Career toolkit: Crafting an effective resume

Hi, and welcome to Career Advising and Professional Development’s Career Toolkit series. In this video, I’ll be sharing valuable tips and resources to help you create or enhance an effective resume. Whether you’re applying for research opportunities, internships, full-time positions, or other professional roles, this session is designed to guide you through the process. Let’s dive into the CAPD resources available to you and then get started on making your resume stand out.

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If you’d like to schedule an individualized appointment, navigate to Handshake at mit.joinhandshake.com. Once you log in on the left hand side, click on the Career Center. From there, click on Appointments. Schedule a new appointment. And you will have options for you to select the type of appointment that best matches what you want to talk about.

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In this presentation, I’ll cover the essentials of resumes– what they are, what employers look for, and how to make a strong impression. We’ll discuss formatting best practices, key sections to include, and tips for crafting effective bullet points. I’ll also provide advice on tailoring your resume and offer additional resources to enhance your resume building process.

A resumes’ primary role is to offer a clear summary of your education and experience. It’s crucial to refine your resume since it’s often the first impression of a hiring manager which will influence whether they’ll consider you for an interview or share your resume within their network. Recruiters typically spend just six to ten seconds reviewing a resume. So it’s critical that yours quickly and clearly presents the most relevant information.

As a career advisor, I often get asked about the difference between a Curriculum Vitae, a CV, and a resume. While they share similarities, they serve different purposes. A CV is used for academic research or faculty positions and provides a comprehensive overview of your education, research, publications, and other achievements.

CVs can be quite lengthy and have no strict page limit, often including extensive publication lists and references. In contrast, a resume is a focused summary of your most relevant experiences, typically limited to one or two pages. Resumes are common for industry roles and require careful selection of content due to the space constraints.

References are usually not included in resumes but may be requested separately. This presentation will focus on resumes. For more information on CVs, please visit capd.mit.edu/resources/cvs.

While going into the process of writing or updating your resume, it can be helpful to put yourself in the mindset of those who will be reading it. This will often be a recruiter, hiring manager, or a committee who is working to fill a job opportunity. Throughout this presentation, I may refer to them as your reader or your audience.

To set the stage, your audience likely is receiving hundreds, in some cases, thousands, of applications. This is not the only task they have on their plates and may be doing this on top of other projects. Their goal is to find the best person to hire and figure out who will be the best at effectively contributing and working well with their existing team. This process is time-consuming. So picking effectively and efficiently and hiring the right person is important to them.

What that means for you is you want to make it easy for them to select you as a potential fit for their needs. To do that, you’ll want an easy to read resume that showcases the most relevant information to them. If you’re unsure of what that might be, the job description will give you some clues. And your industry may have some standards that you can learn about from speaking with others in your field of interest.

Different industries may prioritize different attributes. But common themes often emerge. The National Association of Colleges and Employers conducts an annual survey to identify key qualities that employers seek while reviewing resumes. While the specific rankings may shift slightly, the core skills remain consistent from year to year when they do the survey. Employers value a range of abilities, including problem solving, analytical skills, and interpersonal skills. They look for candidates who are hardworking, flexible, take initiative, and possess relevant technical skills.

To align with what employers seek, it’s important to highlight experiences that showcase a mix of skills. Start by inventorying your interpersonal skills. Where have you collaborated or perhaps mentored others? Do you have teamwork experiences or leadership experiences?

Next, you can think about where you have conceptual skills that you can emphasize, such as problem solving or strategic thinking or design skills. Finally, you can think about the technical skills. Include relevant technical skills specific to your industry wherever possible, like knowledge of particular software or systems.

As a career advisor, there are concerns that I see frequently. Sometimes, people feel that they don’t have enough experience on their resume. You may be just starting at MIT and have experiences from high school. And you can absolutely keep those on your resume.

Or perhaps you are switching from a different industry and you don’t have as much experience in your new field of interest yet. In either case, focus on sharing the most relevant skills and what you did accomplish out of those things that you have done.

