5 Resume Do’s and Don’ts

Before you get the job, you need to interview. Before you get an interview, you need to win over the hiring manager with your resume-that’s where we come in to help. We’ve applied to a lot of positions and gained so much experience learning what makes for a successful resume and what doesn’t. Some things seem so obvious but you’d be surprised how many people make seemingly innocent mistakes, costing them their dream internship.

DO’S

Spell check-This one seems pretty obvious but so many people have shut themselves out of great opportunities by forgetting to do that last run through before pressing “send”.  Those hiring want to know you’re detail oriented and they think if you don’t triple check that you spelled education and not edcuation, what else will you look over?

Only include relevant experience-If you’re applying intern with Monica Rose or Rachel Zoe, this isn’t the place to talk about your babysitting gigs. Resume space is sooo precious-make every word count. If you’re just starting out, use this space to talk about any volunteer experience if you helped dress at any fashion shows, you were in a fashion club, charity events relating to the field. Even if you have 0 experience (which we all were at one point), try to include the experience that has the skills that you can apply most to the fashion styling field.

Be wise with margin space-We get it,you’re going into a creative field, but this doesn’t mean your resume has to look like an Italian food menu. I have to say that because I’ve seen it. Meaning all of the text was funneled down the center of the page and there was about 2″ of white space on each side (see exhibit A.). Please don’t do this. As we just mentioned, resume space is precious so stick to a format that gives you the most of that 8×11 page.

Keep it to one page-The people hiring you for an internship or an assistant position are hiring for an extra pair of hands, so they don’t have all the time in the world to glance over more than 1 page that gives a quick glimpse of your experience. Even after you complete your internships and make your way into the working world this rule still stands, if a professional with 15 years of experience can condense their experience into 1 page, you can too.

Keep it simple-The focus should be on your experience not on distracting fonts or colors. Stick to text and if you’re feeling wild, add a little border. Unless you re 100,000% confident that your graphic design skills are on point I urge you to steer away from any designs on your resume. Speaking of fonts; stick to professional serif typefaces such as Cambria, Georgia, and my personal favorite, Times New Roman. Whatever you decide to do in life, do not EVER use Comic Sans if you want to be taken seriously. That is all.

DON’TS

Include a photo of yourself-Unless this was a position where your looks actually mattered such as acting or modeling, this is totally unnecessary. To me personally it’s a little awkward because even though we do not (and should not judge) others by how they look; it’s inevitable to get an idea of what this person may be like judging by their photo. You want your skills and experience to do all the talkin’!

Mention obvious skills-Ok it’s 2018, newsflash: everyone knows Microsoft Word. No need to use up resume space mentioning this. It’s expected at this point. Instead, look at the skills listed for the internship posting and if you possess any of them, put it on that resume! This is just a little hack, this ensures that your resume gets past any hiring software that weeds out the ones that don’t have the skills they are looking for and makes you look that much more ideal.

Be afraid to distinguish different areas-Don’t give the recruiter a hard time, be very generous with using bold, italics, varied font sizes to distinguish the different areas. No one wants to hunt where your education ends and your experience starts.  Make it easy on the eyes.

Put an objective-Okay, this has been the subject of debate but I honestly feel like if I’m sending you my resume, my objective is to get this position. This is really up to you but this goes back to the resume spacing, I’d rather use my space up talking about my experience and how it can help the company rather than using those 2 or 3 lines talking about how much of a “go-getter” and “team player” I am.

Include references-So in the fashion industry, your reputation is everything. Alot of people want to be in fashion but don’t realize how much hard work it is so employers want to hear from another professional who can vouch that you’re going to put in the work and when that time comes, they will ask for it-hey, just saved you another line!