Okay, so you have just come off an awesome internship with lots of great real-world experience. Now, you are getting ready to get back into the academic mindset for the upcoming school year. That’s great, but pretty much as soon as you step back onto campus, the job hunt for the next summer’s internship starts. But hold on, you’re not only older and wiser this time around, but you also have an experience working in the real world that just ended about 3 weeks ago. It’s time to update your resume (ideally before the career expo).
Before getting into the nitty-gritty details, take a step back and look at your experience holistically: industry skills you have learned/developed, insights into the industry, leadership experience, etc. Write these down on a separate sheet of paper. Now, think about how those things that you have learned would be applied to the job you want next summer. This is going to be what you want to put on your resume so that you can tailor the resume to the position.
After selecting 2-3 of the most significant developments in your skillset, start thinking about the details of your experience to back these claims up. Make sure to keep these details concise and applicable to your desired future position, using technical jargon that is found in the job description. These will become your bullet points to describe your experience. Be sure to start off each bullet point with a strong action verb.
Now that you have your internship experience summarized in three lines, it is time to insert it into your resume. You should organize your experiences section in reverse chronological order (so the most recent experience is on top).
If you run out of room on your resume and cannot reformat to keep it to one page, remove an experience you deem least relevant to the job experience you want to pursue. If you are still having problems, try shrinking the font (but no less than size 10, because then it is hard to read).
Your experiences section has been updated, but make sure to also update your skills section. If you have learned or progressed in proficiency in a particular program during your experience, add this new skill to your skill section. However, try to avoid adding vague skills that are not easily quantifiable. As a rule of thumb, if someone cannot test your skill quickly and easily, you probably shouldn’t add it to your skillset. For instance, do not add “communication” to your list of skills (too vague). Instead, better options would be Python, Matlab, Solidworks, Excel, Spanish, etc. You either know how to use these programs or you don’t. You either can speak Spanish fluently or you can’t.
After updating your resume with all the cool stuff from your internship, be sure to upload the latest version on RICElink: Powered by Handshake. You should also input your internship experience directly onto your RICElink profile as well as your LinkedIn.
Thanks for reading this all the way through, and be sure to visit the CCD for more career-related help, while also exploring the new RICElink: Powered by Handshake.
Jacob Song is a Peer Career Advisor from Wiess College. He is a sophomore studying mechanical engineering.
