How to Decide What to Include on Your Resume
Hi friend,
So you need to make a resume. Before you do that, I strongly recommend you write a cover letter first. If you’re curious about why, check out my other blog on how your cover letter will help you prioritize information on your resume and target your search. You can get started with your cover letter right here, and then come back to work on your resume!
First things first— don’t start with a resume document. Formatting and templates can be distracting, so save them for after your resume content is planned out. Start with a spreadsheet or a virtual whiteboard space (like Miro), and create a column for every job and any significant volunteer or hobby experience that you have. If your volunteer or hobby experience is the equivalent of a part time job (10+ hours a week seasonally or year-round), list it!
Next, brainstorm a bullet point list of the following for each column:
Core responsibilities: if you have an old copy of your offer letter or the original job descriptions, this can jog your memory
Additional responsibilities: i.e. volunteering to be part of an employee committee
Projects: something that took place over time— often, but not always, with other people— and resulted in a major accomplishment or change
Achievements and special recognition: you may not have any, and that’s okay
After you finish, group the bullet points under each job experience by category. For example: customer experience and people management might be two categories for a shift manager at a hotel. Some or most of your categories should correlate with your supporting paragraphs and identity statement in the cover letter, but some might not.
For each bullet point that does not match your cover letter, you can decide whether or not it belongs on your resume by asking these questions:
Does it strongly demonstrate people management or leadership skills?
Does it demonstrate adjacent skills that have a high likelihood of being beneficial for the types of jobs I am applying for?
Does it account for a major portion of my responsibilities (20% or more of my time)?
If the answer to any of these questions is yes, that bullet point likely belongs. If the answers are all no, keep it on your list for reference but you can safely leave it off your final resume. Any volunteer or hobby experiences that don’t have relevant bullet points should be left off your resume entirely. If you have a job that isn’t relevant, you can entirely remove it if it doesn’t create a gap and you have other experience (i.e. a server job you did in college 4 years ago). Otherwise, the remaining bullet points are already prioritized and condensed if you’ve considered the three questions above!
Now you have a list of content that belongs on your resume. At this stage, you’re ready to move on to actually writing your resume bullet points, which is something I’ll cover next week!
Happy Thursday,
Karissa
