fit Your Resume Based on the Job Role 

This is where most college students got it all wrong. They are used to sending the same resumes to all employers. But if you want to get a specific role, then you have to make sure that your CV is tailor-fit for the position. 

Let’s just say that you have different relevant job experiences. You don’t have to include it all when submitting the actual resume. Instead, choose the ones that can be linked to the role. You have to edit your CV, depending on what the company needs. 

If you will go back to our first tip, we asked you to list down everything that is resume-worthy. By the time you are about to finish school, we bet it will be at least five pages long. That’s good because it only means you’ve maximized your college life. But that doesn’t mean that your employer will be interested to know all of those. Again, you only have to choose what is necessary and related to the industry.  

Use Templates Only as a Guide 

Fortunately, the internet has a lot of free resume templates available. That way, you do not have to start from scratch. But that doesn’t mean you should use it as it is. Make it a guide but give yours a personal touch. 

This is another mistake that most college students do. Since they don’t customize the CV and they use the same template, including the font and even the wordings, their resume does not stand out. Most likely, other applicants use the same as well.  

Add Numerical Data 

Employers want tangible results. And if you have relevant experiences wherein you can share actual numerical figures and data, add those. An example would be, ‘organized an event with 98% success rate’. Of course, only the data that are proven. You cannot just make these things up to give your CV that good good. Chances are, they will still ask more questions about this, so you have to be prepared.  

Proofread Your Resume 

We’ve asked a lot of hiring managers and employers what’s the one thing that they dislike about resumes. Most of them said that seeing a CV with multiple grammatical errors can be a huge turnoff. It’s a sign of poor written communication skills, and it reflects that the applicant does not have an eye for details.

Always double check your resume. You can even run it in Grammarly to catch common mistakes.  

Ask a Professional to Read It

And lastly, have a professional review your resume. If you have a mentor, feel free to share it with them. Write down their notes and amend your CV as necessary. Most likely, they’ve seen hundreds of resumes, and they could already identify points for improvement as they see yours.