You can often highlight skills that will transfer over to being helpful in this new setting. Or you can look for some more of those blended skills that employers are seeking. You additionally may have experiences that were volunteer-based or personal projects that do highlight relevant skills. It doesn’t matter that they weren’t paid. You can still include those.

On the other side of things, if you have industry experience already, multiple degrees or in a postdoc, you may feel hard pressed to fit everything on just one or two pages. In this case, I recommend that you keep a comprehensive version of your resume for your records. Then create a new targeted version for specific roles, where you can tailor it down to one or two pages of really concentrated information that is most relevant to your audience. Tailor it by emphasizing the most relevant information by removing less relevant details or duplicative tasks, tasks that aren’t highly relevant or condensing descriptions to fit the page limit. You can prioritize what will be most impactful for your audience that way.

Here are some general do’s and don’ts to keep in mind. Do keep it concise. And aim for one page or two pages maximum if you have substantial relevant information.

Use readable fonts. Choose a clear font and size. Don’t shrink the font to fit more content. You may be tempted to do this and shrink your font size to fit more in. But if a recruiter can’t easily read your font, they may just skip reading it entirely or miss important information.

And do set appropriate margins. And leave some white space on your document too. You want to keep margins at least 0.5 inches, ideally 0.75 inches perhaps for a little bit more comfort for reading.

Some don’ts or things to avoid. I would avoid putting hours worked. It is much more effective to describe your skills and outcomes instead of how long you were physically present somewhere. Typically, skip one time events. Include a one-time event only if it’s extremely relevant.

Don’t use first person when using your descriptions. Use action verbs instead of “I” or “we”– for example, “Managed a team of three”, instead of writing, “I managed a team of three.” And then skip responsibilities included. You want to start directly with the action verb or skill, which will help a recruiter capture your skills more quickly when skimming.

When formatting your resume, our team usually recommends that reversed chronological order is used. That means within each category or section on your resume, the experiences will be listed with the most recent experience first based on the end date. For example, within education, if you were earning your degree right now at MIT, MIT would come first in the education section. And then any previous degrees would be listed beneath.

For work experiences, if you’re still currently an employee or, for instance, currently a leader in a club, then your end date will be listed as present. You’ll be able to see more examples of formats and what this looks like in our career development handbook.

Here is one example of an entire resume so that you can get a sense of some of the categories or sections you can have. Each individual may have some differences in how they set theirs up. But you’ll always start with your contact information at the top of the document.

Typically, your education section will come next. Following that, the bulk of your document is likely to be dedicated to your experiences. You’ll have some flexibility in how you may want to label your experiences here.

For some, they may have themes to their experiences and want to capitalize on that. For example, if you’ve had many research and internship experiences in robotics and are applying to full-time robotics jobs, you may want your experience category to say, robotics experience.

More commonly, though, we will see a relevant experience category, where you can bring all of the most relevant experiences that your reader would find important toward the top of your document. And then they’ll be seeing those first. Other experiences that are not as relevant could then go into a subsequent additional experience category. There are many ways to frame and position your categories. And if this is something you want to talk through, you’re more than welcome to meet with a career advisor to talk about potential strategies for you.

There are also optional categories you can consider adding. Common ones I see are awards, projects (such as robust projects for classes or relevant personal projects), activities or leadership skills. Skills is actually a great category to include as it can be tailored to show employers your relevant technical skills, like foreign languages, computer languages. If you’re a mechanical engineer, you could highlight your machining skills, et cetera.

Now let’s dive into the education section of your resume. This part of your resume should clearly highlight your academic background and accomplishments. Here’s what to include for each entry that you have under education. You’ll want the institution name and location.

For schools in the US, include the city and state. For international institutions, you can include the city and country. You’ll want to include the degree information as well. So specify the degree you’ve earned or are earning– for instance, bachelor of science, a master’s of art, a PhD, and your major. If you’re still pursuing a degree, note your expected graduation date and your status, such as candidate for bachelor of science in computer science.

For dates, include the date you completed your degree or your expected graduation date. And it’s not necessary to list the start and end dates of your studies. Just the end date or anticipated end date is sufficient.

