Resume

Your resume is a marketing tool to demonstrate your experiences, skills, and accomplishments. Whether you are a master’s or doctoral student, the key to a resume is explaining within bullet points the skills and impact you demonstrated through work, internships, research, teaching, and volunteering. Use bullets to describe what you did, specifically how you did this—add numbers to give scale—and the results that demonstrate the value of your efforts. Closely read the job descriptions you are interested in and tailor each resume toward every position.

You can meet with a career advisor for a resume review. We also have Vmock, which is a great virtual resume feedback program available to all current students.

Resume Formatting

Get started on your resume by following our checklist. In every section, put information in reverse chronology (most recent first).

Header:

• Name
• City
• State
• Phone number
• Email address
• LinkedIn URL

Tip: In addition to a LinkedIn URL, you can put a link to your GitHub, ResearchGate, portfolio or other content if it relates to your career and the job to which you’re applying.

Objective Statement or Summary:

An objective is a clear and concise statement of the resume’s goal — e.g., “Obtain UX research internship for spring or summer.” You may instead use a Summary section, which is a three-to-four phrase statement that provides a professional snapshot of your unique skillset and background. You can also write an excellent resume that doesn’t neither have an objective nor summary statement.

Education:

• Full school name(s)
• City and state (or country) where school is located
• Month and year of graduation date (expected or actual)
• Degree earned
• Overall GPA

Experience:

• Employer’s full name
• City and state (or country) employer is located
• Position title
• Time period job was held in Month, Year – Month, Year format (or “- present” if still in progress)
• 2-5 bullet points describing your duties
• Divide experience into several different categories if needed (relevant experience, project experience etc)

Research or Projects:

Research and projects can be highlighted in their own section. Treat them like the entries in an Experience section. Instead of an employer name, include the name of the lab or institution in which you completed the research or course you completed the project. Include position title for research or that you were a student participant in a class. Include a concise name of the research or project and add bullets to describe what you did.

Skills:

List objective or technical skills, such as technology, research, statistics, methodologies, foreign languages, etc. Do not include soft skills such as leadership creativity or organization — these instead should be demonstrated through your bullet points.

Leadership:

Leadership entries would have the same format as those in the Experience section. Include organization, school name, position title/s and bullets to describe what you did for the organization. Add numbers to give a sense of scale and share how you contributed to the organization.

Additional Sections:

• Activities/Service/ Outreach
• Professional Affiliations
• Selected Publications/Conference Presentations
• Honors and Awards

VMock Online Resume Tool

Work Authorization

If you are an international student, you should also include in your resume the type of work authorization you have and how many months you are eligible to work. Add this on the bottom of your resume.

Know the difference between CPT, OPT, OPT extensions, and H-1B visas.

• Students on F-1 visas that are applying for internship positions should write: “Eligible to intern in the U.S. with CPT”
• Students on F-1 visas that are applying for full-time positions that are in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, or Math) fields should write: “Eligible to work in the U.S. without sponsorship for 36 months with OPT”
• Students on F-1 visas that are applying for full time positions in non-STEM fields should write: “Eligible to work in the U.S. without sponsorship for 12 months with OPT”

If you are an international student that does not fall into these three categories, contact International Student Services to figure out what type of work authorization you can receive.

For more information on the different types of work authorization in the United States, visit the International Students’ Services website.