RESUME CHECKLIST
When applying for Villanova in the Office of Veterans and Military Service Members, ensure you go over our resume checklist to confirm everything is in order.
- Ensure the layout is easy-to-read and includes quantifiable details for a recruiter to notice when skimming your resume
- Write with 9- to 11- point basic font and 1/2- to 1-inch margins
- Confirm fonts, headers, bullet points and formatting are consistent throughout your resume
- Construct with a simple design as a Word document avoiding templates, images, headers, graphics and columns; Applicant Tracking Systems cannort decipher these elements
- Avoid first-person singular or possessives like I, me and my
- Use past-tense verbs for past experiences, present-tense verbs for current roles
- Place contact information including name, phone number, professional email address and LinkedIn public profile URL at the top of your document
- Arrange professional experience in reverse chronological order with your recent job first
- List work experience above education
- Include skills, licenses, certifications, professional affiliations, volunteerism, etc. below work experience
- List all roles held during your time in the military as individual positions with content describing the responsibilities
- Identify transferrable skill sets and themes from each military position (ex. responsibilities held within functions of supply chain management, personnel, finance, operations, procurement, etc.) so that recruiters can more readily identify match to civilian roles
- Quantify accomplishments as much as possible by using numbers, percentages and descriptive adjectives
- Use keywords from each job posting in your summary statement - a concise overview of who you are, skills and experience you have and where you are going
- Tailor descriptions to the job posting to which you are applying in a way that sells you as the perfect candidate for the job and your alignment to transition to a civilian position
- Start bullet points with action verbs and try not to use the same action verb twice
- Summarize your role in the first bullet point of each job and describe the employer
- Highlight your accomplishments and impact of job responsibilities, not just duties and activities
- Include more bullets for your most relevant experiences and fewer bullets for least relevant
- Exemplify additional skills by including community, volunteer or other experience
- Avoid abbreviations, company-specific terms and repetitive language
- Double-check for errors in spelling, grammar, formatting and other inconsistencies
- Save the document in PDF format with a professional file name
- Ask a friend or mentor to proofread the final version with a fresh set of eyes