There are also some optional categories. If you choose to include your GPA, mention the scale it’s based on– for example, 4.0 or 5.0. For instance, if you studied at MIT, where the GPA scale is 5.0, make sure to specify this so the employers understand the context.

Relevant coursework is also another optional category. You can list up to five or six relevant courses that pertain to the job you’re applying for. But keep it concise, ideally two lines to avoid cluttering up your resume. And your resume should be highlighting the most relevant and impressive aspects of your education. If more detailed information is needed, the employer can always request a transcript.

Here are a couple of examples to illustrate how you might format your education section. The first one is with one degree. And the second one gives an example if you have multiple degrees.

Next, let’s focus on the experience section of your resume. This is where you’ll likely spend the most space and effort. Here’s how to structure each entry effectively.

You’ll want the organizational name that you were at, the location. Again, you can do city, state or city, country for international experiences. You’ll want to position title and the dates. And you will include the date range here. You can use the month and year for format at the start and then a month and year for the end date or through present.

And then for each entry that you do this setup for, you’ll include bullet point descriptions, which will describe your responsibilities and achievements. And those, you’ll want to focus on what you accomplished and the skills you developed. And you’ll want to use strong action verbs and quantify results whenever possible.

Remember, the experience section can include a wide range of activities– paid jobs, full time or part time, unpaid work, such as volunteering or community service, especially if it’s relevant and showcases transferable skills, both paid and unpaid internships, freelance projects, or personal projects. If it’s experience that gives you relevant skills, you can definitely put it on your resume. And below is an example of how to format an entry in the experience section.

When writing the descriptions for your experience and activities, you have the opportunity to highlight your skills and demonstrate how you made a valuable impact. This is where accomplishment statements, sometimes referred to as PAR statements, come into play.

PAR stands for Project, Action, and Result. By including these elements in your bullet points, you create a more compelling and well-rounded statement. Here’s a breakdown of the PAR approach.

For project, briefly describe the task or project you were involved in. Action– explain the specific actions you took using strong action verbs to convey your role. And result– highlighting the outcome or impact of your actions, so quantifying those results where possible to show the effectiveness of your contributions.

Alternatively, you can use a simple formula to structure your bullet points. Start with an action verb, choosing a verb that reflects the skill you applied– for example, lead, designed, analyzed. Include the subject. Briefly state what you did.

And then include the end result. Describe the positive outcome or impact of your actions. For example, consider this bullet point– collaborated on a team of four to create a robot that could autonomously vacuum a room in under 10 minutes.

To create compelling bullet points for your resume, start with some brainstorming. And here’s a step by step approach you can use as an activity to help you craft effective statements on your own. Begin by listing strong action verbs that capture your skills and accomplishments. Think about both technical and interpersonal skills you’ve used. And then choose verbs that are clearly going to convey your role and impact.

Next, identify relevant tasks. Consider the specific tasks you performed in each role. What were your main responsibilities? Focus on those that are most relevant to the position you’re applying for whenever possible.

Then you’ll want to highlight outcomes and accomplishments. Here, reflect on the results of your work. What did you achieve? If possible, include those quantitative aspects or data to illustrate the impact of those contributions, as numbers can significantly enhance the strength of your statements.

So below, we have examples of how a statement might evolve through this brainstorming process. A basic statement might be, led a team design a new product. A more detailed statement would be, led a team of five to design a new phone, focusing on reducing production costs.

And then an even more powerful statement that will be more effective is, led a team of five to design a new phone, achieving a 20% reduction in production costs compared to previous models. Including a quantitative result makes your accomplishments more concrete and compelling. But don’t worry if you don’t have exact numbers. Focus clearly on describing your role and the positive outcomes of your work.

So many of our MIT students and postdocs have research experiences. So let’s discuss how to effectively describe your research on your resume. Research often involves complex tasks. But the key is to make your achievements understandable to a broader audience, especially those who might not have your same technical background.

Here are a few ways you can approach this. Focus on simplifying your language, especially in your descriptions. How would you explain your research to somebody outside your field?

Your resume may be reviewed by human resources managers or professionals from diverse backgrounds. So avoiding overly technical jargon can be very useful. Use clear, accessible language that highlights the skills and accomplishments relevant to the role you’re applying for.

