Society of Women Engineers - UWM

Tips for Drafting Your Resume
Provided by our very own UWM CEAS Career Services


  • Content of resumes, cover letters and interviews should be focused on the position and employer, not yourself. This means for every new position you apply for, you must tweak your resume to custom-fit the position you are courting.
  • Keep your resume to ONE FULL PAGE. No more, no less. Anything more will lose attention spans. Anything less appears too sparse.
  • Information to include:
    • CONTACT INFORMATION - Your full name, email address, appropriate telephone (WITH appropriate voicemail greeting prepared for that phone, if you are ever unable to answer it), and permanent address. Often times with college students moving year by year, citing your parents' or guardians' address is acceptable.

    • OBJECTIVE - This is a simple, concise one sentence explaining what type of position you are seeking. Example: "Seeking an internship in the manufacturing industry to sharpen my supply chain management skills."

    • EDUCATION - Current students or new graduates should list their education information first. Alumni can list it after the work experience section. List most recent education first. Be sure to include your degree, major, institution, minor, etc. Include your GPA if it is a 2.75 or higher. Also include year in school and/or expected graduation.

    • SKILLS/ACHIEVEMENTS/COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENTS - These three marketing tools can really be grouped into one section. This is the place for you to list academic honors, scholarships, student organizations you're involved in (ahem - SWE!), computer skills, volunteer activities, etc. Keep in mind that you do NOT list any internship or co-op experience here. Those are both actually considered work experience, and belong in the next section.

    • WORK EXPERIENCE - This is the time to give the employer the opportunity to view your work experience. List your work experience in reverse chronological order, i.e. put your most current position first and work backwards. Often times you will not include all of your past work experience. List what is most relevant and what you have room for. This means if you are a senior or junior in college, there is no reason to list a position you might have held as a freshman in high school.

      Use action words that describe what your job responsibilities are/were and try to highlight the skills that could be most transferable to other positions. Use action verbs such as 'designed,' 'coordinated,' 'programmed,' etc. When possible include descriptions that would quantify your activities or improvements made to the company. Example: "Shortened customer service queuing time by 8%."

      If you are currently in the position, use present tense. If you are no longer in that position, use past tense. Be sure to include title of position, length of time in that position, employers name; city and state location of the company.

    • REFERENCES - It is never too early to start thinking about who could be a potential reference for you when it comes to the employment verification process. Think of people that you have had recent academic, work or leadership interactions with. A supervisor or co-worker, a professor, the advisor of a student group that you are active with. Most employers will request 3 or 5 references.

      When asking a person to be a reference for you, make sure you ask it with the opportunity for them to decline. This is not a good time to push your connections around or make them feel cornered.

      Do NOT INCLUDE your reference information on your resume. You may list "References furnished on request" at the bottom of your resume if space allows. This honors the privacy of your references, allowing the only way for your interviewers to obtain your references, to be through you. It also gives you time to individually contact each one of your arranged references to prepare them with what to say and what to know, when the interviewer calls them to do a background check on you.

      Of course, when the interviewing company asks you to 'furnish your references,' please do it.



    You're off to a great start now. Good luck with the remainder of the hiring process!!


    Last updated: March 1, 2008