You did it! After years of hard work, you’ve finally earned your college degree. It’s time to start applying for jobs and kickstart your career. As a recent grad looking to land your first professional role, having an impressive resume is crucial for getting noticed by hiring managers.
The job market is competitive, but you can stand out from other applicants by crafting a resume highlighting your skills, experiences, and potential. Follow these tips to create a resume that will help you get hired fast after graduation:
Choose The Right Resume Format
With limited professional experience, the reverse chronological resume format is best for recent grads. List your education at the top, followed by relevant internships, activities, and skills. Draw attention to noteworthy projects or leadership roles you held in college. List your work history next, even if it was a part-time campus job or waitressing gig. Include the company name, position title, employment dates, and brief description of your responsibilities.
The reverse chronological format emphasizes education and shows progression over time. It lets you showcase academic accomplishments first rather than starting with unrelated jobs. This focuses the reader on your qualifications right away.
Focus On Achievements, Not Just Tasks
Hiring managers want to know what you achieved in past roles, not just your tasks. Under each experience on your resume, highlight quantifiable accomplishments demonstrating valuable skills. For example:
– Increased social media engagement by 15% over six months as Marketing Intern at ABC Company.
– Trained four new volunteer tutors, improving learning outcomes for 12 students.
– Won the “Outstanding Student Employee of the Year” award for excellent customer service.
Quantifying your achievements with numbers or results helps the hiring manager understand the scope of what you delivered in each role. It also proves you have the skills to achieve similar success in a professional setting after graduation.
Tailor Your Resume With Keywords
To get your resume noticed in applicant tracking systems, including relevant keywords for each role you apply for is essential. Study the job description to identify critical hard and soft skills the employer is seeking. Work these keywords into your resume bullets wherever possible. This signals you have the required abilities for the role. Just don’t overdo it – natural language still matters.
You can tailor your Core Competencies or Skills section for each job description. List 6-8 standout skills, like Excel, Account Management, Research, Communication, etc., that align with the position requirements. This section should be customized to match the employer’s needs each time you apply.
Leverage Numbers, Data, Facts
Hiring managers want to see evidence of your achievements and competencies. Wherever possible, use numbers, data, and facts to provide tangible examples:
– I generated 10+ story ideas per week during my journalism internship, and 13 were greenlit for publication.
– Assisted with designing and programming a psychology research app that was downloaded 2000+ times.
– Created social media content 3x per week, averaging 40 new followers monthly.
Including statistics and metrics gives factual evidence of how you added value in previous roles. This substantiates the qualifications summarized in bullet points.
Verbs, Verbs, Verbs
The bullet points describing your responsibilities under each job should start with strong action verbs. This immediately tells the reader what you accomplished. Examples: “Created…” “Launched…” “Managed…” “Led…” “Spearheaded…”. Mix up your verb choice so you don’t repeat the same ones. Responsibilities starting with dull verbs like “Helped with” or “Worked on” are vague and forgettable.
Present Your Education Highlights
As a new grad, provide details on your degree, major/minor, graduation date, academic achievements, study abroad programs, and coursework relevant to the job. You can include your GPA if it was 3.0 or higher. List any scholarships, honors, or special recognitions received. If you held leadership positions in academic clubs, highlight measurable results.
Optional Sections
Recent graduates have a few options for optional resume sections to round out their lack of long-term professional experience. These include:
– Skills – List 6-8 hard and soft skills relevant to your target job. Include computer programs, foreign languages, lab techniques, certifications, and interpersonal abilities.
– Activities – Mention on-campus clubs, sports teams, Greek life, and leadership roles that show engagement.
– Volunteering – Unpaid roles, community service programs, and causes you support demonstrate well-roundedness.
– Projects – Class assignments, capstone projects, and student organization initiatives that illustrate relevant skills.
– Associations – Memberships in honor societies, professional groups, or alum associations look good.
Choose section headers suited to each job area, like “Computer Skills” for tech roles. Only include information directly relevant to the position.
Style And Design Matter
Resume aesthetics make a difference. Use a legible standard font like Arial, Garamond, Calibri, or Times New Roman in 11 or 12-point size. Add visual interest with bullet points, bold headers, and proper white space between sections. Be consistent with date formatting and section order. Proofread meticulously to cut typos.
Keep it to one page if possible, but using a second page is acceptable if you have enough relevant content. Number the pages and ensure your name and contact info appear on both. Save and send as a PDF to maintain formatting. A polished, professional-looking resume design demonstrates attention to detail and seriousness as a candidate.
Showcase Soft Skills
While degrees and technical abilities are essential, employers value soft skills like leadership, communication, teamwork, and problem-solving. Use your bullet points to demonstrate these sought-after competencies:
– Resolved customer complaints regarding inaccuracies in billing statements, resulting in a 20% higher customer satisfaction rate. (Problem Solving)
– Led team of 8 student journalists to deliver campus newspaper on tight weekly deadlines. (Leadership)
– Built relationships with 5+ corporate sponsors to fund $10k+ for university STEM conference. (Relationship Building)
Don’t just list soft skills in your skills section – back them up with examples showing how you’ve used them. These behaviors indicate you will thrive in the workplace culture.
Highlight Relevant Coursework
If you are light on direct internship experience, draw attention to relevant courses that prepared you for the target job. Don’t just provide a general list. Tailor it with examples:
Relevant Coursework:
– Social Media Marketing (Developed digital marketing campaigns using Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter)
– Business Analytics (Performed data analysis using Excel and Tableau to inform decision-making)
– Investments (Analyzed financial statements and stock performance to generate investment ideas and recommendations)
This provides critical context on how your academics developed the skills the employer seeks. It’s beneficial when changing careers or industries after graduation.
Leverage Campus Resources
Your college career center can provide resume templates, bullet point examples, design tips, and lists of action verbs to help build an impressive resume. Attend resume review workshops or schedule an appointment for a career advisor to critique your draft. Many colleges also offer Handshake, connecting students to jobs and internships. Check for campus resources that give you a competitive edge on the job hunt.
Showcase Accomplishments From All Experiences
Be sure to build your resume before you expand yourself to just paid jobs. Also, highlight achievements, leadership, and skills gained from campus activities, class projects, athletics, volunteering, and internships. Recognize the value you brought to any previous roles, even if they weren’t traditional 9-to-5 jobs. Analyze each experience for transferable skills applicable to your target field. If you need more professional credentials, dig deep to put your achievements on display.
Conclusion
Distinguishing your recent grad resume from the pack takes skillful positioning, compelling achievements, and intelligent design. Emphasize education details, tailor bullet points to the job description, quantify accomplishments, and use numbers to back up claims. Showcase both technical abilities and soft skills gained through academics and experiences. With a polished resume that checks all the boxes, you can catch a hiring manager’s eye and score interviews for exciting roles that launch your career post-graduation.
