Resume
An effective graduate school resume should showcase your relevant experience and background
While writing your resume, keep in mind its purpose is to identify your suitability based on your educational qualifications and professional experience.
Organize Your Resume in the Following Way:
- Personal contact details
- Education
- Experience
- Awards/achievements
- Professional or academic affiliations
Focus on Your Education
Your graduate school resume should focus on highlighting your education. Include your educational experience at or near the top of the resume, with your school names and majors/minors, graduation dates and GPAs. You can include major test scores if you feel they show you are ready for graduate study.
Highlight Your Professional Skills
Particularly if you’ve been out of school for some time, you’ll want to focus on the skills you’ve been developing. You should list your work experience underneath the education section, but focus on the most relevant jobs you’ve had. You should try not to go into depth explaining jobs not related to the program you are applying to.
Technical Knowledge and Experience
Showcase your strong interest in the area you want to study! Mention any relevant projects or courses you’ve undertaken outside of school, for example on Coursera or EdX. Be sure to include your involvement with extracurricular clubs, honors and awards!
Showcase Your Achievements
This section should include anything that makes you stand out from other candidates. You can include honors and awards, being on the Dean’s List, leadership experience, volunteering and internships or apprenticeships. Describe projects and papers if any— stress technical aspects.
Design and Format
Just like your career resume, your graduate school resume should be no more than one page long. Ensure it is concise and easy to read, with a clean format and no errors/typos. Admissions officers are tasked with reading through lots of applications, so you’ll want to make it as clear as possible. Be sure to submit your resume as either a .pdf or .docx and double check your formatting!