Resumes for Students Interested in Business

• Simple is Better: Corporate Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) generally do not read “creative” resumes with icons, tables, or Canva/Word templates well.

• Up-to-Date Development: Your resume should be something that we refer to as a “living document”. It should be regularly maintained and updated as you gain more experiences and skills.

• Use Your Space Wisely: Resumes will ideally be one page. Strategically use the area in your resume to best portray your work and skills. 

• Consistency is Key: While every writing style is unique, you should be consistent with your writing throughout your document; deviating from this could be seen as a lack of attention to detail.

• Verb Tenses: All previous roles presented in past-tense, whereas all current roles are neutral tense (e.g., Manage, not Managing) unless they are one-time only accomplishments. 

• Punctuation Marks: Be consistent with your punctuation marks across your resume (use or do not use). 

• Personal Pronouns: Do not include personal pronoun clauses (e.g., me/my/I), collective clauses (e.g., he, she, they), or possessive clauses (e.g., theirs, his, hers). 

• Brand Spelling: Typically, when using a proper noun for a company, product, or similar term, you want to ensure the same presentation as the company does (e.g., iPad, not Ipad).  

• Contractions: You typically do not want to have contractions on a resume. Contractions are typically standard for informal writing, but have no place in formal writing and can be seen as unprofessional.  

• Margins: We typically recommend that you stay within the 0.5” – 1” range. All margins should be equal.  

• Font Style: Font should be easy to read and professional. Times New Roman, Aptos, and Calibri are common choices – avoid flowing scripts, blocky lettering, or scratchy scripts. 

• Font Size: Your font size should, at a minimum, be at 10pt., and most of your body font should be no larger than 12pt.; ensure that similar areas (body text, section headers, etc.) are consistent with each other. 

• Header and Footers: Do not put anything within the headers or footers – these typically will not be included in resume previews and the ATS may run into errors. 

• Name: Name should typically be between 12pt – 14pt font to stand out. You may use a preferred name rather than a legal name, if need be. 

• Phone Number: You should keep an up-to-date phone number on your resume, typically in “(xxx) xxx-xxxx” or “xxx-xxx-xxxx” formatting. You do not need a country code.

• Email: Ensure that you use the email you check most often on your resume.

• LinkedIn: Employers want to see candidates that have a well-fleshed out LinkedIn page (see here). Include your LinkedIn on your resume, usually styled as “linkedin.com/in/USERID”.  

• Other Links: Depending on what experiences you may have and what you may be applying for, you may have portfolio-based websites or project-based websites that you can leverage.

• Showcase Responsibilities: Even if you are just attending meetings and/or volunteering, represent what you are doing in those points. 

• Be Selective: Unlike your work experience, you may need to be more selective with what you put in your section here – what are you more involved with, and what do you have a “membership in name only” association with? 

• Topical Choices: Conversely, you can still include non-major related things that you are heavily involved with – do not feel like you only need to have organizations that relate to your major and/or career path. 

• Include All Degree-Awarding Institutions: Include any institutions that you have received a degree from, including associate-degrees, previous bachelor’s degrees, and international institutions. 

• Graduation Date: Include your university’s graduation month and year on your resume. You do not need “Expected”, or your start date.  

• High School: Following sophomore year at latest, we recommend that you remove all high school related information and focus more on undergraduate experiences.

• Study Abroad: Study abroad experiences are widely valued by employers – typically you would want to include this as a separate entry and have the start and end date of your time at that institution. Please ensure it doesn’t appear that you gained a degree while on study abroad. 

• Relevant Courses: While not necessary, stick to three to five courses that are either upper-level or unique for your degree plan – most employers are generally familiar with standard degree plans. 

• No Activities: Those go further down the resume, the top one-third is the most frequently viewed by employers. Recruiters focus on Education, honors, experiences first then Leadership and Activities. 

• Condense When Possible: You do not need to list that you are skilled in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Teams, etc.; summarize it to “Microsoft Office Suite”.  

• Include “General” Skills: Despite everyone knowing how to use Microsoft Office, Zoom, etc., these are skills that you can showcase if you do not have a ton of technical skills yet. Microsoft Office in particular is great for matching ATS keywords. 

• Be Concise: Conversely, you typically want to keep your skills bullet point to two lines or less – if you want to include coding languages for technical resumes, use a separate bullet point or condense into the skills point. 

• Personal Interests: Employers want to know you more as a “person” rather than just as a “professional”. When writing your interests section, include a versatility of things you find interesting – don’t just include professional interests. The more specific the better, i.e. Mediterranean cooking, rather than cooking, strikes up a conversation. 

• Start with Strong Action Verbs: Start with an action verb that directly shows impact – do not need to include any “descriptive” bullet points that talk about the experience or company. Avoid repetition of action verbs, as well as “Responsible for”. 

• Quantify When Possible: If you are going to talk about volume or change, it is important to try and associate a number with that achievement – (e.g., Managed projects for team -> Managed six projects…).

• Be Specific: When writing bullet points, you want to showcase your direct impact when possible – rather than saying you “did x”, talk about what went into “x” (e.g., Planned events -> Designed and implemented controls for key events such as…) 

• Do Not Be Verbose: Use concise business writing – three bullet points per experience, two lines max per point. Avoid filler words such as “the”, “a”, etc.

Depending on the industry you are trying to land in, and what your experiences have looked like, you may have additional sections that you can include: 

• Projects 
• Certifications
• Publications