Students

Resume

Application Process

Building your résumé

Tailor your résumé for each internship, research opportunity, fellowship, or part-time job you apply for.

  • Find a balance between including every detail and revealing only particular experiences. You want to appear well rounded, but not in a cluttered manner.
  • Like your personal statement, personalize your résumé to include relevant information. Not all research opportunities look for the same qualities.

Categorize to make your résumé reader-friendly and organized.

  • Decide on what to highlight. For example, if it builds on leadership skills, emphasize leadership roles or activities that involved taking the lead. Involvement in sports can show your ability to work well with a team.
  • Research opportunities tend to be more academic based, so you may want to focus on your school accomplishments and experiences that involved research.
  • Create categories to separate certain experiences and activities. Do not create too many groups though. Limit yourself to no more than five.
  • Categories to think about are: research experience, work experience, volunteer work, publications, honors/awards, language proficiency, leadership positions, and activities.

Organize and Prioritize.

  • Edit your résumé to prioritize what is most important. If you include everything on your résumé, you can decide on what is necessary information and what is not.
  • Do not include your references. They should be on a separate page.

Get a second opinion.

  • Check out the Career Center’s résumé guides www.csun.edu/career, which have helpful tips and can help you format and organize your résumé appropriately.
  • Be sure to look at the resume guide on the career center website.