resume samples for masters application

5 Expert Tips for Writing a Stand-Out Grad School Resumé

Congratulations! You’re investing in your future by applying to graduate school. The application is complete, you’ve gathered your recommendations, written your statement of purpose , and you’re working on developing another important component—your resumé.

Your grad school resumé is an integral piece of the admissions process, says Jared Pierce, former associate director of enrollment quality assurance at Northeastern University. Admissions counselors rely on resumés as an assessment of the student, his or her strengths, work experience, skills, education, and interests, he says, to help them decide whether a prospective student is a good fit for the program.

Your grad school resumé is similar in many ways to a resumé you’d submit as part of a job application: You should use crisp language to describe your experiences, a clean and organized layout to make it easy to read, and it should be free from typos and grammar errors. But they’re different, too: Grad school resumés should emphasize your education, work and volunteer experience, and specific skills relevant to the particular program you’re applying to.

“We’re interested in a student’s background and how it’s relevant to the program he or she wants to enroll in,” Pierce says. “If they’re enrolling in a communications program, for example, we’re interested to see whether they’re coming from a social media background or a marketing background, and how that experience applies to what they’re looking for in grad school.”

Attention to detail is paramount when creating your resumé for grad school. Here’s a look at what should be included on your resumé, plus five tips to help you craft one that’s memorable and impactful.

What to Include in a Resumé for Graduate School

In general, your grad school resumé will be similar to a resumé you’d create when applying for a job. Keep in mind, however, that this document should be tailored to your desired program of study in order to show the admissions team that you’re a good fit.

Your graduate school resumé should include:

• A header, including basic information like your name and email address
• Your education history , including your undergraduate degree and institution
• Relevant experiences, such as current or previous professional roles, internships, and leadership experience
• Research and publications, including any research projects, articles, or other publications you’ve contributed to through your academic or professional career
• Skills and certifications, especially those closely related to your field of study
• Volunteering and extracurricular activities, if applicable to your program of interest

If you’re unsure whether a particular experience or skill should be included on your resumé, ask yourself how it relates to the program or institution that you’re applying to. If it doesn’t speak directly to your interests and strengths, it’s likely unnecessary to include.

Writing Your Grad School Resumé: 5 Tips for Success

1. tailor your resumé to the program..

When graduate schools review your resumé, they’re weighing the relevancy of your previous experience and education with the program you’re applying to. In other words, they want to see a correlation between what you’ve done and where you’re going.

Pierce recommends reviewing the homepage of the program you’re interested in before writing your resumé. Some programs require two or three years of work experience or a portfolio, so make sure you qualify for the program you’re applying to.

If you’re interested in the Master of Science in Cybersecurity program, for example, review the program’s webpage and make note of its requirements, objectives, core requirements, and any relevant keywords it uses. Then, make sure you check those boxes as you write your resumé.

2. Highlight all relevant experience.

While some prospective students apply to grad school from the field, others apply to programs upon completion of their undergraduate degree. For this reason, not all students will have professional experience to list on their resumé—and that’s ok, Pierce says.

“It’s a misnomer that if you don’t have professional experience, you can’t write a resumé,” he says. “There are other types of experience that are just as important and useful, so make sure you highlight everything that is relevant.”

Other than professional experience, admissions committees are interested in volunteer work and internships you’ve completed. This experience is just as relevant. For all experience—professional or otherwise—it’s important to showcase the duties you performed in those roles, and both the hard and soft skills you learned. This might include leading teams or projects, honing communication skills, or specific software or programs you learned and became proficient in.

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3. Showcase your skills.

Your resumé should include a skills section that highlights technologies, skills, and other competencies relevant to the graduate program you’re applying to, Pierce says.

If you’re applying to the Master of Science in Computer Science program, for example, your resumé should list the programming languages you know (e.g. Python, C++, Ruby on Rails), computer applications you’ve used, and software or systems that you’re experienced in.

4. Include professional achievements.

In addition to your experience and skills, admissions committees are interested in the professional certifications you earned, professional training you’ve completed, professional organizations of which you’re a member, and any instances in which you’ve been published.

Prospective students interested in the Master of Science in Project Management program, for example, should list any PMP certifications they’ve earned, while students interested in a Master of Science in Human Resource Management should note their membership to the Society for Human Resource Management, Pierce says. These achievements and memberships add another dimension to your resumé, showcasing your efforts outside your job, volunteer work, or internships to further your career and improve your experience.

5. Keep it clean.

Your grad school resumé should be succinct, only rarely exceeding one page, Pierce recommends. It should go without saying, too, that your resumé should be clean, well-formatted, easy-to-read, and free of typos or grammatical errors.

“We’re looking for a well-organized resumé that shows that care has been taken in creating it,” Pierce says. “Don’t just list out your experience in bullet points; tell us what duties you performed and how it correlates to the program you’re applying to. Your resumé is a reflection of you—we want to see that it’s polished and detailed, and understand what your background is like and what your experiences have been.”

Grad School Resumé Support

Applying to graduate school can be both exciting and stressful. Luckily, admissions teams and enrollment coaches are available to help you along the way and make the process as smooth as possible. If you have questions as you’re preparing your application and related materials, don’t be afraid to reach out for help. At the end of the day, admissions teams want to ensure that you’re a good fit for their program, and in effect, that their program is a good fit for you. 

At Northeastern, there are various resources and experts you can leverage for support throughout the application process. Don’t hesitate to contact faculty members in your program of interest with specific questions about the degree program. With more general questions about the application process, paying for your degree , or the institution as a whole, speak with an enrollment coach for help along the way.

For more information on applying to Northeastern’s graduate programs, visit our attend an application and enrollment session to get your questions answered. 

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Resume for Graduate Schools: How to Write your Graduate Application Resume?

Your bio-data or resume is a crucial part of getting ready to apply to graduate school. The university officials carefully analyze your resume for graduate schools to determine your eligibility and potential. You can increase your chances of getting accepted to graduate school by reading up on an institution's requirements for the application and learning the best practices for drafting resumes and CVs.

In this blog, we will be looking at why we write a resume for graduate schools and why a graduate program resume is so crucial while providing you with the graduate program resume examples for your understanding.

What is a Resume for Graduate School?

When applying for master's degree programs, you should prepare a résumé for graduate students. A grad or Ph.D. student's CV can surpass the restrictions in terms of both page count and the specifics of experience; however, a master's student's resume differs in that it is far more streamlined and typically contains only about 1-2 pages.

A CV for graduate program is a professional document that summarizes your seasoned qualities, such as your talents, credentials, relevant employment experience, and noteworthy achievements. Your CV can help you showcase your skills and persuade admissions committees that you are qualified for the program.

Additionally, your qualifications should be listed on your resume clearly so that recruiting supervisors can review them.

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Why do we need a Graduate Application Resume for Admission?

There are numerous parallels between resumes for work and graduate school, but also some variances. You cannot just cut and paste a résumé that you have written to apply for employment into your graduate school application. The same as resumes sent for jobs, your graduate school resume aids colleges in learning more regarding you and your credentials.

Graduate programs get a ton of applications, so they need a straightforward method to see why you'd be a perfect fit for their curriculum. You have the chance to demonstrate this on your graduate school CV.

Grad schools can determine if you'd be a suitable candidate for their school by reviewing your schooling and professional history, which can show them what you currently know and how you've established yourself.

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What Entails a Graduate Degree Resume?

These are the following components of a Graduate resume:

Contact information

Name, address, phone number, and email are all included. To ensure that the admissions office can readily get in touch with you, this information ought to appear at the beginning of your resume.

This part ought to be between two and three lines long and should not contain any personal pronouns. As you discuss the precise school and degree that you are applying for, be mindful to emphasize your comprehensive qualifications.

