Four ways to spring clean your resume

By Vicki Salemi, career expert at Monster.com

Spring is in the air and your closet may not be the only thing needing a purge. Your resume might be due for an overhaul or at least a little freshening up. Clearing out the clutter helps create clarity. 

Similarly, tweaking your resume can help you stand out to recruiters for a coveted internship or full-time job offer. Whether you ramp it up with power verbs or identify what recruiters spend merely seconds reviewing (yes, you read that right–seconds), it’s all good. Here are several ways to spring clean that resume.

Update your experience

Recently completed a super fun and exciting study abroad internship? Include it. Better yet, make sure it shines at the top of your resume. Working on a thesis with your favorite professor? Great! Include it.

Here’s the thing: when I worked in recruiting, it wasn’t a deal breaker when students hadn’t completed an experience or finished acquiring a specific skill. If they included it on their resume with an anticipated completion date, that was fine. 

Also, your experience isn’t limited to hands-on internship experiences. Many employers look for well-rounded employees. If you’re learning a second language or volunteering or traveled during that study abroad, you can include it in a special section. All of this is relevant.

Change the order

This is one of my favorite go-to’s because honestly, it’s usually the fastest and easiest. First, your resume can look fresh in your eyes if you move the most recent skills and experiences toward the top. By pushing your less recent experience toward the bottom, you’re organically going to talk about and be asked about the most recent section on your resume.

Similarly in this vein, your resume should mirror the job description you’re pursuing. It goes without saying that your resume should always be 100 percent accurate and honest to your skills and experiences, but you should always compare the job description you’re pursuing to your resume to change the order of your resume to match the order of the job description as best you can. It’s an easier scan for the recruiter to connect the dots with what they’re looking for.

Trim the excess

Just like cleaning out your closet with clothes you haven’t worn in years, look at unnecessary jargon on your resume, unnecessary details and repetitive bullet points. If you repeat yourself, omit it. You’re better off with a little extra space on your resume than feeling like you have to complete the whole page by duplicating your achievements. 

Refresh the design and format

Without reading your resume, simply glance at it. Does it look easy on the eyes and visually clean? Use consistent fonts, headings, and spacings. Your resume can stand out initially just by being easy to read with margins clearly set and professional-looking fonts.

You may want to get creative, too without recreating the wheel. For instance, if you’re pursuing graphic design jobs, you have liberty to design a less conventional resume. If, on the other hand, you’re pursuing a career in finance, then a more traditional resume would be appropriate (Times New Roman font, we’re talking to you.) Don’t stress out–you can rely on industry-based templates.

Above all, this is the perfect time of year to revise your resume so you can crush your job search. Try to make it part of your routine. Any time there’s a significant update such as completion of an internship, you can update your resume in real time so you won’t need to overhaul it every season. Simple refreshes along the way can help you stand out to recruiters and land that coveted job.