Resumes

What have you done? What is your story?

Resumes are a fun topic. Everyone and we do mean everyone will have an opinion on this. Your family members, your neighbours, your friends, your classmates, senior students, and the geese walking across the road. As a first-year student, you might find it tough to come up with points that will make yourself stand out to employers. But we were all in your position once before, and we’ve come up with the following points to give yourself an edge over other junior students. Waterloo's Centre for Career Action can also help you if you have never prepared a professional resume before, or if you need help explaining what you did in high school or extracurricular activities. No matter how much you like your resume, if it's not pulling in interview offers, something is off. Don't wait too long - get help!

The basics

    Italian Trulli

    The purpose of the resume is to get the interview. Never forget this. Never. Ever.

    For 99% of junior 1A/1B students before you have your first co-op job - a one page resume is all that is warranted. Not two pages. However, there are some individuals who do indeed have a lot of valuable information to share and a longer resume is warranted. Make sure whatever information you share is VALUABLE to the reader.

    Be wary of using colour or fancy formatting (like two columns) - make it easy and fast to read - they are not hiring you for your fancy word processing skills.

    Do not allow typos or goofs in the resume. Be consistent. Be neat and tidy.

    Do not use meaningless adjectives and keep claims to a reasonable level - you might be an expert compared to another 18 year old, but that does not mean you are an expert when an employer sees the word.

    There are different resume ‘styles’ and content for first year students vs intermediate vs the senior students considering options after graduation.

The content

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