Include both professional and interpersonal abilities while describing your skills. Include abilities that might be useful for a student when you are applying to graduate degree programs.

Educational qualifications

Comprise degree you got, the name of the college or university, the number of years you studied, and any pertinent curriculum you took while you were there. You may also include your GPA if it is strong, if not, then don’t mention it until asked.

Career background

The admissions staff must see that you are driven to engage in professional opportunities and positions linked to your field. Incorporate your job position, the firm identity, its specific location, the periods you worked there, and a thorough account of your duties in reverse chronological order.

Noteworthy Achievements and Awards

If you have any noteworthy academic accomplishments, the program directors may consider them.

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Graduate Application Resume Sample

Now that we know what to include and what not to include in the CV for Graduate application, it’s time to look at the format in which you need to prepare your Graduate program CV. We described the format in detail for you to follow to create the ideal resume to make it easy for you to grasp.

Part 1-Header

• First name last name
• Street address, city, state, pin code
• Professional email address
• Contact number

Part 2-Summary

• 1-2 sentences describing your professional background. Do not use personal pronouns.

Part 3-Skills

• Include a list of skills in bullet points
• Make sure to draw attention to your communication and technical skills

Part 4-Educational Qualifications

• Most recent degree

Part 5-University Name

• Start date - end date
• Cite any pertinent coursework

Part 6-Work Experience

• Company name, city
• Responsibilities
• Include volunteer and internship experience
• Create a list of three to four bullet points
• Start with action verbs and use concise, yet thorough, language
• Lengthen each bullet point to two to four sentences

Part 7- Noteworthy Achievements and Awards

• Personal Achievement Title
• One or two sentences outlining the circumstances behind and reasons for your title

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Tips for Writing a CV for Graduate Admission

Following are a few tips that will help you in writing an appropriate CV that will help you increase your chances of getting shortlisted. As colleges receive tons of applications, it is important to distinguish ourselves from the crowd.

• Unless specifically requested in the application requirements, do not list a GPA below 3.0 on your résumé.
• It is already assumed that you have completed and finished high school if you list an undergraduate degree.
• Avoid using I or me or other personal pronouns in your resume. 
• Try to keep paragraphs to one to three sentences in length. 
• Do not add contact details of references if not asked.
• When explaining your professional knowledge and any distinctions or medals you have won, be sure to include as much detail as you can.

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Now that you have an understanding of why you need to write a suitable resume and the dos and don’ts of resume writing, better get started on writing one for yourself. For any further queries, feel free to contact our team of excellent counselors by subscribing to Yocket premium .

Frequently Asked Questions about the Graduate Admission Resume

Why do we need to make a resume for university admission?

Graduate programs get a ton of applications, so they need a straightforward method to see why you'd be a perfect fit for their curriculum.

What Should one not do when writing a resume?

Do not mention your GPA (if below 3.0) until they have asked to mention it. You wouldn’t want to ruin your first impression.

How is a college resume different from a resume made for work?

Graduate school resumes are more focused on your academic background not work experience. Work experience is just an added benefit to telling the university you do have an understanding of the professional world.

What do colleges see in a resume?

The colleges seek to know your noteworthy accomplishments, education, and professional background based on which they provide admissions.

Is a resume a necessary document for admissions?

Yes, it is a necessary document as it is a summarized way of providing details about your credentials and qualifications.

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MBA Application Resume: Examples and Pro Tips for Writing

As an MBA applicant, one of the most critical components of your application package is your resume. Your MBA application resume is an opportunity to showcase your achievements, skills, and experiences to admissions committees, giving them a glimpse of your potential as a graduate business student.

In this article, we will discuss the essential elements to include in your MBA application resume, share practical tips on how to write an impactful resume, and provide successful resume examples. The objectives of this article are to help you craft a well-written MBA application resume that effectively communicates your unique value proposition to admission committees, and ultimately increases your chances of getting accepted to your dream MBA program.

This article is structured to provide an overview of the MBA application resume, its importance, and its objectives. We will then delve into tips and examples of how to write an effective MBA application resume. In the first section, we will look at the critical components of an MBA application resume. We will also provide insight into guidelines on format, length, and writing style.

In the following section, we will provide concrete examples of well-written MBA application resumes. Examining successful examples will help you understand best practices in terms of presentation, organization, and clarity. You will learn how to highlight essential profile features that are relevant to your particular MBA program, such as leadership ability, teamwork, and analytical reasoning, among others.

Finally, we will share pro-tips from admissions committees and career service centers that will help you optimize your MBA application resume. The tips will range from tips on how to tailor your MBA application resume to specific MBA programs, to how to make your resume stand out from other applicants.

All in all, writing an excellent MBA application resume takes a combination of strategy, creativity, and attention to detail. Our goal is to equip you with the necessary tools to make this process seamless and successful, so that you can create a winning MBA application resume that will take your application to the next level.

Understanding the MBA Application Resume

When it comes to applying for MBA programs, the application resume plays a crucial role in showcasing your skills, experiences, and accomplishments. In this section, we will discuss the general characteristics of MBA application resumes, how it differs from regular resumes, and the length and structure of an MBA application resume.

General characteristics of MBA application resumes

MBA application resumes are not significantly different from regular resumes in terms of format and content. However, they have a specific focus on demonstrating your leadership potential, teamwork skills, problem-solving abilities, and achievements in the business world.

In general, MBA application resumes should highlight your most important accomplishments and experiences, and illustrate how they have prepared you for business school. It is imperative to be concise but also provide enough detail to make a compelling case for your candidacy.

How it differs from regular resumes

One of the key differences between MBA application resumes and regular resumes is the focus on leadership and teamwork experience. Business schools prefer candidates who have demonstrated leadership experience and can be effective in a team environment.

Another difference is the inclusion of specific accomplishments and results that demonstrate your ability to add value to a business. MBA application resumes should highlight quantifiable results rather than job duties and responsibilities.

Length and structure of an MBA application resume

The length of an MBA application resume should generally be one to two pages. It is essential to focus on the most significant experiences and accomplishments that relate to your MBA candidacy.

The structure of an MBA application resume should emphasize professionalism, legibility, and easy scanning. Make good use of white space, and use bullet points to clearly present your accomplishments and experiences. Use a font that is easy to read and stick to a classic resume format.

MBA application resumes require careful consideration and attention to detail. They should be tailored to the specific program you are applying to and highlight your key strengths and accomplishments. Remember always to be concise, clear, and confident in presenting yourself as a top candidate for the program.

Key Components of a Comprehensive MBA Application Resume

A comprehensive MBA application resume includes several key components that help the admissions committee get a clear understanding of the applicant’s background, experiences, and achievements. In this section, we will discuss each component in detail.

Personal Information

The personal information component helps the admissions committee get a sense of the applicant’s identity and background. This section should include the applicant’s full name, contact information, and other relevant personal details, such as nationality or citizenship status.

Academic Background

The academic background component should include all relevant educational experiences, including degrees earned, academic honors, and relevant coursework. It should also note any research or academic projects the applicant has been a part of.

Work Experience

Work experience is a critical component of an MBA application resume, as it shows the admissions committee how the applicant has gained industry experience and applied their knowledge in a real-world setting. This section should include information about the applicant’s professional history, including the duration and nature of each position held, key responsibilities and achievements, and any promotions or awards earned. It should also include relevant certifications, licenses, or professional development courses completed.

Extracurricular Activities

Extracurricular activities can help to demonstrate an applicant’s leadership skills, teamwork abilities, and community engagement. This section should include details about any clubs, organizations, or volunteer projects the applicant has been a part of, as well as any leadership positions held.

Volunteer Work and Community Involvement

Volunteer work and community involvement demonstrate an applicant’s commitment to giving back and can provide insight into their values and priorities. This section should include any volunteer experiences, community service projects, or charitable work the applicant has participated in.

