Your college resume helps you progress through college and into your career, so it’s no wonder why your college resume sections matter so much! Your college resume is vital for your career development!
You might not know exactly what sections to include on your college resume, though. Maybe you don’t have a lot of employment experience yet, or perhaps you aren’t involved in clubs and activities on campus, so you feel your resume is lacking.
The bright side of being a college student is that you gain tons of experience that you can use on your resume just by being a student!
Curious about why your resume is so important? Check out this blog post to find out why it matters so much!
So, how do you decide on your college resume sections? Read more to find out!
Contact Information
The first section on any resume is contact information. Your contact information should stand out because you must show the person reading your resume how they can contact you.
So your name may be a larger font, bold, and centered with your contact information under it. The contact information to include should be your email address (not a school email), phone number, and physical address.
Your contact information should look something like this:
Abby Violet
Email Address – Phone Number – Home Address
Education
The following section to include on your resume is education. Education is an essential section for any college student to have on their resume, because… well, for obvious reasons. You’re a college student, and employers should be able to quickly identify that!
List your current university and major and your graduation year. If your GPA is over 3.5, you can include it as well, but don’t include your GPA if it is under 3.5.
In your education section, you can also include any honor societies you are a part of or academic honors you have received. This might be listing the semesters you made dean’s list or describing the honor society you are a part of.
But don’t worry if your GPA isn’t above 3.5, you haven’t made the dean’s list, and you aren’t a part of any honor societies! You can still add your education section and include your major and graduation year. Maybe your major GPA is higher than your overall GPA; you can include that! If you’re at a larger school where your major is a part of a specific school (like if you’re a student at X university who is majoring in Y, whose major is housed by the School of Y), you can include that as well!
Employment Experience
The employment section is where the most variance will be for college students. Some students will have had a few previous jobs and can include those on their resumes. But some students may have no work experience. That’s totally okay!
If you don’t have any work experience, you don’t need to include this section. You can include other sections to make up for your lack of work experience!
Remember, your employment experience section can include any internships or positions you hold at your school (like teacher’s assistant or tutor)!
Usually, if you are applying for anything really (job, internship, grad school, etc.), you want your employment experience to highlight skills that are relevant to the position you are applying for. That doesn’t always work for college students who may not have the specific experience for a position.
For example, maybe you have a lot of babysitting experience, but you are applying to a computer science internship. What you can do here is highlight skills that may be relevant to your computer science internship in your descriptions of your babysitting experience. So you can highlight teamwork or attention to detail.
Volunteer Experience
If you don’t have much employment experience, another section you can include instead is volunteer experience! Having a section for volunteer experience can really benefit college students because it shows that you are involved in your community and have done some work, even if you don’t have a lot of work experience.
When I was applying to internships during college, I had basically no work experience, but I had a bunch of volunteer experience! I was a part of a community band, worked with a dog rescue with my family, and participated in a childhood cancer fundraiser every year! Internships love to see things like this on resumes, so definitely include any volunteer experience you have (no matter how small!) if you lack employment experience!
Relevant Coursework
Including coursework is a great way to bulk up your resume as a student, especially if you don’t have a lot of work experience. You can include any coursework that may be relevant to the position you are applying for. For example, including psychology courses if you are applying for a mental health internship.
You want to be careful with this section, though, and only include relevant courses! If you are applying to a mental health internship, maybe don’t include that intro to accounting class you took your first year! Try to keep your coursework RELEVANT!
Relevant Projects
As a college student, you are constantly completing projects for classes. If one of your projects aligns with a job description for a role you are applying to, you can absolutely add it to your resume if you need to fill up space!
Maybe you completed a semester-long research project or gave a talk in one of your classes about a specific topic. These projects can be added to your resume and show that you have some expertise in a particular topic!
Clubs & Organizations
College students are often a part of various clubs or organizations on campus, and these are great things to add to your resume. They show that you are involved in your community and have gained some experience in a specific topic.
Listing clubs on your resume not only shows you are involved in your community but also speaks to your time management skills! At one point in college, I was a part of three clubs, and I had them all listed on my resume. When I was giving my resume to employers at a career fair, one of them commented on how I was so involved on campus and how I must have excellent time management skills to manage everything!
You might think including clubs and organizations you are a part of on-campus on your resume is a waste and isn’t real experience, but I promise you it’s worth it!
Leadership Positions
Going along with the Clubs/Organizations section, you can also include any leadership positions you have held. Maybe you’re the president of a club on campus, or perhaps you’re involved as a resident assistant or a teaching assistant. These are fantastic leadership positions to include on your resume!
Certifications & Trainings
Another amazing section to include on your college resume is certifications or trainings. Some students may have research certifications or have gone through specific trainings for their courses. These experiences can really help fill up your resume and show that you have a certain level of expertise in a given topic. This can help you stand out from other candidates for the position you are applying to!
Key Skills
Key Skills is another valuable section to include on your resume if you are a college student. Throughout your college experience, you gain a lot of technical skills, no matter your major. Adding these to your resume can really highlight how much you have to offer for a position!
Typically, people should only include hard skills in their skills section. Skills like data analysis, Microsoft Office, Google Suites, etc. But if you find you need to add more to your resume, you can definitely use soft skills on your college resume! Skills like teamwork, leadership, empathy, etc., can show a lot about your character as a person!
Okay, start building your college resume!
So, now you know a bunch of different sections that you can include on your college resume! Hopefully, you were able to find a few sections that would work for you, and you can go on and build a fantastic college resume!
Still confused about how to build your resume? Download “The Easy Resume Guide,” which will walk you through formatting and building your resume!
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