My 5 favorite resume tips

By: Isabella Antignani

Everyone has their own style and opinions when it comes to resumes, but there are some things that hold true across the board for everyone. I’m here to give you all the tips and tricks for making your resume look professional and put together – no matter what year you are! 

As a senior I am taking a course to help with professionalism and to help give guidance during my semester internship; one of our classes was dedicated to a resume and cover letter workshop that I think was filled with great tips. Resumes are always changing and I learned some tips that I didn’t even know! Here are the top five tips that I think everyone should know:

1. 1. Quantify in every section that you can. This is a really big one – employers like to see numbers on resumes because it gives them an idea of exactly how much you did. It also demonstrates that you are detailed. For example, if you were a social media intern and you were responsible for putting out at least ten tweets a day, you would write under that job description: “Responsible for curating ten tweets a day to maintain engagement and our presence on timelines.” Another helpful hint when quantifying: any number below ten is written out, anything above it, is not. For example: “I was tasked with reaching out to five influencers each day” OR “I was tasked with reaching out to 20 influencers each day.” 
   2. Structure your jobs/activities in reverse chronological order by end date. This was a new tip for me, but makes a ton of sense when you’re working on the layout. If you have three job experiences, you would list them so that your most recent job experience is first, then proceeds down in the order of jobs preceding your current role. 
   3. Put your UD email on your resume. Your University of Delaware email lets employers know that you’re still a current student, which could make you stand out for certain intern positions. This is especially true for seniors; it’s good for employers to know that you’re graduating soon and looking for full time employment (companies like to hire people who are just entering the working world)!
   4. Soft skills have no place on a resume. Resumes get looked at for roughly 5-10 seconds before their decision is made, and they don’t want to spend time reading about skills that every human can possess. This is the section to show off any experience you have with photoshop or editing tools! Another helpful tip for the skills section is to take examples from your involvement on campus and put down skills you acquired through that!
   5. Employers don’t spend long looking over resumes. Like I mentioned in the previous tip, there isn’t much time spent looking over a resume before an employer has decided to move on. Therefore, it is vital that your resume is one page. Having trouble keeping it to one page? Try adjusting your margins to ½ inch and making the spaces between sections 6pt fonts.