Skills and Certifications

Skills and certifications demonstrate an applicant’s technical abilities and expertise. This section should include any relevant skills the applicant has developed through their education or work experience, as well as any relevant certifications or licenses earned.

Awards and Accolades

Finally, awards and accolades can help to showcase the applicant’s achievements and recognitions. This section should include any notable awards or honors received, such as academic scholarships, professional recognitions or awards, or other achievements.

A comprehensive MBA application resume should include personal information, academic background, work experience, extracurricular activities, volunteer work and community involvement, skills and certifications, and awards and accolades. By including these components and highlighting key achievements and experiences, applicants can create a strong impression on the admissions committee and increase their chances of being accepted into their desired MBA program.

Pro Tips for Crafting a Strong MBA Application Resume

As you craft your MBA application resume, there are certain key factors you should consider in order to make it stand out from the rest of the pack.

Tailor Your Resume for the Target Program

One of the most important things you can do is to tailor your resume specifically for the MBA program you are applying to. This means taking a close look at the program’s curriculum, culture, and mission, and highlighting the experiences and skills that align with those values.

Highlight Your Accomplishments and Results

When it comes to your MBA application resume, it’s not enough to simply list your job duties and responsibilities. Instead, focus on quantifiable accomplishments and results that demonstrate the impact you’ve had in your previous roles. This might include sales figures, project outcomes, or key performance indicators.

Quantify Your Achievements

To make your accomplishments even more impressive, be sure to quantify them wherever possible. This means using specific numbers, percentages, or other metrics to demonstrate the scope and impact of your work.

Emphasize Leadership Roles and Teamwork

Leadership and teamwork are two essential qualities that most MBA programs are looking for in their applicants. As such, be sure to highlight any experiences you’ve had leading teams or working collaboratively with others.

Use Clear and Concise Language

Your MBA application resume is not the place for complicated buzzwords or jargon. Instead, focus on using clear, concise language that effectively communicates your achievements and experiences.

Proofread and Edit Your Resume Thoroughly

Finally, be sure to thoroughly proofread and edit your MBA application resume to ensure that there are no errors or typos. This is a critical step that can make the difference between getting an interview and being rejected.

By following these pro tips, you can craft a strong MBA application resume that showcases your unique qualities and experiences, and positions you as a top candidate for the program.

Example MBA Application Resumes

As a way to showcase your skills and accomplishments to potential MBA programs, submitting a strong resume as part of your MBA application is crucial. In this section, we will provide examples of resumes for professionals in finance, marketing, and healthcare fields, and analyze and critique them.

Sample resume for a finance professional

John Anderson

Finance Professional

Email: [email protected] | Phone: (123) 456-7890 | LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/johnanderson

Results-driven finance professional with 7+ years of experience in financial analysis, investment management, and risk assessment. Strong analytical skills combined with a strategic mindset to drive business growth and optimize financial performance. Seeking admission to an MBA program to expand knowledge, develop leadership skills, and drive career progression.

Professional Experience

Senior Financial Analyst ABC Corporation, Anytown June 20XX – Present

• Conduct financial analysis and modeling to support strategic decision-making, resulting in a 15% increase in revenue and a 10% improvement in profitability.
• Prepare and present comprehensive financial reports and presentations to executive leadership, providing insights and recommendations for improving financial performance.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to develop annual budgets, financial forecasts, and variance analyses, ensuring alignment with organizational goals.
• Manage investment portfolios, analyzing market trends, and assessing risk to optimize returns and ensure compliance with investment policies.

Financial Analyst XYZ Bank, Anytown May 20XX – June 20XX

• Conducted thorough financial statement analysis and risk assessments for corporate clients, supporting credit decisions and loan underwriting processes.
• Prepared detailed financial models and projections, assessing the viability and profitability of potential business opportunities.
• Assisted in the development of credit risk management strategies, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements and internal policies.
• Collaborated with relationship managers to provide financial insights and recommendations to clients, enhancing customer satisfaction and retention.

Master of Business Administration (MBA) University of XYZ, Anytown Expected Graduation: May 20XX

Bachelor of Science in Finance University of XYZ, Anytown May 20XX

• Financial analysis and modeling
• Investment management
• Risk assessment and management
• Strategic decision-making
• Budgeting and forecasting
• Financial reporting and presentations
• Market research and analysis
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills

Achievements

• Recognized as “Top Performer” for two consecutive years for exceptional financial analysis and strategic insights at ABC Corporation.
• Led the successful implementation of an automated financial modeling tool, resulting in a 20% reduction in time spent on financial analysis and improved accuracy.

Common Mistakes to Avoid in MBA Application Resumes

When it comes to crafting your MBA application resume, it’s essential to avoid certain mistakes to stand out from the competition. Here are some common mistakes to avoid:

Including irrelevant information

Your MBA application resume is not the place to showcase everything you’ve ever done; it should only highlight relevant experiences related to the program you’re applying to. Avoid adding irrelevant accomplishments like your high school debate awards or online courses unrelated to your MBA program. Instead, focus on your academic achievements, professional experience, and extracurricular activities that align with the MBA program’s goals.

Exaggerating or lying about your qualifications

While it may be tempting to overstate your accomplishments and qualifications on your resume, lying or exaggerating is a surefire way to ruin your chances of being accepted into an MBA program. Admissions committees have seen it all and can quickly sniff out dishonesty. Stick to the truth, and focus on highlighting your strengths, skills, and accomplishments genuinely.

Poor formatting and design choices

Your MBA application resume should be easy to read and visually appealing. Poor formatting and design choices can distract the reader and make it harder for them to understand your qualifications. Choose a clear and clean layout, select an appropriate font size and type, and use formatting consistently throughout. Consider using bullet points to make information more digestible and focus on making the most relevant information stand out.

Disorganized or confusing information

A disorganized or confusing MBA application resume can make it harder for admissions committees to understand your achievements truly. Make sure your resume is well-organized, with your most recent experiences at the top of each section. Use clear and concise language, avoid jargon or acronyms, and quantify your achievements wherever possible.

By avoiding these common mistakes, you’ll have a clean, concise, and compelling MBA application resume that stands out to admissions committees. With the right approach, you can demonstrate your qualifications and showcase why you’d make a valuable addition to any MBA program.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about MBA Application Resumes

How long should my mba application resume be.

Your MBA application resume should typically be one page long, but you can expand it to two pages if you have extensive work experience or have done notable projects in your field. Remember, the admissions committee will be reviewing hundreds of applications, and they will appreciate a resume that is clear, concise, and easy to navigate.

Can I use bullet points in my resume?

Yes, using bullet points in your MBA application resume is an excellent way of presenting your achievements and experiences. It creates a more organized and structured look for the reader and makes it easier for them to skim the content. However, make sure you use bullet points sparingly and ensure that each point is relevant to the degree program you are applying for.

Should I include my GPA in my resume?

It depends on what you’re trying to convey about yourself. Including your GPA is necessary if you’re highlighting academic achievements or just starting your career. MBA applicants who have gained work experience for several years generally offer less importance to academic marks or grades. Moreover, poor academics may lead to a ‘red flag’ effect in your application.

Do I need to list my personal interests on my resume?

Including personal interests on a resume is optional but can provide insight to the school’s admission committee about who you are outside of work. Your hobbies and interests can reflect a multimodal personality that can get along with other people or give an insight into your professional skills, such as leadership and teamwork.

How important is the resume in the MBA application process?

Your MBA application resume is just one part of your application package, but it is an essential one that can differentiate you from other candidates. The admissions committee will use your resume to understand your professional and academic background, along with any extracurricular activities or volunteer work. A well-crafted resume may be your chance to create a positive impression that may lead to an interview invitation or a successful admission.

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• MS Résumé Templates

MS Résumé Templates

How to start.

