Career fair season is upon us. College underclassmen are seeking internships, seniors are looking for their first career positions, and university Career Services offices are being inundated with students struggling to put together a coherent resume. Fear not — I’m here to help. Here are my four best resume tips for new grads – plus two FREEBIES just for you! With these tips, you can craft a great resume to get you headed in the right direction.

1) Use a QUALITY template.

Resume templates are a dime a dozen on the internet, but not all templates are created equal. Some are crazy busy or colorful – mostly geared at creative fields, but they are completely inappropriate for most job seekers. Other templates are jam-packed with text, which is AWFUL to try to read, especially when hiring managers only spend 6 seconds reviewing your resume! If I’m a hiring manager with a huge stack of resumes, and I come to one that’s difficult to read, I’ll probably just throw it away. I’m not messing with trying to read something from someone who doesn’t even TRY to make it easy on me.

A good resume template should include:

• Your name and contact info in large font at the very top of the page.
• All section titles and sections line up nicely. There shouldn’t be any places where you’ll have to fight with the formatting to get things to line up properly.
• A section for your profile or summary paragraph, including a set of bullets to showcase your core competencies.
• Your education section immediately after your summary. As a new grad, your education is one of your biggest selling features!
• An easy to read format for the experience section. Job titles should be easy to see — bolded or bolded and italicized.
• A nice layout with plenty of whitespace that draws the eye immediately to all the important information. If you’re having to hunt to see what’s in the template, don’t use it!
• A conservative use of color. Unless you’re in a graphic or visual arts field, skip anything using multiple colors.
• NO photos or charts. (Do NOT put your picture on your resume, no matter how in vogue it is right now! And charts and tables just confuse Applicant Tracking Systems.)

Remember to BE PICKY!

Most resume template sites have some good and some NOT so good templates to choose from. Be picky! This is your career we’re talking about here! My current favorite template site is hloom.com. Their templates are free for personal use and are generally very well designed and easy to download. (They don’t pay me to say I love them, I just do!) Be forewarned, however: just like with any template site, there are still some total duds on hloom.com. Always use the checklist above to make sure you’re picking a GOOD template!

2) Focus on accomplishments.

Accomplishments is the ONE thing most people forget on their resumes, and it’s the ONE thing that makes the biggest difference! Employers today want to see the VALUE you bring to their company. Which means they want to see what you’ve achieved, not just a description of your duties and responsibilities.

Anything you can quantify with $ or %, do it. As a college student or new grad, you may not feel like you have much by way of accomplishments, but I’m betting you have more than you think!

• Were you in a leadership role on a group project? Include it!
• Did you revamp how things were done at your part-time job and increase productivity by X%? List it!
• Were you the one who created the t-shirt campaign for your fraternity or sorority and raised $X for charity? Write about it!

Use strong, confident action verbs and describe anything and everything you can think that MIGHT be considered an accomplishment. Have a friend or a professional career advisor help you decide which points are the strongest and will catch the eye of an employer.

If you’re stuck on exactly how to add accomplishments to your resume, be sure to see Tip #4 and click over to my post about accomplishments.

3) List “Student” as your first job.

The very first place you’ll get to focus on all those beautiful accomplishments is in your “student” job description. The first job listed in your experience section should be all about your accomplishments and knowledge gained as a student. You can use the job title “Mechanical Engineering Student” or “Psychology Student” or whatever your major is. Then include 6-7 bullet points describing group project roles and outcomes, research projects, short-term internships (less than 3 months), or related club/organization activities that demonstrate your skills.

Having a “student” job description has two main benefits:

1. It will help get your resume past Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) — computer-based programs designs to weed out candidates — and into the hands of the person who will actually make the hiring decision. Because this job is formatted just like all your other employment experiences, computers don’t know the difference and treat it just like the rest of your work history. Especially if your work history is short, having this section will help beef it up.
2. It shows employers that you take your education seriously. You treat this “job” as if it were your full-time career, and you will take their position seriously, as well. Employers know that hard workers are a hard workers, no matter their situation. How you handle yourself as a student says a lot about your work ethic and how you would be as an employee.

4) Get your resume reviewed by a professional.

Yes, your roommate may be the biggest grammar-nazi you’ve ever met, but s/he probably doesn’t have up-to-date information on exactly what hiring managers like to see on a resume. Whether you choose to visit your on-campus Career Services Office or hire a professional resume writer, just be sure to have an experienced set of eyes look over everything you’ve put together. They can give you tips on how to improve your wording, fix any formatting issues, and make sure you’re putting your best foot forward when you take your resume on its maiden voyage to the Career Fair.

I realized the other day I have been professionally reviewing resumes for over 10 years. (How OLD do I feel right now??) That’s a long time, but many of your Career Services staff have been at it even longer. Take advantage of those experts right across campus from you! Just be forewarned: They’re SUPER busy this time of year. Your best bet is to have your resume completely written before you go see them. That way, they’re only having to critique and review, not teach you how to write a resume from scratch. (Take it from a former Career Counselor: critiquing is MUCH easier than starting from ground zero!)

Need a Little Help?

To help you get moving on your first (or next) AWESOME resume, I’ve put together a FREE resume template you can download. Along with the FREE template, you’ll also get my FREE New Grad Tip Sheet with 20 MORE tips to help you craft an interview-winning resume. Hooray for FREEBIES! (See? I know my college students! ;)~ Now if there were free pizza in the deal, I’d have a REAL winner!)

So, click the button below to download your template and tip sheet. Then, share this post with your friends, so THEY can write a fabulous resume, too. Friends do NOT let friends attend Career Fairs with crappy resumes!

Go get ’em, friends. I’m rooting for you!

Get your FREE Resume Template & Tip Sheet