As a recent university graduate, typically, you don’t have much work experience. You’ve spent years or more building in university and even earned a high GPA. So why aren’t employers creating a ruckus for your services? Well, this is a problem faced by many recent university graduates. Perhaps if they focused more on what they can provide the employer rather than what they learned in school, it would be a different scenario altogether. However, it’s still possible to craft a strong resume that will get you hired. All you need to do is use your resume to convince employers that your academic success is transferable to the workplace.
First things first, as a recent grad, you need to craft a targeted resume objective. The resume objective or professional summary should be the first thing an employer or hiring manager gets to see on your resume. In this section, write a formal objective section or a qualifications summary. Whichever way you go, avoid fluff or generalized goals or cliches used by new graduates.
For example:
Not good: Looking for a challenging position with a progressive company that provides an opportunity for growth and advancement.
Good: Honors graduate of XYZ University’s Marketing class of 2019 seeking a position in training and development. Offer hands-on experience in social media marketing, promotions, and advertisement.
Remember, the career objective, should not remain static but should depending on the job you’re applying for and should always be tailored to the job application at hand.
Resume dilemma for recent graduates is a classical conundrum experienced by many after completing university. In your job hunt, you’ll come to realize that most jobs require some form of on-the-job experience, which you do not have. So without the job, you can’t gain experience; and without the experience, you can’t get the job.
To increase your chances, consider broadening the scope of your understanding of the term “experience.” For starters, you went to university and gained invaluable experience meaning that you’re full of potential. As you craft your resume, include the following information to ensure your educational background works in your favor.
Emphasize on Academic Credentials
Considering you’ve just graduated from university, your work history is minimal. It’s therefore imperative to place your education before work experience.
List academic credentials, any honors, distinctions, scholarships, awards or study abroad opportunities. However, you should refrain from including your GPA if it’s anything below 3.0.
Additionally, you could itemize a list of relevant courses so that the employer can determine whether you have a strong academic foundation for the position.
Once you’ve gained sufficient work experience, though, remember to substitute this information and replace it with your work experience.
Highlight Educational Experiences
Hiring managers are interested in understanding the type of employer you’ll be. And this being your first application there’s not much to by but your experiences in school, internships, class projects, volunteer work and so on.
Ensure you include relevant experience from your internships and practicums in the experience section. Provide examples of actual assignments, challenges you faced, your contribution, and the results and how these will translate into benefits for the employer.
Refrain from providing too much unnecessary information when describing unrelated jobs, keep the descriptions to a minimum. Just include your employer’s name, location, job title, and dates. You can briefly include any extra duties you were given as a result of your performance or special recognition (such as employee of the Month) to help demonstrate your strong work ethic.
Include Keywords
Ensure you optimize your job application for keywords that are indicated on the job description or the company’s profile. This will ensure that your application passes the initial machine test and lands in the hands of the hiring manager. Keywords are generally buzzwords that employers used to find the best candidate for a role. Job titles, educational credentials, certifications, and skills are all possible keywords.
A good approach to mine for keywords is to review job listings for the position you are applying for by going through the job description. Look at the requirements, and any specific term that has been used frequently, include it in your resume.
Pick the Resume Format That Works for You
Deciding the right format for recent grads is rather tricky. For instance, a traditional chronological resume format, which emphasizes employment history, doesn’t usually work. As you will need to highlight your academic foundation, motivation, and relevant skills, qualifications and accomplishments. Instead, it’s better to use a functional or a combination resume to effectively highlight your qualifications.
Start with a professional summary
A professional summary also referred to as a resume summary, career objective or qualifications profile is a statement at the top of a resume that highlights your skills and qualifications. This statement can either be written in narrative form or formatted in bullets to immediately capture the hiring manager’s attention.
A professional summary is usually placed immediately below your name and contact details. Be careful and effectively use this space to demonstrate your qualifications, especially those that align with the ones emphasized on the job description of the role you’re applying for.
Emphasize your soft skills
Soft skills such as excellent communication skills, interpersonal skills, leadership, decision-making skills, among others are unique selling points. Soft-skills can help get your foot through the door, especially for entry-level positions. You can demonstrate these skills by using examples from your university years. For instance, how you contributed to team projects.
Cecilia Student
47 New Street | New York, NY 10001
123-555-4678 | Cell: 555-555-1010 | Cecilia.student@domain.com
CAREER OBJECTIVE
Recent University graduate with a major in computer science and minor in data science. Developed a class project using Artificial Intelligence and beat over 100 students at the annual data science camp held at the XYZ campus. Seeking to leverage a 3.9 GPA to obtain a junior Data Analyst position.
EDUCATION
20xx Bachelor of Computer Science
EFG University. New York, NY
Minor: Data Science
Relevant Coursework: Statistics for Data Science, Applied Machine Learning, Python, Research Design and Application for Data Analysis
Honors, Experience, & Awards: Dean’s List (6 semesters), studied abroad in London, United Kingdom, September January 20xx, Received two “Best Student Awards.”
RELEVANT EXPERIENCE
Data Science Intern
June 20xx - January 20xx
ABCD Company, New York, NY
Key Qualifications and Responsibilities
Key Achievement
Pioneered a new alpha extraction approach that led to a 110% increase in ROI.
Skills
Once you’ve captured all the essential information in your resume, consider including other relevant sections such as certifications, volunteer experience, language skills, hobbies and interests, and a professional portfolio if you have one. Including these, for instance, a volunteer experience demonstrates on the job-experience while certifications make you a strong candidate for the role, especially if they are relevant.
Sell yourself
Although you may lack relevant experience at the moment, be sure that as your career grows that it becomes more comfortable for you to sell yourself. Remember to be creative in your application and demonstrate your potential and enthusiasm to kick start your career. However, keep in mind that employers aren’t looking to help you build your career, so you need to convince them that you’re qualified and your skills and qualifications are adequate enough to get the job done.
If you lack experience, demonstrate how your skills and abilities can be a great asset to the company. And finally, ensure your resume is well-written, perfectly edited, leads with a summary and highlights your achievements.
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