For Students - Resumé Guidelines

First impressions are lasting impressions! Generally, your first contact with a prospective employer is through your resume - Why should an employer hire you over other candidates that seem equally qualified? In the case of co-op positions, you will be competing with peers from UK as well as with students from other universities.

Pay close attention to punctuation, spacing, spelling, and grammar. Errors on a resume will be costly. One space follows a semi-colon, comma, and periods following abbreviations. Two spaces follow a colon and the period at the end of a sentence.

Make certain that your verb tenses match. For a job you currently hold, job duties should be in the present tense. For jobs you have previously held, job duties should be written in the past tense. Use reverse chronological order when listing activities and jobs.

Be consistent in style and PROOF your resume carefully.

Effective resumes should.....

• ....be visually appealing and easy to read
• ....be concise
• ....communicate job related abilities, not just duties
• ....emphasize accomplishments
• ....communicate responsibility, dependability, and enthusiasm
• ....reflect your ability and potential

Some employers are using scanning technology to sort a reasonable number of promising resumes from huge stacks of resumes. Information is easily missed with scanners if the resume has fancy treatments such as italics, underlines, shadows or reverses. Two-column format should be avoided. Therefore, we recommend a simple format, such as the sample in this handout. Please do not use templates offered by Microsoft,etc. For samples look up "scannable resumes" on a search engine such as Google.

Content/Headings

Name: Center your name at the top, using all upper case letters and bold type. In crease font size.

Addresses: List both a campus address and a permanent address. If these two addresses are the same, then you should center the address below your name. Only use your email address if you check email daily.

Objective: This is often the most difficult part of the resume; here are some things to consider: Very general statements such as "To gain hands-on experience while pursuing a degree" give very little information. "To obtain a co-op position in which principles of engineering can be applied to process or product development" gives the reader a clue. However, if an objective is too specific, the reader may reject the resume because the company cannot offer work in the expressed interest area. Often, your basic resume must be edited so that the objective meets the targeted company's agenda. Avoid the use of the personal pronouns "I" and "my", this is understood.

Available: Use the semester and year. Example: Spring 2006 (If applying for a part-time job, you might say "immediately").

Education: State the degree that you are pursuing, hours you have completed including transfer hours, and cumulative grade point average. The hours completed and GPA should match those on your UK transcript. If you use only the GPA in your major or average in the GPA from another school, then you should so indicate - example -- 3.4 (major) or 3.4 (UK and EKU).

Your graduation date should also be included. Students applying for alternating semester co-op positions will need to work out a rotation plan with the co-op staff. This plan usually moves the graduation date back by at least a semester, most often by a year.

It is suggested that you include courses that you are currently taking. Include the course prefix, course number, and short description of classes in your major - for example - EM 221 Statics or CS 216 Software Engineering.

A brief summary of your high school experience or other college experience should be included in this section. Computer skills are of great interest to prospective employers. List hardware, software, and any type of experience that you might have. Depending on the extent of your experience, this information can go under education or could be a separate heading.

Honors and Awards, Activities, Interests and Hobbies are all good headings on a resume. This is an area where you would like to call attention to your abilities. Stating that you were an officer in Student Council is good. However, "As vice president of student council, organized the annual fundraiser and increased earnings by 20%" would be much better and communicates ability. As you move into your senior year at UK, this information from high school should be replaced with experiences at UK. Plan to become active in student organizations and activities so that you will have good examples of leadership and teamwork skills to put on your senior resume. Try to incorporate some of the action words listed below into your descriptions:

Work Experience: List present or most recent experience first. Be concise. Include name of the company, location of the company (city and state) dates worked and job duties. Do not use the personal pronoun "I"; it is understood. Again use action verbs to communicate skills. Include the name of your supervisor and a phone number, if possible. Don't hesitate to use babysitting or mowing lawns as work experience; your work does not have to be with a major company to be impressive.

EXAMPLE: Pizza Hut, Somerset , Kentucky , May 2001 - August 2001. Duties: Greeted customers, responsible for preparing orders, trained three new employees, and responsible for handling money. Supervisor: Ms. Patricia Allen. Phone: (606) 369-4000.

References: In this age of legal repercussions, references have fallen out of vogue. We advise leaving this category off or state "Available upon Request". If your resume has too much white space and needs a filler, then list references. As an academic assignment, you would not have to ask permission of your references. However, if a resume is actually being sent out, then it is courteous to inform your references that you have listed their names.

Key Words: Scanners look for particular words or phrases relevant to open positions. The following is a list of such words that we have collected from several employers. Some are discipline specific. If you think a prospective employer may be scanning resumes (INTEL, Microsoft, IBM, TVA, and DuPont scan) then sprinkling words such as these on a resume is helpful. At this time, we understand that most co-op resumes are not being scanned. However, understanding and using scannable-friendly formats is a good habit to form. If the simple, scannable format is not to your liking, prepare a second resume with eye-catching treatments and use it when you actually meet with a recruiter for an interview. You should not think that one resume will fill all needs. In applying to a particular employer, review their website and any other material, such as co-op reports housed in the co-op office, that will give you clues to modify your objective or contents that you emphasize. Your resume needs edited for each individual job application.