Is your Education section taking up too much space on your resume?  Are you finding it hard to fit in all the information you think is important?

Here are some of your resume Education section questions answered – maybe even questions you didn’t know you had!  These tips will help you pack in lots of information without taking up half the space on your resume.

1. Should the Education section come first or last?

If you are a new graduate from college or graduate school, or if you are applying to graduate school, your Education section genrally goes FIRST on your resume (after your header). Why? Because it’s what you’ve done most recently, and/or it is most relevant. (If you are unsure as to what is most relevant in your particular situation, ask an expert for advice.)

If you have been in the working world for 2 years or more, your Experience section will more likely come first, and Education might be last or close to last on your resume.

2.     What should the basic format be?

1. List your educational institutions in reverse chronological order, just as you do with your employment history.
2. The most important part of each school section is the name of the school you attended. Put it in bold and/or Small Caps, followed by the city and state. Use the same format you use for your employers.
3. Next put the degree you received. If you are anticipating a degree, write “Candidate for B.A,” “B.S. expected,” or “M.A. anticipated.” Fill in the appropriate degree of course.

Here’s an example (click image for full size):

You might like a centered format if your Education section is toward the end of the resume.  For example (click image for full size): 

3. Do I need a separate line for my GPA and for each of my honors?

If you need to save space, there is no need to put your GPA and honors all on separate lines. You can combine these onto one line, and you can even put them on the same line as your major. How you combine things will depend on how much room you have on other lines. Here are some possibilities:

1. BA in Political Science, cum laude, 2006 (GPA: 3.41)
2. Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, concentration in Psychology, May 2005
   Major GPA: 3.73; Cumulative GPA: 3.683

4. How should I list Honors and Activities?

You do not need an entirely separate section for either Honors or Activities. Only create these separate sections if you need to fill space! Instead, put them under the appropriate school.

Do you have a lot of honors and/or activities? If you need space, you can group them together. For instance, you can have a bullet that says “Honors:” and name your honors, separated by semicolons. Then have a bullet that says “Activities:” and list your activities, separated by semicolons. Not sure how to handle the dates of all these things? Try putting them in parentheses after the honor or activity, and before the semicolon.

Examples:

1. Honors: Undergraduate Honors Thesis Research Grant (Honors Program award); Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society; Golden Key International Honour Society
2. Honors: Dean’s List (2006-2009); Baylor University Alumni Scholarship (2005-2009); Greek Women’s Leadership Award (2009); Midwest Conference Academic All Conference Team (2008 and 2009)
3. Activities: Latino/a Student Association, Secretary (2006-2007), Delegate/Community Service Committee (2005-2007); Mexican Student Organization, Social Chair (2005-2006); South American Student Association, Member (2004-2007)
4. Activities: Varsity Women’s Basketball Team, Four Year Letter Winner; Pi Beta Phi Fraternity, Board Director (2006-2007) and Member (2004-2007); University Chapel Choir, Member (2004-2007)

5. Do I need a separate section for Study Abroad?

No! Study abroad is part of your undergraduate education. It can be a bullet, or if you want to emphasize it because of your international interest or language ability, you can bold it. Do not put a space between your undergraduate degree section and the study abroad section, unless you need to fill space.

Example of bullet format:

[end of undergraduate section here]
•      Junior-year semester at University of East Anglia, Norwich, England (1993)

Example of bolded section under undergraduate section:

[end of undergraduate section here]
Reid Hall, Columbia University, Paris, France
Summer 2003 Study Abroad (Coursework: 19th Century French Painting, French Language)

6. How long should the Education section be?

Unless you’ve earned five different degrees from five different schools already, your education section generally should take up a maximum of a third of a page. This means it’s important to get Experience to put on your resume and not rely on your Education to get you a job!
Implementing these 6 suggestions will give you a great start on the Education section of your resume, making it both efficient and effective.

Did these tips help you with your resume?  Please comment below.

I have received many inquiries lately from clients who think it’s a good idea to copy their current job description into their resumes, and/or copy the job description of the position they’re applying for into their resumes.

I STRONGLY recommend against both tactics.

1. Copying current job descriptions:

Your current job description is just a list of job duties.  The cardinal rule for resumes in today’s job market is to write your resume as a list of achievements and accomplishments, NOT as a list of job duties!  I would go so far as to say that your job description has very little to do with what you actually do and accomplish in your position.

I’ll take myself as an example.  The job description for my current position at the University of Wisconsin Law School says that I counsel students on their legal career search.  It doesn’t say what my success rate is, or how creatively I work with students’ cover letters and resumes, or that I created a PowerPoint presentation on Resumes for Law Students.  It doesn’t mention the 5 job search resource manuals I created for various big cities across the United States.  It doesn’t mention the positive feedback I get from the students I work with.

It is my job to put these successes, which are nowhere to be found in my job description, into my resume.  They speak much more to what I will accomplish in my next position than that I “assist students with resumes and cover letters.”

Guess what?  You don’t need your current job description to write your resume.  Just write about the things you’ve really done that will be relevant and impressive to the reader.

2. Copying future job descriptions:

I’m willing to bet that a lot of people make this mistake.  If you make it too, you will have a lot of company from people who do not get called for interviews.  Copying and pasting requires no creativity and actually makes it appear that you did NOT do the things you claim you did.  All it does is show a hiring manager or HR person that you can cut and paste.

Instead, FIRST write your resume to highlight your accomplishments.  Create the best document you can create.  AFTER you have put together a great resume, THEN see if there are small tweaks you can make to include some of the keywords from the future job description.

For instance, I recently worked with a client applying for a Senior IT Director position.  The position description listed “Develop and approve exceptions to policy…”  His finished resume did not have the phrase “exceptions to policy” in it, but he worked with exceptions to policy regularly.  He was able to add this phrase into an already existing bullet regarding his program management accomplishments.

In general, when crafting a winning resume, truth and honesty are the best policy.  Don’t get lazy or think you’re “working the system” by using the cut and paste functions on your keyboard.  What will get you an interview is your unique accomplishments.  Focus on those and you will see success in your job search.

Still need some help to make your resume great? Contact The Essay Expert about our Resume and Cover Letter Services.