Read the CRC Résumé Writing Guide and all the instructions below before you begin. The CRC highly recommends students follow the guidelines for applying online with electronic résumés .

Preferred Template

Tips on Formatting Your Résumé Using Word Using the CRC template is important, but you may still want to watch this quick video to learn the MS Word hacks necessary to format your résumé professionally.

Sample Résumés

The following samples show a variety of formats, but the preferred version will yield more positive results.

Save your résumé to a USB or hard drive using your Last Name_First Name as the file name. Ex: Smith_John

Click on shaded areas in templates and appropriately enter your demographic, academic and employment information.

When applying online for jobs (not uploading documents), the CRC highly recommends students follow the guidelines for applying online with  electronic résumés .

Why use the template?

• Recruiters spend only seconds deciding whether to place a résumé in the trash pile or interview pile. To increase your chances of securing an interview, you want to create a résumé that effectively markets your qualifications in an error-free and easy-to-read format.
• By reducing the time and energy spent on formatting your résumé, the CRC résumé template helps you focus your attention on developing the résumé content that markets your unique experience and skills.
• Many other top management programs require students use a résumé template and recruiters are accustomed to screening candidates’ skills and experience via a résumé template.
• Customized for UB School of Management students, the CRC résumé template guides students in writing a résumé, but also offers the flexibility to make any adjustments if necessary.
• The CRC résumé template is a traditional style résumé that lists your professional experience chronologically, starting with your most recent position. The majority of résumés are written in this format, and this is also the format most employers are accustomed to seeing.

“Management-Focused” Bullet Points

Many of our incoming MS students have previous technical experience and the first drafts of the MS level résumés tend to focus on tasks instead of results or accomplishments. Consider what your potential employers in your future industries would want to know about your experiences and not just what your past employer would find interesting. Always have the reader in mind. Here is a before and after example that shows how to turn technical job description into more management-focused bullet points.

Before - needs improvement:

Infosys Technologies Ltd , Bangalore, India Software Engineer, 11/2014 – 05/2018

• Worked on applications for a European-based telecom company – platforms: Unix, Sybase, VMS and Oracle
• Provided technical support for these applications
• Noticed bottlenecks in the process
• Worked with others migrate of the application to the next generation software
• Conducted solution testing and maintained the solution testing environment of the application
• Ensured integrity of the applications by following change management procedures
• Proactively identified problems by installing checks early in the process

After - with enhancements:

• Managed applications on Unix, Sybase, VMS and Oracle platforms, which calculated commissions paid by a European-based telecom company to thousands of its dealers
• Provided technical support to users, appropriately selling additional services and applications
• Identified and resolved bottlenecks in the process and reduced the monthly batch processing time by 23%
• Coordinated with global team members to ensure the successful migration of the application to the next generation software
• Conducted solution testing and maintained the testing environment of the application, ensuring software released into production did not hinder with business continuity
• Ensured integrity of the applications by following change management procedures and identified problems by installing checks early in the process
• Accurately documented all processes, created progress and final reports for senior management and clients

Notice that the after version shows results with actual percentages and describes the value that the employee brought to the company. Take the time to think about the skills you developed that would be transferable to your future jobs and also try to show you were successful at the tasks you performed by using those skills. Our recommendation is to research job openings for positions you would plan to apply for in the future and see what skills and qualities the companies are requesting for those jobs. How can you show that you have developed those skills in your past positions already?

Expanding Your Bullets

If you are having trouble expanding your bullet statements, ask yourself the following questions:

• What relevant, transferable skills did I use or develop? 
• What results can I quantify and/or highlight?
• What was the purpose of my efforts?
• What effect did I have on my team, organization, or client?
• Did I collaborate with cross-functional teams and did I work with senior level staff?
• Did senior level staff use the work I produced, and if so, for what purpose?
• Was my work complex? How can I show this complexity with clarity?
• What would a future employer find valuable and relevant about the work that I did?
• Was I an outstanding performer? How would the recruiter know?

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How to Prepare a Resume for a Master’s Program

The rules for writing a resume or curriculum vitae (CV) for graduate school are a little different than they are for the ordinary job hunt, but the end goal is still the same: you want to make it is clear that your particular qualifications make you a good fit for this opportunity. These five tips will help you prepare the perfect resume for applying to a master’s program:

1. Resume Versus Curriculum Vitae

Depending on what type of master’s program you’re applying to, you may be asked to prepare either a resume or a CV. For instance, Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) or Master of Education (ME) programs can ask for either a resume or a CV, while MBA programs will ask for a resume. Both documents present a short history of your accomplishments, but a resume emphasizes professional accomplishments, while a CV emphasizes academic accomplishments. The two documents also tend to be formatted differently (for instance, a resume is usually one page while a CV is two pages), although neither document has a single standard format.

2. Emphasize Education

Because you’re applying for admission to an academic program, your resume or CV should emphasize academic accomplishments over professional accomplishments. You should also go into greater detail about your education than you would on your average professional resume. In addition to identifying your alma mater, degree earned and year of graduation, detail some of the more relevant classes you took and any academic honors you earned.

3. Include Volunteer Work and Internships

If you’re applying to graduate school straight out of undergrad, you may not have a lot of professional experience, but internships or volunteer work can tell admissions officers about your interests while demonstrating that you’re willing to work hard for reasons other than immediate material rewards. If you’re a professional looking to change fields, volunteer work or internships can also help to bridge the gap between your current profession and your desired field. Extracurricular activities are another way you can let admissions officers know about your personal passions and even your leadership experience.

4. Use Language that Makes an Impact

A resume is no place to waste words. Think about the language you use, and choose words carefully to convey as much as you can about your accomplishments in the minimal amount of space a resume provides. The Internet is full of clichés about writing resumes, and you should be careful about which tips you use as you update your resume. For example, writing in the active voice is good because it is efficient and conveys a sense of energy, but buzzwords like “dynamic” and “detail-oriented” will only tip off admissions officers to the fact that you read an article about how to write a resume.

5. Edit, Edit, Proofread

Regardless of what your specific accomplishments are, your resume should present them in a careful and polished manner. This document is a summary of your major accomplishments over the course of several years, and you should take pride in it. That means customizing it for each application, editing it carefully to make sure it presents your accomplishments in the best possible light for each particular program, and proofreading rigorously. A degree from “Harvfard” isn’t going to impress anyone. If you are not secure in your proofreading skills, ask a friend or colleague to read it through. It never hurts to have another reader take a look at your work and make sure it’s written in a clean, clear voice. —

Perhaps more than anything else, a resume conveys how you understand your own achievements. Which aspects of your educational and professional life you choose to emphasize and the language you use to describe the work you’ve done can tell admissions officers a lot about your attitude toward your own accomplishments. For that reason, it’s a good idea to take time to reflect on and celebrate what you’ve done before, during and after the resume-writing process. After all, you have to believe in your application before anyone else will.

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College Application Resume for 2024 [With Examples, Tips & Template]

They say college is the most exciting time in a student’s life and we couldn’t agree more! 

The only thing standing between you and your dream university, though, is a college application resume.

You open the resume document, get ready to start writing…

And nothing comes out! After all, how can you even make a resume when you haven’t worked a day in your life?

Worry not - you don’t need any work experience to write a compelling college application resume. In this article, we’re going to teach you just how you can do that!

What Should a Resume for College Application Contain?

• 5+ College Application Resume Formatting Tips
• How to Write a Resume for College Applications?
• 3+ College Application Resume Tips

College Application Resume Template

So let’s dive in! 

Before we get into the knits and grits of writing a resume for college application, let’s first do a quick review of what your resume should contain: 

• Contact information , including your full name, address, phone number, and professional email.
• A resume objective , where you state the goal of your college application resume.
• Education section , where you list the history of your grades and exam scores.
• Relevant activities , including any work experience you might have.
• Skills relevant to a resume for a college application, e.g. soft skills such as active listening, interpersonal skills, communication skills, or hard skills such as public speaking, MS Office, or computer skills.
• Additional sections , such as awards and honors.

6 College Application Resume Formatting Tips 

Before we dive into the nits and grits of CV making, let’s talk about formatting. Here are our top tips on how to format your college application resume: 

• Choose the functional/skills-based resume format. This format is perfect for those who lack work experience , as it focuses more on your skill-set. If you DO have some work experience, though, then you can opt for the chronological format.
• Keep your college application resume one page long . As a rule of thumb, this is the optimal length for a resume—professionals with 10 years worth of work experience stick to the 1-page limit, so there’s no excuse for someone with little to no work experience to go overboard.
• Add plenty of white space , especially around your resume’s margins. It will make your resume look less cluttered and more reader-friendly.
• Include clear section headings and use the same heading for each section.
• Use an easy-to-read font. Some resume fonts (such as Ubuntu or Overpass) are resume friendly—professional-looking, easy-to-read, and yet modern. Others, like Comic Sans, are just one big NO.
• Save your college resume as a PDF. You might be used to Microsoft Word, or even think it’s the safest alternative, but MS Word has a good choice of messing up your resume format if opened in different computers or operating systems. PDF files, on the other hand, remain the same no matter what computer opens them.

How to Write a Resume for College Applications? (With Examples)

Once you’ve got the formatting done right, it’s time to get to writing your college application resume.

In this section, we’ll walk you through that process, starting with:  

#1. Order Your Contact Information the Right Way 

As we already mentioned, your college application resume should start with your contact information. 

These are your contact information section must-haves :

• Full name and address
• Functional phone number where you can be reached.
• Professional email address, preferably consisting of your first and last name.

And here’s what this looks like in practice: 

Sharon White

123 Main Street

New York, NY

Phone Number: 553-123-1234

Email: [email protected]

#2. Write an Attention-Grabbing College Resume Objective

A resume objective is a 2-3 sentence long paragraph that should communicate your motivation for getting into college or for studying a specific major.

As such, a well-crafted resume objective can instantly attract admission officers to read the rest of your college application resume. 

There is, however, a right and wrong way to write a resume objective.

A convincing resume objective is:

• Tailored to the university/major you’re applying to, instead of looking like a one-fits-all kind of statement that you can use to apply to several colleges.
• Highlights the achievements that give you an edge over the competition.  

The following example does that right: 

Aspiring journalist with a knack for creative writing looking to deepen their knowledge through NYU’s renowned Journalism track. Founder of my high school’s first online newspaper, the ‘Daily Prophet,’ which now has over 2,000 subscribers. Hardworking, with a grade A average in social sciences and commitment to improving. 

Now compare it to the following resume objective, which although articulated looks like a one-fits-all kind of statement that you can just insert into several college applications. 

Very committed high-schooler with a calling for social sciences. With an SAT score of 1400, a passion for psychology, and experience as a peer counselor, I am confident that my hard work and motivation will shine through as a college student. 

See, the resume objective is your chance to show exactly why you want to attend that college, right from the start. 

So, even if you don’t have many achievements to highlight, make sure to personalize your statement by expressing a genuine interest in your application.  

#3. Put Weight on Your Education

Taking into consideration that, as a student, you most likely lack significant work experience, your education is the first thing admission officers will look at. 

As such, you should give your education its due importance in your college application resume. 

For starters, make sure to include this must-have information:

• Your high school’s name and location
• The date of your graduation

In addition, though, combine that with some relevant achievements that can make your education pop out. 

Let’s take a look at two examples. The second student has simply listed out the essential education information, whereas the first has taken their education section to the next level. 

Dunnellon High School FL

2017 - 2021

• 3rd place at the International Mathematical Olympiad 
• Vice-President of the Science Club
• SAT Scores: 1350 (650 Verbal, 700 Math)
• SAT Scores: 1400

#4. Showcase Relevant Activities

Extracurricular activities have a great number of benefits when it comes to your college application resume. Most importantly, they:

• Demonstrate you who are outside of the classroom
• Provide an opportunity to showcase your skills

Any activity and/or interest related to the college you’re applying to has a place on your college application resume,  but you don’t have to necessarily stop there. 

Any kind of interest, field, or activity where you’re good at can be of benefit to your application. 

That’s because it can prove that your interests are not focused solely on your favorite subject or desired career path and that you are engaged and well-rounded . 

So, don’t just list your college resume activities dryly (e.g. “reading” or “swimming”). Instead, be specific and creative about your interests, and rest assured that you will get extra points for diversity and commitment. 

Don’t believe us? Compare for yourself how the activities sections of two different students look like: the first has put minimal effort into it, whereas the second has put his A-game into writing it.

• Passionate about science
• Co-founder of the Astrophysics Club

Activities 

• Two-times winner of my high school’s Science Fair
• Co-founder of the Astrophysics Club, finalists of the MIT-founded THINK challenge
• Swimmer from an early age and member of my high school’s swim team during junior and senior year 
• Traveling; I have so far visited 10 countries and 15 states in the USA. 
• Photography, with a focus on architectural photography. 

#5. Highlight Your Work Experience

Now, if you’ve spent your summer holidays working any type of job for teens , that means that you also have some work experience under your belt. 

Although work experience is not necessary when you’re applying for college (meaning that you won’t get left out of college if you don’t have any), it does help to include it if you have it. 

Here’s how to list work experience in your college application resume:

• Start with the company name (e.g. if you worked at Starbucks), your job title, and the period you worked there. 
• Put your job title first if you worked, say, as a high-school tutor or camp counselor. 
• Include 1-2 of your main responsibilities in bullets. If you have achievements to show for, however, make sure to put them first.  

Let’s see how that works in a practical example.

Starbucks Coffee 

• Awarded employee of the month for 3 months straight
• Fielding customer complaints and questions
• Maintaining good customer service and speedy delivery

Even if the above position isn’t related to the student’s desired field of study, the work experience still highlights some of their skills such as commitment, time management, effective communication, and motivation.  

#6. Include Your Skills 

Skills—we all got them, but not everyone knows how to demonstrate them effectively in a college application resume. 

There are two things to consider when you include skills in your college resume:

• Know the kind of skills that are relevant to your major/field.
• Prove your skills, instead of just listing them 

Let’s show you how that works through practical examples:

• Time management
• Critical thinking

Are these great skills for a college applicant? Sure! 

But anyone can claim to have those skills (and frankly, most people do).

Rather than just listing these skills, you want to also back them up with achievements and experiences like so: 

• Attention to deadline: managed to update the high school’s online newspaper daily
• Leadership: successfully led a team of 6 reporters.
• Creativity: won the 2021 Young Writers competition 
• Self-motivation: founded the high school’s first online newspaper

Now, this is a skills section on a college application resume that proves you deserve a spot in your favorite university.

College application resume skills 

Wondering which skills to include in your college application resume? Here’s a list to draw some inspiration: 

Soft Skills

• Good judgment 
• Open-mindedness
• Communication  
• Self-motivation
• Interpersonal skills
• Active listening
• Problem-solving

Hard Skills

• Computer Skills
• Programming
• Public Speaking

#7. Use These Additional Sections

If you’ve followed all our tips till now, congrats - you’re around 90% into creating a top-notch college application resume.

Now, let’s talk about how you can take that to 100%!

In addition to the conventional resume sections we’ve covered till now, you can include the following to help you stand out in a sea of other applicants:

• Awards. Here, you can list any awards won in competitions (spelling, art, storytelling, math, etc). 
• Volunteer experience . Did you clean up your town, or maybe you volunteered at an animal rescue center as a high school student? Any kind of volunteering can help your college application resume because it shows you’re a responsible community member. If it’s somehow related to your field or future major, that’s a big plus. 
• Projects. Be them individual (e.g. you built a website from scratch, or started an informational podcast), or school-related (e.g. an art portfolio for a class, or a history documentary), projects can show that you’re passionate and creative. 
• Sports. Poet Juvenal said “ a healthy mind in a healthy body. ” This means that physical exercise is an important part of mental and psychological well-being (which is why sports in a college application resume make all applicants look good). Do you excel at specific sports? Include them in your resume!. 
• Languages. Being fluent (or even just a beginner) in a foreign language is another plus for a prospective college student. Make sure to show it in your college application resume. 

5 College Application Resume Tips

Finally, here are some of our college application tips that didn’t fit anywhere else in the article:

• Be direct and to the point. Your college application resume is not the right place to show how many SAT-level words you know. Keep your language simple, direct, and to the point. Let your achievements and results speak for themselves. 
• Don't lie about your academic background or accomplishments. Lying about the awards you’ve won or your achievements won’t get you into college. More often than not, admission officers will see through your lies by asking behavioral interview questions . 
• Proofread your college application resume.   Spelling and grammar mistakes can make you appear like a less serious applicant. Imagine telling recruiters that you have great SAT scores and GPA but having spelling mistakes in your resume. Kind of contradictory, isn’t it? To avoid these kinds of mistakes, use spelling and grammar apps such as Grammarly and Heminway . 
• Have one or more people look at your resume before you send it out. There are kinds of mistakes that Grammarly or Hemingway cannot catch. To avoid such mistakes, have one or more people that know you give your college application resume a look. 
• Emphasize specific achievements over general responsibilities. As mentioned before, emphasizing your achievements over your responsibilities is the best way to set yourself apart from other candidates. The reason is that your achievements effectively show how well you handle responsibilities and they are uniquely yours.

Making a resume from scratch can take what feels like ages—especially if it’s your first time doing it.

You’ve got to tweak the formatting. 

You make a change at MS Word and the layout falls apart in front of your eyes. Or you end up using a bland and outdated template. 

Well, you don’t have to worry about any of these things with Nóvóresume’s free resume templates . 

With 8 free templates to choose from - college application resume included - you don’t have to worry about anything other than inputting your information.

Let our resume builder do the rest! 

Key Takeaways

And that’s a wrap on college application resumes. We hope to have made the process of writing yours easier and even more enjoyable. 

For good measure, let’s go over the main points we covered: 

• Your college application resume should contain the following sections: contact information , personal profile , education section , relevant activities , your skills , and additional sections , such as awards and honors. 
• In terms of formatting, the functional resume template fits your college application best. Additionally, make sure to keep your resume one page long and save it as a PDF. 
• Write a resume objective that doesn’t surpass 3 sentences and that clearly communicates your motivation for getting into college and your most relevant skills. 
• Make sure to give your education section its due importance by being thorough about your grades, SAT scores, and achievements. 
• Don’t forget to list all your relevant activities and passions, as well as soft and hard skills.
• Instead of writing your college application resume from scratch, use one of Nóvóresume’s ready-made templates to save yourself time and effort!  

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5 MBA Application Resume Examples That Got Jobs in 2024

MBA Application Resume

• MBA Application 2
• MBA Application 3
• MBA Application 4
• MBA Application 5
• MBA Application Resume Writing 101

You’re a quick-witted and innovative professional looking to expand your knowledge. You’ve completed a lot, from managing numerous off-campus responsibilities to maintaining a high GPA in business courses. 

Does your resume template help cover all you’ve accomplished as you take the next step in your educational journey?

Getting accepted into your ideal school or program can come with its share of hoops to jump through. We’ve helped many MBA students achieve high acceptance rates, and starting with tips for writing a great cover letter and our MBA application resume examples will be a great asset in the process. 

or download as PDF

MBA Application 2 Resume

MBA Application 3 Resume

MBA Application 4 Resume

MBA Application 5 Resume

Related resume examples

• MBA Graduate
• MBA Student
• Grad School

What Matters Most: Your MBA Application Skills & Work Experience

The right skills to put on a resume can trip up many MBA applicants. It can be slightly different than the typical job skills you’d list on a resume since you may include a mix of professional and academic abilities.

When choosing skills, consider the program’s requirements. For instance, many MBA programs focus on business management and leadership, so including skills in those areas can be ideal.

Here are some top MBA application skills schools look for on resumes.

9 top MBA application skills

• Financial Modeling
• Data Visualization
• Microsoft Office
• Machine Learning
• Project Management
• Team Leadership
• Negotiation

Sample MBA application work experience bullet points

Many MBA programs require real work experience in business. Therefore, displaying what you’ve achieved on the job will be essential. 

The school admissions staff will want to see quantifiable examples of your achievements to know you’re the right fit. Good metrics to include would be sales increases, money saved, or performance efficiency. 

Additionally, if the school you’re applying to doesn’t require work experience or if you don’t have much to list, you can include examples from educational achievements, school clubs, or volunteer work as needed.

Here are a few samples:

• Performed financial analysis for a manufacturing firm, identifying 28 opportunities to reduce spending to improve margins by 48%.   
• Maintained operating costs within a 1% standard deviation for 3 years to avoid downsizing, saving 16 employee jobs.   
• Improved pricing schemes for product add-ons to boost sales revenue by 40%.  
• Studied diligently on economic variables and market analysis to maintain a 3.97 GPA in all core business courses for 4 years.      

Top 5 Tips for Your MBA Application Resume

• MBA programs are highly technical and will require a lot of diligent study to pass the courses. Therefore, including as much technical ability as possible, such as how you improved workflows and efficiency in company operations by 70%, will help you stand out as an applicant. 
• MBA admissions teams will always want to ensure they admit academically sound individuals. That starts with reviewing your resume for accuracy and grammatical errors to make a great first impression. 
• Reverse chronological formatting works best for MBA applicants. Admissions professionals will first want to see your most recent experiences to understand your current project management and team leadership abilities. Plus, it allows them to quickly look back and see how you’ve grown professionally and academically. 
• Choosing a resume template optimized with clear headers for educational and professional experience , bullet points, and easy-to-read font will help your MBA application look the most professional. It’s the same as submitting a well-formatted research paper in your classes to get the best grade. 
• Admissions teams get tons of applicants for MBA programs. You can help your primary skills stand out with short examples that include key metrics. For instance, one sentence on how you led a six-person market research team to discover 20 key data points for a promotional strategy would work well. 

Most MBA programs request that you submit a cover letter with your resume. To optimize for success, try to get a bit more personal about your passion for business or fill in more details about your achievements in financial modeling or negotiation that didn’t fit on your resume. 

A one-page resume is the best length. Everything should be concise, organized, and tailored to the program. For instance, your logistics or risk management skills would be good options to focus on in an MBA resume. 

You can make your MBA application resume stand out by including as much relevant data from your work experience as possible and formatting it professionally. For instance, achievements like improving profit margins or logistical efficiency could make you stand out over other applicants to the program. 

CV for University Application example

Getting into university and getting a degree will give you a huge head-start in your career, but getting into university isn’t easy

This guide contains an example University Applicant CV and plenty of tips on how to create your own winning CV, so you can stand out amongst the other candidates and get into the university of your dreams.

Guide contents

CV for University Application example 1

Cv for university application example 2.

• Structuring and formatting your CV
• Writing your CV profile
• Detailing work experience
• Your education

CV templates 

Unsure of what your University Applicant CV should look like?

Have a look at the CV example above to get familiar with the structure, layout and format of a professional CV.

As you can see, it provides plenty of relevant information about the applicant but is still very easy to read, and brief – which will please busy university recruiters.

University Applicant CV structure and format

The format and structure of your CV is important because it will determine how easy it is for recruiters and employers to read your CV.

If they can find the information they need quickly, they’ll be happy; but if they struggle, your application could be overlooked.

A simple and logical structure will always create a better reading experience than a complex structure, and with a few simple formatting tricks, you’ll be good to go.

Formatting Tips

• Length: Recruiters will be immediately put off by lengthy CVs – with hundreds of applications to read through, they simply don’t have the time! Grabbing their attention with a short, snappy and highly relevant CV is far more likely to lead to success. Aim for two sides of A4 or less.
• Readability : Make sure your CV is easy to read and looks professional by applying some simple formatting tricks. Bullet points are great for making large paragraphs more digestible, while formatting your headings with bold or coloured text will help the reader to find the information they need, with speed.
• Design: It’s generally best to stick to a simple CV design, as funky or elaborate designs rarely add any value to your application. A clear, modern font and a subtle colour scheme work perfectly and allow your skills, experience and achievements to speak for themselves.
• Avoid photos: Logos, profile photos or other images aren’t necessary and rarely add any value – save the space for written content, instead!

Structuring your CV

As you write your CV , work to the simple but effective structure below:

• Name and contact details – Pop them at the top of your CV, so it’s easy for recruiters to contact you.
• CV profile – Write a snappy overview of what makes you a good fit for the role; discussing your key experience, skills and accomplishments.
• Core skills section – Add a short but snappy list of your relevant skills and knowledge.
• Work experience – A list of your relevant work experience, starting with your current role.
• Education – A summary of your relevant qualifications and professional/vocational training.
• Hobbies and interests – An optional sections, which you could use to write a short description of any relevant hobbies or interests.

Now I’ll guide you through exactly what you should include in each CV section.

CV Contact Details

Tuck your contact details into the corner of your CV, so that they don’t take up too much space. Stick to the basic details, such as:

• Mobile number
• Email address – It should sound professional, such as your full name.
• Location -Just write your rough location, rather than your full address.
• LinkedIn profile or portfolio URL – If you include these, ensure they’re sleek, professional and up-to-date.

University Applicant CV Profile

Recruiters read through countless applications every day.

If they don’t find what they’re looking for quickly, they’ll simply move onto the next one.

That’s what makes your CV profile (or personal statement , if you’re an entry-level/graduate candidate) so important.

This short and snappy summary sits at the top of your CV, and should give a high-level overview of why you’re a good match for the university.

This way, you can ensure that busy recruiters see your suitability from the outset, and so, feel your CV is worth their time.

Tips for creating an impactful CV profile:

• Keep it brief: It might be tempting to submit a page-long CV profile, but recruiters won’t have the time to read it. To ensure every word gets read, it’s best to include high-level information only; sticking to a length of 3-5 lines.
• Tailor it: Before writing your CV, make sure to do some research. Figure out exactly what your desired employers are looking for and make sure that you are making those requirements prominent in your CV profile, and throughout.
• Don’t add an objective: Leave your career objectives or goals out of your profile. You only have limited space to work with, so they’re best suited to your cover letter .
• Avoid cliches: “Determined team player who always gives 110%” might seem like a good way to fill up your CV profile, but generic phrases like this won’t land you an interview. Recruiters hear them time and time again and have no real reason to believe them. Instead, pack your profile with your hard skills and tangible achievements.

What to include in your University Applicant CV profile?

• Summary of experience: Recruiters will want to know what type of companies you’ve worked for, industries you have knowledge of, and the type of work you’ve carried out in the past, so give them a summary of this in your profile.
• Relevant skills: Highlight your skills which are most relevant, to ensure that recruiters see your most in-demand skills as soon as they open your CV.
• Essential qualifications: Be sure to outline your relevant qualifications, so that anyone reading the CV can instantly see you are qualified for the universities you are applying to.

Quick tip: Your CV is your first impression on recruiters, so it’s vital to avoid spelling and grammar mistakes if you want to appear professional. Use our quick-and-easy CV Builder to add pre-written content that has been crafted by recruitment experts.

Core skills section

In addition to your CV profile, your core skills section provides an easily digestible snapshot of your skills – perfect for grabbing the attention of busy hiring managers.

As University places might receive a huge pile of applications, this is a great way to stand out and show off your suitability for the role.

It should be made up of 2-3 columns of bullet points and be made up of skills that are highly relevant to the universities you are targeting.

Work experience/Career history

Next up is your work experience section, which is normally the longest part of your CV.

Start with your current (or most recent) job and work your way backwards through your experience.

Can’t fit all your roles? Allow more space for your recent career history and shorten down descriptions for your older roles.

Structuring your roles

If you don’t pay attention to the structure of your career history section, it could quickly become bulky and overwhelming.

Get in recruiters’ good books by creating a pleasant reading experience, using the 3-step structure below:

Begin with a summary of your role, detailing what the purpose of your job was, who you reported to and what size of team you were part of (or led).

Key responsibilities

Next, write up a punchy list of your daily duties and responsibilities, using bullet points.

Wherever you can, point out how you put your hard skills and knowledge to use – especially skills which are applicable to your target role.

Key achievements

Finish off by showcasing 1-3 key achievements made within the role.

This could be anything that had a positive effect on your company, clients or customers, such as saving time or money, receiving exemplary feedback or receiving an award.

At the bottom of your CV is your full education section. You can list your formal academic qualifications, such as:

• GCSE’s

As well as any specific qualifications that are essential to the jobs you are applying for. Note down the name of the qualification, the organisation at which you studied, and the date of completion.

Interests and hobbies

This section is entirely optional, so you’ll have to use your own judgement to figure out if it’s worth including.

If your hobbies and interests could make you appear more suitable for your dream job, then they are definitely worth adding.

Interests which are related to the industry, or hobbies like sports teams or volunteering, which display valuable transferable skills might be worth including.

Writing your University Applicant CV

An interview-winning CV for a University Application needs to be both visually pleasing and packed with targeted content.

Whilst it needs to detail your experience, accomplishments and relevant skills, it also needs to be as clear and easy to read as possible.

Remember to research the role and review the university before applying, so you’re able to match yourself up to the requirements.

If you follow these guidelines and keep motivated in your university search, you should land an interview in no time.

Best of luck with your next application!

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What Researchers Discovered When They Sent 80,000 Fake Résumés to U.S. Jobs

Some companies discriminated against Black applicants much more than others, and H.R. practices made a big difference.

By Claire Cain Miller and Josh Katz

A group of economists recently performed an experiment on around 100 of the largest companies in the country, applying for jobs using made-up résumés with equivalent qualifications but different personal characteristics. They changed applicants’ names to suggest that they were white or Black, and male or female — Latisha or Amy, Lamar or Adam.

On Monday, they released the names of the companies . On average, they found, employers contacted the presumed white applicants 9.5 percent more often than the presumed Black applicants.

Yet this practice varied significantly by firm and industry. One-fifth of the companies — many of them retailers or car dealers — were responsible for nearly half of the gap in callbacks to white and Black applicants.

Two companies favored white applicants over Black applicants significantly more than others. They were AutoNation, a used car retailer, which contacted presumed white applicants 43 percent more often, and Genuine Parts Company, which sells auto parts including under the NAPA brand, and called presumed white candidates 33 percent more often.

In a statement, Heather Ross, a spokeswoman for Genuine Parts, said, “We are always evaluating our practices to ensure inclusivity and break down barriers, and we will continue to do so.” AutoNation did not respond to a request for comment.

Companies With the Largest and Smallest Racial Contact Gaps

Of the 97 companies in the experiment, two stood out as contacting presumed white job applicants significantly more often than presumed Black ones. At 14 companies, there was little or no difference in how often they called back the presumed white or Black applicants.

