Writing Business Resumes for Internships as a Student:
Internships are the stepping stones in building your career. It helps you discover your strengths and weaknesses. Hiring managers will look at your resume before calling you in for an interview. Yes, we need resumes for internships too. These pages define us. They’re not only for job recruiters but they serve a higher purpose of building your personal brand.
Writing a resume can seem tough but if you break it down into 3 simple steps, you can easily write an awesome resume that could get you hired! Please remember to use “keywords” when writing as they are super important to get you noticed.
Step 1: Write your profile
Step 2: Write your education and experiences (work experience, volunteer experience, leadership experiences.)
Step 3: Write your skills (technical skills and soft skills)
Step 1: Writing your profile
We write resume profiles because it gives a preview of who you are. It’s a 3-4 sentence paragraph on top of your resume. It will help us to grab the attention of the hiring manager by highlighting your qualifications that are relevant to the position.
You can start with 1) where you are currently, 2) your achievements and 3) your career objective. All these have to be related to the job position you are applying for.
For example, if you are a 3rd-year college student majoring in management you can describe yourself as ‘A third-year Management major’. Keep it simple.
Next, your achievements and skills. Connect this to your first sentence. Write what you are experienced in and what achievements you had in previous academic or work situations. This can be your skills such as web designing, marketing or presentation. Write this in a very summarized sentence or two.
For example, if you worked in a university business club you can write about your experiences there such as ‘A third-year Management major with experiences in reaching out to local and online audiences, organizing campaigns and public presentations’.
Finally, talk about your career objective. This can be your professional interests and what skills you are hoping to develop. It should include the skills, knowledge, and abilities you have that will help the company achieve its goals. Also, include what you hope to get out of the job.
Note: Remember to summarize all this in a 3-4 sentence paragraph or bullet points.
Step 2: Writing your education and experiences.
Now that you have written your short and simple resume profile. The hiring manager will be more interested in knowing about your education and experiences. Keep it short for the education. Just write the name of the institute, the degree completed and the date of completion. Write the most recent education information. No need to write about your schooling since birth.
If you are a student in college or a fresh graduate and do not have any professional work experience, don’t worry. Experiences comprise more than of just corporate work.
You can write about:
- Experiences from internships and project involvement
- Experiences from volunteer and leadership situations
- Experiences from student association groups and real-life challenges.
Please note that while experiences are good to see for the hiring manager to get an idea of what you can do, it is even better if you write in the achievements you performed.
For example, you may have experiences in an accounting field as an intern or project volunteer. In this case, your achievement could be forecasting a budget and helping the company save money on the project. This can be written as ‘Helped company save $1000 on the project by using accurate forecasting tools based on previous data’.
Achievements written in quantitative terms such as numbers and percentages are preferred as they are easier to understand. Also, they give managers a better idea of how you performed.
Step 3: Write your skills (technical skills and soft skills)
There are two types of skills: Soft skills and Technical skills.
Soft skills include those qualities within that describes you as a person and technical skills are those skills which are measurable and specific to the job. These include being a hard worker, a good team player, a highly motivated individual. They are important because the employer can determine if you have the right attitude for the job. Hard skills are more specific such as Microsoft Office, Design, Photoshop etc.
Writing these skills in your resume is essential but there is a certain way to write them which will make your resume stand out. Let’s talk about hard skills. Think about all the technical capacity you have and choose the ones most specific to the job. Also, choose the soft skills most applicable to the job.
Write your skills in a simple way and to the point.
Other things to include in your resume:
- Language and level of proficiency
- Certifications and awards
Please remember to put in your correct contact information without any typos.
Tips for Resume writing:
-Basic computer skills are highly valued in every organization.
-If the courses you have studied are relevant to the job, please utilize this information.
-Always keep your resume simple, original and interesting.
-Be honest in your resume to avoid awkward confrontations in the future.
-Utilize available resume templates or design your own.
-If printing, use the correct font size and appropriate font.
-When in doubt, google it.
Avoid:
-Lying on your resume.
To sum up, have fun when writing your resume! You may want the manager to know you, however at the same you also get to know yourself better. Remember, there is always room for improvement.
Bio:
DEANNA SHERPA
Deanna is an MBA student doing her internship at My Internship Asia as a digital marketer. She loves living in Bangkok and says it has been a wonderful experience. She recommends the student life here and says it is a truly amazing place you must visit.
You can find her at dsherpawork@gmail.com
Keyword: Internship in Asia
