Professional Documents
A strong resume and cover letter are vital as they serve as your primary opportunity to showcase your unique skills and experiences, greatly enhancing the chances of securing interviews and landing internships and jobs.
Resumes
A resume is a summary of your qualifications and a display of your skill sets relevant to the job description. The goal is to present a clear, concise, easy-to-read document that makes the reviewer want to interview you. You have approximately six seconds to make a strong first impression with your resume!
Resume Guidelines
- Write your own resume — avoid copying a friend or using a pre-formatted resume template.
- Set yourself apart from your peers. When writing your resume, think about what makes you unique or more qualified than those you are applying against.
- Use an assortment of strong action verbs that align your skillset to the company's needs.
- Proofread! Avoid "resume killers" such as spelling, capitalization, grammar, and punctuation errors. A single error might disqualify you.
- Be truthful. The last thing you want is to oversell your ability to perform and lose the job in the interview. Avoid words like expert, specialist, guru, etc.
- Avoid personal/discriminatory information such as SSN, pictures, and references to age, religion, or ethnicity.
- Put references on a completely different page. Do not include them on your resume.
- Avoid listing responsibilities or duties and focus instead on accomplishments. Your resume shouldn't read like a job description.
- Customize your resume by using keywords from the job posting as often as possible. Most corporations use a computerized ATS system that scans submitted resumes for keywords that indicate that an applicant fits a particular job.
- Use only one page if you are an undergraduate student or recent graduate with less than five years of experience.
- Utilize bullet points instead of paragraphs.
- Do not use less than .5" margins or 11-point font. This is easiest on the reader's eyes.
- Be consistent with your formatting: bolds, italics, spacing alignment, capitalization, dashes, dates, etc. Make it look the same from top to bottom.
- Use reverse chronological order, meaning your most recent experiences are listed first.
Cover Letters
A cover letter is a formal document submitted alongside a resume. It serves as your personalized introduction to potential employers by highlighting relevant qualifications, skills, and experiences, demonstrating why you are a suitable fit for the position.
Workshops and Appointments
The Rawls Career Management Center (CMC) hosts multiple resume and cover letter workshops each semester. These workshops will get you started on creating your professional documents. Additionally, you can make an appointment through your Handshake account to meet with a career coach to get personal advice related to your professional documents.
Rawls College of Business
-
Address
Rawls College of Business, Box 42101, 703 Flint Avenue, Lubbock, TX 79409 -
Phone
806.742.3188 -
Email
ba_webmaster@ttu.edu