Source: Patrick Kline, Evan K. Rose and Christopher R. Walters

Known as an audit study , the experiment was the largest of its kind in the United States: The researchers sent 80,000 résumés to 10,000 jobs from 2019 to 2021. The results demonstrate how entrenched employment discrimination is in parts of the U.S. labor market — and the extent to which Black workers start behind in certain industries.

“I am not in the least bit surprised,” said Daiquiri Steele, an assistant professor at the University of Alabama School of Law who previously worked for the Department of Labor on employment discrimination. “If you’re having trouble breaking in, the biggest issue is the ripple effect it has. It affects your wages and the economy of your community going forward.”

Some companies showed no difference in how they treated applications from people assumed to be white or Black. Their human resources practices — and one policy in particular (more on that later) — offer guidance for how companies can avoid biased decisions in the hiring process.

A lack of racial bias was more common in certain industries: food stores, including Kroger; food products, including Mondelez; freight and transport, including FedEx and Ryder; and wholesale, including Sysco and McLane Company.

“We want to bring people’s attention not only to the fact that racism is real, sexism is real, some are discriminating, but also that it’s possible to do better, and there’s something to be learned from those that have been doing a good job,” said Patrick Kline, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, who conducted the study with Evan K. Rose at the University of Chicago and Christopher R. Walters at Berkeley.

The researchers first published details of their experiment in 2021, but without naming the companies. The new paper, which is set to run in the American Economic Review, names the companies and explains the methodology developed to group them by their performance, while accounting for statistical noise.

Sample Résumés From the Experiment

Fictitious résumés sent to large U.S. companies revealed a preference, on average, for candidates whose names suggested that they were white.

To assign names, the researchers started with a prior list that had been assembled using Massachusetts birth certificates from 1974 to 1979. They then supplemented this list with names found in a database of speeding tickets issued in North Carolina between 2006 and 2018, classifying a name as “distinctive” if more than 90 percent of people with that name were of a particular race.

The study includes 97 firms. The jobs the researchers applied to were entry level, not requiring a college degree or substantial work experience. In addition to race and gender, the researchers tested other characteristics protected by law , like age and sexual orientation.

They sent up to 1,000 applications to each company, applying for as many as 125 jobs per company in locations nationwide, to try to uncover patterns in companies’ operations versus isolated instances. Then they tracked whether the employer contacted the applicant within 30 days.

A bias against Black names

Companies requiring lots of interaction with customers, like sales and retail, particularly in the auto sector, were most likely to show a preference for applicants presumed to be white. This was true even when applying for positions at those firms that didn’t involve customer interaction, suggesting that discriminatory practices were baked in to corporate culture or H.R. practices, the researchers said.

Still, there were exceptions — some of the companies exhibiting the least bias were retailers, like Lowe’s and Target.

The study may underestimate the rate of discrimination against Black applicants in the labor market as a whole because it tested large companies, which tend to discriminate less, said Lincoln Quillian, a sociologist at Northwestern who analyzes audit studies. It did not include names intended to represent Latino or Asian American applicants, but other research suggests that they are also contacted less than white applicants, though they face less discrimination than Black applicants.

The experiment ended in 2021, and some of the companies involved might have changed their practices since. Still, a review of all available audit studies found that discrimination against Black applicants had not changed in three decades. After the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, such discrimination was found to have disappeared among certain employers, but the researchers behind that study said the effect was most likely short-lived.

Gender, age and L.G.B.T.Q. status

On average, companies did not treat male and female applicants differently. This aligns with other research showing that gender discrimination against women is rare in entry-level jobs, and starts later in careers.

However, when companies did favor men (especially in manufacturing) or women (mostly at apparel stores), the biases were much larger than for race. Builders FirstSource contacted presumed male applicants more than twice as often as female ones. Ascena, which owns brands like Ann Taylor, contacted women 66 percent more than men.

Neither company responded to requests for comment.

The consequences of being female differed by race. The differences were small, but being female was a slight benefit for white applicants, and a slight penalty for Black applicants.

The researchers also tested several other characteristics protected by law, with a smaller number of résumés. They found there was a small penalty for being over 40.

Overall, they found no penalty for using nonbinary pronouns. Being gay, as indicated by including membership in an L.G.B.T.Q. club on the résumé, resulted in a slight penalty for white applicants, but benefited Black applicants — although the effect was small, when this was on their résumés, the racial penalty disappeared.

Under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, discrimination is illegal even if it’s unintentional . Yet in the real world, it is difficult for job applicants to know why they did not hear back from a company.

“These practices are particularly challenging to address because applicants often do not know whether they are being discriminated against in the hiring process,” Brandalyn Bickner, a spokeswoman for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said in a statement. (It has seen the data and spoken with the researchers, though it could not use an academic study as the basis for an investigation, she said.)

What companies can do to reduce discrimination

Several common measures — like employing a chief diversity officer, offering diversity training or having a diverse board — were not correlated with decreased discrimination in entry-level hiring, the researchers found.

But one thing strongly predicted less discrimination: a centralized H.R. operation.

The researchers recorded the voice mail messages that the fake applicants received. When a company’s calls came from fewer individual phone numbers, suggesting that they were originating from a central office, there tended to be less bias . When they came from individual hiring managers at local stores or warehouses, there was more. These messages often sounded frantic and informal, asking if an applicant could start the next day, for example.

“That’s when implicit biases kick in,” Professor Kline said. A more formalized hiring process helps overcome this, he said: “Just thinking about things, which steps to take, having to run something by someone for approval, can be quite important in mitigating bias.”

At Sysco, a wholesale restaurant food distributor, which showed no racial bias in the study, a centralized recruitment team reviews résumés and decides whom to call. “Consistency in how we review candidates, with a focus on the requirements of the position, is key,” said Ron Phillips, Sysco’s chief human resources officer. “It lessens the opportunity for personal viewpoints to rise in the process.”

Another important factor is diversity among the people hiring, said Paula Hubbard, the chief human resources officer at McLane Company. It procures, stores and delivers products for large chains like Walmart, and showed no racial bias in the study. Around 40 percent of the company’s recruiters are people of color, and 60 percent are women.

Diversifying the pool of people who apply also helps, H.R. officials said. McLane goes to events for women in trucking and puts up billboards in Spanish.

So does hiring based on skills, versus degrees . While McLane used to require a college degree for many roles, it changed that practice after determining that specific skills mattered more for warehousing or driving jobs. “We now do that for all our jobs: Is there truly a degree required?” Ms. Hubbard said. “Why? Does it make sense? Is experience enough?”

Hilton, another company that showed no racial bias in the study, also stopped requiring degrees for many jobs, in 2018.

Another factor associated with less bias in hiring, the new study found, was more regulatory scrutiny — like at federal contractors, or companies with more Labor Department citations.

Finally, more profitable companies were less biased, in line with a long-held economics theory by the Nobel Prize winner Gary Becker that discrimination is bad for business. Economists said that could be because the more profitable companies benefit from a more diverse set of employees. Or it could be an indication that they had more efficient business processes, in H.R. and elsewhere.

Claire Cain Miller writes about gender, families and the future of work for The Upshot. She joined The Times in 2008 and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for public service for reporting on workplace sexual harassment issues. More about Claire Cain Miller

Josh Katz is a graphics editor for The Upshot, where he covers a range of topics involving politics, policy and culture. He is the author of “Speaking American: How Y’all, Youse, and You Guys Talk,” a visual exploration of American regional dialects. More about Josh Katz

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Employment Discrimination: Researchers sent 80,000 fake résumés to some of the largest companies in the United States. They found that some discriminated against Black applicants much more than others .

Pandemic School Closures: ​A variety of data about children’s academic outcomes and about the spread of Covid-19 has accumulated since the start of the pandemic. Here is what we learned from it .

Affirmative Action: The Supreme Court effectively ended race-based preferences in admissions. But will selective schools still be able to achieve diverse student bodies? Here is how they might try .

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