Breaking Down the Resume: Education

Education...at this point, if you are a college student, school is what you know, and that degree you've worked so hard to obtain is what you have to offer an employer. Hopefully, you have proactively obtained related experience to compliment your career goals as well, and eventually your experience will trump your education. But recent college graduates should typically follow the Summary of Qualifications or Objective section with their Education section.

So, what does should that look like?

INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING

EDUCATION
Institution Name; City, ST
Degree and Major; Graduation Date
- Minor
- GPA

• List degrees from present to past.
• The most common suggestion is to only list your GPA if it above a 3.0. However, some recruiters just want to know what it is, period.
• Study abroad experiences should be listed in this section if there was not a working/intern component. 
• Include honor societies in this section if you are a member of only a few that wouldn't constitute dedicating an entire section to honors. (If your GPA is strong, you probably don't need to dedicate a great deal of space to listing every honor society you were invited to join and paid the money to do so.)

DO NOT INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING

• High school information, beyond your sophomore year, should not be included...even if you were valedictorian.
• Employers do not need to know every institution you attended for transfer credit. 

THINGS TO REMEMBER

You have a Bachelor of or a Master of...there is no "s" at the end. For example, I have a Bachelor of Communication and a Master of Education, not a Bachelor's of Communication or Master's of Education.

If you want to include applicable coursework, remember that the employer only wants to know those courses that are unique outside of your major. As a communication major, I would NOT need to list Intro to Communication. Duh. If however, you have pursued unique electives that make you unique from people in your major, it makes sense to list those if applicable to the job you are seeking.

CAREER HANDBOOK

For additional tips and examples, check out the Career Handbook at www.auburn.edu/career.