Additional sections help showcase other accomplishments and skills you have beyond your relevant work experiences.
Leadership and Activities
Graduate students sometimes tend to ignore the leadership and activities sections, but these sections are a great opportunity to mention your communication and leadership skills, especially if you have not demonstrated soft skills through your work experience. If you have held a leadership position in an organization, title this section as “Leadership.” If you were only a member in organizations, title this section as “Activities.” Format your leadership section similarly to your experience section. Use at least 1-2 bullet points to demonstrate your leadership skills.
This is an example of a leadership and activities section in a graduate student’s resume:
Alternatively, you could simply list your organizations, school, and positions if you are hard-pressed for space and have already displayed soft skills through other experiences.
Professional Affiliations/Professional Memberships
List your memberships in professional organizations in the professional affiliations or professional memberships section.
Here is an example of a professional affiliation section:
Note: You can also list professional affiliations under the activities/leadership section if appropriate.
Research Experience
If you are applying to a research-related position, a research experience is necessary to communicate your work as a graduate student or researcher.
The research experience section is where you can expand upon the research you have done and show employers your expertise in the field. When writing your research experience section, add the institution name, city, state or country, time period, and position. Under each of your positions, include a description of your responsibilities in bullet points using the C.A.R technique mentioned in the experience section. Detail work such as your master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation.