How can I make my resume more exciting?

You can have a beautiful resume, but without good content, it won’t get a second look. Employers get hundreds of resumes—you have to catch their attention in the first few seconds. Let’s assume that you have already customized your resume by researching the employer, and have used action verbs where possible.

An additional way to attract notice is by including as many specifics as possible and attaching numbers to what you’ve done. Here’s a great example. This zoology student was involved in caring for and training birds—look at how effectively this experience is presented using specifics:

Intern, Doves in Flight. Howell, MI - Summer 2002
Basic care for 1000 doves, including inoculation for disease control, banding, feeding, and cleaning of coops
Maintained breeding and pedigree records
Daily transport of birds for flight training
On-site release coordinator for public events of up to 300 people

Another way to attract attention is to use a superlative in reporting your accomplishments, as in “First student member of the Technology Development Task Force." Anytime you can use words like first, only, most, best, and highest, your reader will be more impressed. Here are some examples using superlatives:
Only student representative on the Actuarial Curriculum Subcommittee.
First undergraduate to serve as research assistant in the MSU Phytotron.
Highest-selling Sales Associate in the fastest growing unit in the chain.

© 2004 MSU College of Natural Science; corrections and updates to CNS@ csp.msu.edu.
You must use Netscape 7, IE 5, or higher to view these pages. Text may be resized for ease of viewing.
Michigan State University