Training for College: The Resume

A resume is a brief summary of what you have done in your professional career up to the most recent point. It can include current and past jobs, volunteer opportunities, study abroad programs, and organizations which you belong to. Now you might say, "I'm just a freshman, why do I need a resume?" While it may not be easy to get an internship at 18 or 19 years old and with just a semester of school under your belt, building a resume early has some positive aspects:

• More time to improve it. If you start resume building early, you have more time to perfect it. Take advantage of resume bootcamps and other resume building activities.
• Being able to drop your name. While getting the internship of a lifetime may be hard to do your first try, having a couple resumes on deck to drop at a career or internship fair will greatly help your chances of finding an internship.
• Even if you're just a freshman, make sure to always go to internship/career fairs. Yes, they are mostly looking for upperclassmen with a little more knowledge and experience under their belt; however, these places can be great learning opportunities. When I went to my first career fair, I took my internship coordinator's advice and asked each station what they look for in an internship candidate and what can I do to make myself more marketable to their program.
• Some classes take time out of their schedule for resume building. If you already have a resume, you are no longer starting from square one and you can use this time to improve on what you have.
• Get your story straight. In just my freshman year, I've learned three different ways on how to construct a resume. For example, my internship coordinator told me to include a brief summary of what a company I worked for did, while two other resume experts told me it wasn't a good idea to include that. Makes building a resume a bit difficult, right? The earlier you start, the more time you have to find the style that best works for you and your career choice.

Here are some reasons that building a resume early is the way to go! Your resume may not come out perfect the first time, but the earlier you start building it the better it'll be in the end.

Thanks for reading!

~Anthony