At the top of your resume, begin with your contact information, this should include your full name, permanent address, school address, telephone numbers and email address.  Make sure all contact information is current.

New graduates and entry-level candidates may include an objective statement; however this space should not be wasted with a sentence that is too general or broad.  Good objective statements should describe for employers the position and industry you are targeting.  You can include skills relevant to the position.  Focus on the skills you offer, not what you hope to gain from the position.  Avoid using an objective that does not clearly define your focus.
Good objective statement:
A position in the field of marketing, utilizing economic understanding, leadership, interpersonal communication and presentation skills.
Bad objective statement:
To find a position that allows me to use my skills and education in a real world environment.

This section includes any information about your degrees, where and when you will be graduating; dates, major, minor, concentration, certification are all appropriate for this section.  Degrees should be listed in reverse chronological order beginning with the most recent.  GPA is optional and your choice to include it or not should be determined by requirements of the field you have chosen or individual employer requirements. The rule of thumb is not to include a GPA that is below a 3.0.  If you studied abroad for a semester or longer, include the name of the school, its location and the dates you were there.  Optionally, you may include courses you studied or the focus/concentration of your program.  Honors, awards, courses or activities may each have a subsection in this area of a heading of their own and separate sections depending on how relevant the information or activities are to your job focus.

Juniors and seniors should not include high school information on their resumes unless you received a significant award, your high school activities are extremely relevant to your career objective, or if you are networking with an alumnus/a from your high school.

This section may include a variety of activities.  It is not limited to paid employment experiences:

• Paid or unpaid internships and work study positions
• Part-time or full-time employment
• Independent study
• Co-curricular activities (Greek organizations, professional societies, clubs, SGA, etc.)

The structure of the experience section depends on the type of position you are seeking.  Use this section to highlight the opportunities that you’ve participated in that demonstrate leadership, initiative, or competence in an area.  Be factual in your descriptions but include information that enhances the job description. You do not need to list every position that you have ever had. Most importantly, include information most relevant to your potential employer and try to group that information together when possible.

For each position include:
Name of the organization, your job title, location of the organization (city and state) and dates employed.  Using month & year, Jan. 2004-May 2004 can be more effective than “Spring 2004” since employers do not think in terms of semesters. Analyze each experience in terms of your responsibilities and outcomes.  Describe your skills and accomplishments, such as contributions to the organization, and how your work helped to increase profit, funding, motivation, efficiency, and productivity. Attempt to quantify your accomplishments by using number, dollar amounts, and percentages.  This helps the reader to evaluate the scope of your duties.  Stress your achievements. Consider what problems you have faced and what solutions you found. Begin each description using action verbs and incorporate present tense verbs to describe current positions and past tense verbs for previous positions.

Co-curricular activities, such as professional associations, Greek organizations, athletics, SGA, student organizations, honor societies, and community volunteer activities can be listed separately from your experience section. Identify leadership roles that you held in these organizations and dates of involvement. If you have too many too list choose activities that have the strongest connection to the type of job you seek.

If you have received any awards or presented your work in a public forum, this is a great place to list those achievements. Campus events such as the Liberal Arts and Sciences Symposium or Science-Palooza would be a perfect fit for this section.

Any work that has been published in any capacity can be listed in this section. Don’t forget to include any of your original work that has appeared in the Stormy Petrel newspaper, The Tower literary magazine, the Oglethorpe blog, and your personal blog if you contribute to it regularly current.

This component of your resume is optional and may be used to detail your computer skills (Microsoft Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, etc.) and language skills (Spanish language proficiency).  Unique travel or learning experiences may be included here.

Place your references on a separate page.  Generally, employers ask for three references.  Use faculty, staff, and employers as references, not personal acquaintances.  Include the name, title, company name, address, email and phone number for each reference.  Leave off the phrase, “References available upon request.”

Information to Omit

Do not include personal information such as photographs, graphics, or images, social security number (unless applying for a U.S. government position), date of birth, height, weight, health or marital status.