Resumes play a critical role in one’s career success- it does not take a genius to gauge the veracity and accuracy of this statement. Resumes & CVs determine the nature of the first impression that a job applicant will have on the job board. Seasoned job hunters will vouch for the importance of proper design, presentation, layout and overall structure of a resume and how all of these features become deciding factors in landing a job.
Today we have a host of online my resume builder and CV formatters, which allow job seekers to automate the creation of their CVs and design resumes following the latest domain specific conventions. While automated tools can be really helpful, all the perfect resume out there have been crafted manually from scratch.
Let’s now look into the major student resume templates used across disciplines.
A Look At Some Popular Student Resume Formats For 2021
The main difference between student and professional resumes is the limited work experience of freshers and recent graduates. Other sections and the overall content structure remain more or less the same.
The most widely used resume formats in the professional market are:
- The High School Template
- The College Template and
- The Functional Resume
Whether it is a nursing resume or an executive resume or an engineering one, these three structural frameworks pervade through resumes pertaining to every profession. Certain other formats do exist and they will be addressed in brief in the following sections.
Every student resume must contain certain essential sections to inform and engage the target audience.
Here’s a brief look at all of them.
- The Objective
One’s career objective should introduce readers to the documentation. Resume writing experts highly recommend adding this section. This section should offer a glimpse of a person’s career goals, ambition, what they bring to the plate, their motivation and where they see themselves in the future.
Targeted job designation, along with skills, experience and areas of interests, should be added in a succinct manner.
- Skills and Education
This section is THE primary focus of every recruiter. Keep it sufficiently detailed but precise.
All essential academic qualifications and achievements should be listed. High school, college/university and post-gradation qualifications are a must, along with details regarding the institution, education board, year, and grades. Include any majors & minors, area of specializations and certifications.
The next paragraph section can include any academic courses completed or skills gathered. Include awards, scholarships, theses, research projects, seminars attended, or participation or achievements in any extracurricular activities.
Technical skills and attributes are the other aspects to be highlighted. Optimize your resume by adding details regarding the following aspects:
- awards, honors or sponsorships earned;
- leadership experience;
- research projects
- computer proficiency & IT skills
- language skills
- sports & extracurricular activities
- certification courses completed
- seminars attended
- social work or volunteering experience.
- Experience
Relevant experiences are another prominent highlight of a student CV or resume. Resumes following the chronological format should add experiential information in the reverse chronological format, with the latest job experience or internship added right at the beginning.
Infographic provided by The Jacobson Group
Structure work experience as follows:
- Company Name
- Location
- Job Title
- Start and End Date
- Responsibilities
- Achievements
This section should be the secondary focus while writing the resume. While internships and any job relevant experience are an added bonus, the primary focus should be on academic qualifications, skills and achievements.
- Personal Details and Contact Information
A vita; section, check all the details you add here properly after writing your resume to make sure that recruiters can get in touch with you successfully. Cell-phone number, professional email ID, and residential address are absolute essentials.
Links & information to published content, blogs, coding repositories, LinkedIn or other professional job sites should also be added.
- Other Data
This particular section can be considered to be optional, but adding it helps recruiters understand the nature & personality of a candidate better. Special skills, computer & IT proficiency, achievements in sports & other activities, military service experience, social contributions, licensures, publications, any positions held, etc. constitute this section.
- References
Add references from seniors, supervisors, mentors or managers, if available. Deliver contact details or other information that will allow recruiters to avail them on request.
All the essential information above has to be arranged and presented in a clear & well-organized manner, in any one of the three formats, chronological, functional & hybrid.
The High School Resume Template
Source: www.thebalancecareers.com
- Student resume need to put extensive emphasis on education. While writing your high school resumes, put all academic details on the top, right at the beginning.
- If you have a high GPA, mention it prominently to draw attention to it. List out every award, honors, commendations and other academic achievements properly.
- Highlight instances of leadership experience as companies always prefer a person with good leadership qualities.
- Include volunteer and extracurricular experiences if any. As high school graduates can’t showcase any substantial work experience, adding these records can shed some light regarding a candidate’s work ethics, motivation and personality.
The College Resume Template
Source: www.thebalancecareers.com
- College graduates should align their career objectives with the job description that they are applying for.
- Work experience will be limited so maximum focus will be on academic qualifications & achievements in college resumes.
- While mentioning the job experiences, use action verbs to put focus on accomplishments over the tasks.
- Pay close attention to formatting and make sure everything is legible & presentable.
The Chronological Template
Source: www.the balancecareers.com
- Rather than just listing experiences and achievements chronologically, the functional resume specifically targets the requirements of the job being applied for. The layout of the resume format ensures that all the necessary skills & abilities, that a recruiter is looking for, are up for display right at the beginning in necessary details
- This template drives attention to the most relevant skills, academic qualifications & applicable work experience pertaining in relation to the job applied for.
- Functional resume templates allow candidates to interject a little of “who they are” into their resume, rather than just adding “what they do”.
The hybrid or combinational resume template takes the best of both formats and amalgamates them together.
Those were the three major resume templates with clear examples. Apart from them, there are certain other resume formats or templates used infrequently across different domains.
They include:
- Targeted Resumes 🡪 These are job-specific templates customized to highlight relevant experience and skills. Nursing resumes and engineering resumes are some typical examples.
- Non-traditional Resumes 🡪 Infographic resumes, online portfolios, video resumes, social resumes, etc. are some up and coming templates that utilize graphics, multimedia & other ingredients to make things different. These unconventional formats are not accepted by every company, however.
Before we round up this article, here are some potent resume writing & formatting tips.
Some Great Resume Formatting Tips
- Write for both human recruiters and application tracking systems. ATS friendly resumes need to be well formatted and MUST contain a set of job relevant KEYWORDS.
- Go through the job description to collect a list of keywords and add them to the resume. Use standard headings and avoid complex formatting.
- Keep your resume succinct. Do not exceed the page count beyond three.
- Go through resume of fellow job seekers, and follow the latest conventions with regards to design & presentation.
- Use standard section headers.
- Pick a proper & legible resume font that makes things stand out.
- Keep the font size between 10 and 12.
- Header font should be bit larger.
- Structure your resume properly.
- Bulleted formatting is the best way to deliver information.
- Have a digital version of your resume ready always, preferably in .PDF or .DOCX format.
And, that rounds up this guide to resume writing and formatting. Follow it well to craft exceptional resumes that guarantee an excellent first impression. Avail credible online resume builders to get readymade resumes if you are short on time and use them & this guide for future resume formatting references!
All the best!
