A resume is a marketing tool that aims to convey your relevant skills, education, and experiences for a specific position. The resume guidelines outlined below are tailored toward students studying Computer Science at a university (both undergraduate and graduate level) and pursuing U.S. employment. Some advice may differ for special circumstances, and we encourage you to get additional feedback from a peer, mentor, or coach after following these guidelines.

Here for the resources 👇🏾

• CodePath Resume Checklist & Formats
• Skills Tracker + Bullet Point Developer
• Resume Language for Connected Classrooms Tech Fellows

Other topics covered

Common Resume Mistakes to Avoid

Tailoring your Resume

Cybersecurity Resumes

AI Prompts: Resumes

In this section you will learn:

1. The basic rules and best practices for resumes
2. Recommended resume sections and order for most students
3. How to create strong bullet points and content within your sections
4. How to tailor your resume for job postings
5. How to get resume feedback

Basic rules

• LENGTH: 1-page (almost always, unless applying for jobs within academia that ask for a CV or federal government jobs)
• FORMATTING: Simple + clean is better than fancy + inconsistent. We recommend not using an online template and choosing a format that is easy to edit.
• ORDER: Your sections can be in any order, but within each section, you need to list experience and activities so that the most recent comes first (reverse chronological order). You want to list your sections in order of most relevant to least relevant (see my recommendation below).
• PROJECTS: If you choose to list dates for projects, use reverse chronological order. If you choose to not list dates, you may order from most relevant to least relevant (to the job).
• WORK IN PROGRESS: A resume is not something you check off your to-do list. It’s a living document that is constantly adapting and growing as you grow in your career. It should not look the same year to year and you may choose to keep a “working document” of all of your experiences and accomplishments to pull from.
• SAVING YOUR RESUME: Ideally you’re submitting your resume as a PDF with the document title “First Name Last Name Resume” or “First Name Last Name Company Name Resume”. Be sure to have a good resume filing system.

Recommended resume sections and order for most students

• Most students will use the resume sections and order listed below. I’ve included a brief description for each:
  1. Education: Current and past degrees with any relevant coursework and honors highlighted.
  2. Skills & Certifications: Ideally only technical skills and certifications, but can include other languages too
  3. Experience: Paid and non-paid work experience that does not belong in one of the other sections
  4. Projects: Technical projects that have some relevant to the field you are targeting
  5. Activities or Leadership Experience: Community involvement and extracurricular activities

Strengthening bullet points:

Writing bullet points that convey the value of what you accomplished is one of the hardest parts of resume writing; however, taking the time to craft and refine your bullet points can make a huge difference in getting past a resume screen to an interview.

CodePath recommends using the XYZ bullet point formula (that Google also recommends!). It stands for “Accomplished [X] as measured by [Y] by doing [Z]”. If this seems overwhelming, just start with a really strong technical verb (pick your favorite from this list) and go from there!