Back To Basics: The Resume—Tips To Make A Great First Impression

For both prospective college students, current college students and college alumnus,  there is a valuable resource often overlooked: Your University Career Service Office. The purpose of this office is to help its students navigate all aspects of the career development process providing up to date information on everything from resumes to the professional use of social media. The first step of the career development process, as emphasized in the Fordham Career Service Webpage is creating a Resume.

If you have ever been looking for a job, I’m sure you have asked yourself:  “What can I do to make my resume stand out and get an employer to seriously consider me for a job”?   If you Googled the term “resume”, you know that there’s a dizzying array of information and advice out there about what works best in putting something together that most effectively represents you.  How do you make sense of it all?

If you want your resume to have a good chance of being read by prospective employers, you must invest time and energy not only in its content, but also in its look. Whether you're creating your resume for the first time or in the process of revising it, keep the following tips that I learned during my time spent in the Fordham University Career Service office, on their website, and through their online services--that I now passing on to you to assure your resume is getting read:

1. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Particularly at the beginning of your career, it’s really hard to start your resume with a blank sheet of paper. So don’t. Check out examples at your university career center and borrow the best ideas for formatting, headings, wording and more. The Fordham Career Service Website offers easy to follow templates, and Resume Samples to help begin the process.