crafting a resume

Today I’m sharing my second post in the new College Series, here on the blog! If you missed the first post, you can find it here, and all posts in the series will be housed here as they are posted. 

One of the most important things that young people face around their college graduation is creating their resume. It’s natural to get anxious when it comes to creating one since it’s the first impression potential employers will get of you. Also – you probably already know that creating your resume after college is a lot different than creating one after high school, right? If you’ve been feeling anxious and confused at the thought of crafting your resume, here are some tips to help you get started:

You don’t have to share every job This is a no-brainer for some of you, but in case it isn’t: you don’t have to list every single job that you’ve ever worked. By the time you graduate college ( or start applying for jobs prior to graduating ), you’ve probably done a ton of different things. Don’t believe me: did you life guard at your local pool? Babysit the neighbor’s kids? Walk dogs? When you graduated high school you probably listed all of those things, but you don’t need to anymore. Instead, start listing the first few “big girl” jobs you’ve had. You should also include internships as experience. Once you have several jobs in the field you’re going into, you can be even more selective as to what you show.

You don’t have to list high school anymore I never thought about this until my college professors pointed it out, but once you’ve graduated college, your high school experience becomes pretty irrelevant. In fact, on my current resume I don’t have anything about high school listed. Not that I graduated, the clubs I was in, or honor roll related facts. Some people may disagree, but those things are more relevant if they’re about college. Instead of listing the high school stuff, I have my college graduation listed, the honor society I joined, and some of my classroom experiences.

Make it represent YOU When our parents created their resumes, it was okay for them to just put them together in Word, print it out and call it a day. In fact, that’s still what most people do. However, if you’re going into a creative field ( pretty much all of you ), then spruce it up. If you wouldn’t have your website and your business cards be boring, then don’t make your resume be either. In fact, an extra tip would be to make your things match. If you’ve got color on your business cards, it’s safe to pull one or two colors and add them to your resume. My resume features the colors of my brand, which are also seen on my website and my business cards. Don’t go crazy and use wild colors and fonts just for the heck of it, make it intentional.

Extra note: Renee asked on Sunday if I thought it was necessary for freelancers to have a resume. This is something my peers and I talked a lot about when we were working on ours prior to graduation. If I’m being totally honest, my primary thought on that is no. In my year and a half of freelancing, I’ve never had a client ask to see my resume before committing to working with me. However, I don’t think it hurts to keep one current just in case something happens. For example, say you freelance for a few years, but decide it’s just not for you and you want to pursue a career working at firm. Would you want to have to go back and have to update your two to three year old resume just to apply? You would have to, but you wouldn’t necessarily want to.

There’s tons of stuff that you can consider when it comes to your resume, but the main thing is to not stress too terribly much about it. Create it and send it out to speak for itself and for you!

If you’ve got any questions or other advice on resumes for people, share ( or ask ) in the comments!

P.s. If you’re looking to ramp up your resume, but aren’t confident in the design side, I’ve got a resume template for sell here!