Focus on transferable skills wherever possible. Many skills gained from research are applicable not only to other research opportunities but also other industry roles. Break down your research tasks into smaller, digestible components. This not only makes your achievements clearer. But it will help in demonstrating a range of skills.

And then highlight the outcomes and impact of your work. Even if your research is ongoing or hasn’t yet reached a final outcome, you can focus on the value and potential impact of your work. Describe what you’ve accomplished so far and what the intended results are.

Here’s an example of a resume description that might be able to give a little bit of a broader scope of skills. Analyzed 10,000 data points and created visualizations using Tableau to present findings and recommendations to research or project sponsors. This description provides clear details about technical skills, such as data analysis and Tableau and the ability to communicate findings effectively.

It’s also very useful to think about what is the intended outcome or result of the research that you’re doing, as research and the overall outcome can take a long time. Instead, you can convey the value of what you’re doing by sharing this intended outcome of your work within the description. For example, develop new methods in collaboration with MGH researchers to explore improved cancer treatments using cell therapies. This showcases progress and the potential impact of your research.

Lastly, here are some common action verbs to help articulate your research experiences effectively. These action verbs can help you demonstrate the ways in which your skill set can reach a broader audience and highlight transferable skills.

To make your resume as effective as possible, tailor it to the job description you’re targeting. And here’s how to identify what’s most relevant to your reader and ensure your resume stands out. Analyze the description. Look closely at that job description for clues on what the employer values.

Notice that they’re also using action verbs and key terms. These often include important skills and qualities the employer is prioritizing. So if you’re looking for action verbs, you might find things like communicate, collaborate, or optimize are frequently appearing in the job descriptions or repeated within the job description. That is likely reflecting a critical skill for the role. So make sure your resume includes those terms if they align with your experience.

You can also try to match job-specific terminology that you’re seeing within the job description. Pay attention to the industry terminology that is being used across job descriptions. And then incorporate these terms if you have the relevant experience to show that you’re familiar with the industry’s language and requirements.

Finally, you can get some clues based on the location of the job description bullet points. They are going to see that the placement of the bullet points in the job description is reflecting the importance. So the most important things are at the top. And the responsibilities go down from there. So the key areas for you to emphasize are going to be at the top of the job description.

For example, if the job description emphasizes collaborating with cross-disciplinary teams, and you have experience in that area, ensure you highlight this in your resume. Or if optimization is a recurring term, include examples of how you’ve optimized processes or systems in your previous roles. Then by aligning your resume with the job description using relevant action verbs and incorporating job-specific terminology, you really enhance your chances of making a strong impression and catching the employer’s eye.

Let’s talk about Applicant Tracking Systems or ATS and how they impact your job application process. Many, many companies, including many of the Fortune 500 companies, are using ATS to manage the high volume of applications they receive.

So the purpose of ATS software for employers is to help them filter and manage these large numbers and volume that they’re getting. And it does so by looking for specific keywords and criteria. They’re using this to streamline the process before a human recruiter reviews your application. There are formatting tips that can help you and your resume navigate ATS.

Avoiding complex formatting can really help because ATS may struggle with reading tables, columns, graphics, and images. It’s best to stick to a simple and straightforward format without these elements to ensure your resume is readable. Use standard bullet points, like traditional round bullet points, such as the ones in this slide, rather than unusual symbols or characters. Non-standard bullet points can confuse ATS and cause important information to be overlooked.

Wherever possible, choose an ATS-friendly template. So opting for resume templates that are designed to be ATS compatible, these are often basic or text-focused templates, which work best. Check the slides at the end of this presentation, as we have a few links to templates that you can consider.

Incorporate keywords throughout your document. So part of doing the keyword research and identifying those key terms in the previous slides will help you do this. Incorporating those keywords naturally into your resume will improve your chances of passing the ATS filters and being a better match and getting passed along to a hiring manager.

So tailor your resume. Customize your resume for different roles or industries by emphasizing those relevant skills and keywords that align with each job or industry. So after making changes to match those, review your document again to ensure it’s still effectively communicating your skills and experiences.

