Resumes and Recommendation Letters

Now here is a topic that applies to everybody. Whether you’re in high school or about to graduate from college, it’s important to have a strong resume and find people to write you a good letter of recommendation. Since I’m applying to graduate school, that advice applies to me too!

Fortunately, we’ve already got a couple of good posts about resumes and letters of recommendation, But, in this post, I’m going to talk about the main areas you want to focus on in your resume, and what you’ll want your recommendation writers to talk about in your letters.

For Your Resume

• Describe Your Experience: When you put down work experience or activities/organizations you’ve participated in, you need to write about what sorts of things you did in them. Let’s say you were in student council for three years. Putting that on your resume is important, but your reader also wants to know about what you actually did while you were there. It’s good to be more descriptive than something like, “planned student events.” Go into more depth by saying, “Organized bake sales with the event planner to pay for prom decorations.”

• Make It Relevant: If you’ve done something that’s related to your prospective major, put it on your resume! If you’ve worked at a clothing store for the last year, but two years ago you volunteered at a hospital, and you want to be a nursing major, the hospital work should go first. It’s important to prioritize what you’ve done so that the more important experiences are higher up.

• Think Outside the Box: I’m not saying you should make stuff up about your work/organization experience, but just because you only worked at Target for a year doesn’t mean that isn’t related to your college goals. For example, if you handled a tough customer situation, or you were really organized and got your work done quickly, you should emphasize that on your resume. Being a hard worker or a good employee shows that you’ll make a good student at your prospective school!

For Your Letters of Recommendation

First of all, start asking about them right now. Second, remember that anyone can get one of their teachers to write them a letter. You have to make sure that the person writing it knows you well and can talk about your character.

Having a teacher say, “Chris was a good student and always came to class on time,” isn’t going to help you. You want someone who will describe you outside of normal contexts, like, “Chris regularly came by after school to ask me for more information about the biology subjects that we covered in class. I’m really impressed by the breadth of his knowledge as well as his interest in the subject. Out of all of my students, I believe he has the best chance to succeed at your college due to his dedication and drive.”

I’m trying to use these same tips for my own resume. What advice would you give to help others improve theirs?