Help with resume

dassix

Greetings! My first post on this forums (obviously). However, the forums seems to be a huge knowledge base with all the users being extremely helpful, so I created an account in hopes of receiving some beneficial information on my resume.

I am a Junior/Senior currently enrolled in my BSIT and BA in Mathematics program at my university. I am applying for an internship over the summer for an IT position that requires I submit a resume before acceptance into the internship. The problem, however, is that my resume is extremely "light" to say the least.

The only Cert I currently Hold is a generic CompTIA A+. The majority of my knowledge I have gained came from self-taught lessons (very little has been gleamed from my university's program). Any help on what I could include on my resume for my internship would be greatly appreciated.

Kind Regards,
Steve

lsud00d

Hey Steve/dassix,

Even though you may think your resume is "light", you can frame it in an attractive way that increases your perceived value to an internship employer. I'm not sure if you're double-majoring or it's some combined program, but whatever BSIT courses you have taken, base your resume around this. If you are doing programming, then mathematics logic plays highly into a good programmers repetoire. I will suggest a resume format like this which should be able to fill a page with as little fluff as possible:

Profile
- Full-time student
- Ex: likes doing technology related stuff (list technologies)
- Seeking IT Internship to build foundation of IT professional career
Education (should be most of your resume)
- BSIT & BA Math (Work in Progress)
- Relevant course (Ex: Networking 101)
--- Learned Cisco iOS CLI, made patch cables, etc
- Another relevant course (Ex: Programming 101)
--- Programmed in java, python, c++
--- Made program to do (insert example here)
Experience
- Ex: Student worker
- Ex: Put job and emphasize customer service, troubleshooting, or logic skills if non-IT related
Certifications
- CompTIA A+
Extracurricular
- Ex: Build computers

Hope this helps!

dassix

Thank you very much. I was confused if it was acceptable to put skills learned in particular courses and also if skills such as building a computer or building/maintaining a decently sized home network. Also, the two degrees are completely separate. I decided to double major, as I found mathematics to be somewhat easy to grasp and interesting. Thank you very much for the advice on the resume, along with an example of a layout I could follow.

lsud00d

The approach is unconventional but I have seen it done and when formatted properly it flows well like a professional resume should. Since you might be lacking relevant *job* experience at this point, you can substitute it with relevant *educational* experience. If you can demonstrate that you've learned about SQL, AD, LDAP, SSL, C++, Java, Python, etc etc and are familiar with technologies then you instantly become a viable candidate. Of course put courses and topics that you can discuss best if you were asked a specific question about the course content. The extracurricular section shows initiative outside of school and work and also relays knowledge of other skills and technologies and can be a very good use of space in your position. Remember, keep your resume to one page.

Good luck on the double major and feel free to post your resume (with specific info redacted of course) for further review. Also let us know about the internship hunt!