And if you’re applying to various industries, slightly adjust the language and focus of your resume to better match each sector’s requirement or some of that tailored language that they’re using. Doing these things can enhance the likelihood that your resume is going to successfully navigate that ATS process and reach a human recruiter, which is what you want. And that should help ensure that your thoughtful content that you’ve spent so long crafting is being seen and evaluated by a real person.

So employers are using softwares. But you can also use generative AI to help you as well. And they can be incredibly useful for enhancing your resume if you’re using them practically.

Here’s how you can leverage them effectively along with some important considerations. When you are using generative AI for resume development, you can use it for strengthening your bullet points. Especially if you’re struggling to make your bullet points more impactful, you can use AI tools to get suggestions.

For instance, you might input a prompt like, how can I turn this statement into a stronger bullet point? The AI could then provide examples or rephrasing tips for you. You could ask it for tailoring advice of your resume for a specific industry.

You could ask, how can I adapt this statement to better fit x industry? This would help you align your resume with the industry expectations and terminology, making it a little more tailored. And you could also get more industry trend insight from generative AI. You could inquire about key skills or trends in your target industry to better align your resume with the current demands. For example, what are the top skills required for x role in x industry?

There are considerations to keep in mind when using this generative AI as a resource. Up to date information is not always the best. So be aware that AI models may not have the latest industry trends or updates, as their knowledge can be outdated. Some of them, such as ChatGPT 3.5, had a knowledge base cut-off, a date cut-off. And it didn’t know any information after a certain date. So always cross-check information with current sources.

AI can also make mistakes. So you do want to review any suggestions critically to ensure that they accurately reflect your experience and are appropriate for your resume. I’d also avoid sharing personal or sensitive information, such as your address or details that might be covered by a non-disclosure agreement or security clearances.

And then remember, you are your own expert. AI does not know your unique experiences as well as you do. So you do want to make sure that any modifications or suggestions align with your true experiences to maintain the authenticity of what you’ve done in your resume.

So in summary, a generative AI can be a valuable tool for refining and tailoring your resume. You can use it to enhance your bullet points and adapt your resume for specific industries. But I would always review the output critically to protect your information.

So in summary, I hope that this session has provided you with a clearer understanding of how to craft an effective resume. Whether you’re applying for an internship, an undergraduate research opportunity, or full time job. Here are some of the main points to remember.

Use a clean and easy format to read that highlights your skills and experience. And ensure the content is accessible and clearly demonstrates the value that you bring. You have the freedom to organize and present your information in a way that best suits your background and the role you’re targeting. Focus on what is most relevant to your audience.

Employers often look for a well-rounded candidate. Make sure your resume includes both technical and interpersonal qualities to present a comprehensive picture of your abilities. Detail and impact matter in your bullet point descriptions. So spend some time refining those bullet point descriptions to clearly articulate your achievements and contributions. Those strong bullet points can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your resume, especially if ATS is looking for keywords.

And then remember, you don’t have to do this all alone. You can get some help from CAPD. And there are other resources available to help you with your resume development as well. But by applying these overall strategies, you’ll likely improve your resume and help it to stand out effectively in communicating your qualifications to potential employers.

Here are a few additional resources available to help with your resume development. We have a resume checklist available on our website. This checklist helps ensure you’re meeting formatting and content recommendations for each section of your resume.

And the CAPD handbook has not only the checklist but contains comprehensive information on resume writing, including adapted samples from MIT students, postdocs, and alumni. We do have some resume templates, one- and two-page templates. We have those at different levels of experience. So two-page templates are especially useful for PhD students and postdocs with more extensive experience. Handshake is a great resource for looking for jobs but also for booking those one-on-one sessions with a career advisor or peer career advisor. And postdocs have access to a specialized career advisor through this platform as well.

And finally, I’d like to point out another resource from our colleagues across campus. The MIT Communication Labs are fantastic. So explore their website for additional resume resources or to schedule appointments for their personalized assistance on your document too. We encourage you to utilize these resources to further refine your resume if you’d like to. But if you have any questions or need additional support, remember that we’re here to help.