Resume Checklist

A Good Resume Will:

Content:

• Represent and highlight your relevant experience

• Include your complete local and permanent contact information: name, address, phone number and email

• List education appropriately---degree, university, expected graduation date, GPA, minor

• Include relevant work history and involvement

• Spell out everything including words in your address, the names of states, type of degree, etc.

• Include related professional information, like honors, awards, volunteer and internship experiences

• Use bullet points that start with action verbs to highlight skills and work experiences

• Expand and quantify your bullet points to give a better scope of your skills---no two-word statements!

• List references’ contact information on a separate page, using the same heading you used for your resume

Format/Design:

• Make formatting consistent---use of bullets, spacing, font effects, word tenses, and indentations should be easy to read

• Prioritize everything listed---either list experiences in reverse chronological order (most recent first), or list the most important experiences first

• Have correct spelling and grammar

• Be one full page, no partial pages

• Keep font and color professional

A Weak Resume

Content

• Includes inappropriate personal information like hobbies, photos, age, personal interests

• Includes abbreviations

• Includes personal pronouns (I, me, you, etc.)

• Includes outdated and/or not applicable information

• Includes casual writing or slang terms

• Has grammatical or spelling errors

Format/Design

• Has overwhelmingly fancy fonts or colors

• Is based on a resume template, which is unoriginal

• Has excessive white space that makes the resume lok sparse

• Has partial pages---one full page should be sufficient for an undergraduate

• References are listed on your resume---they should be on a separate page