English 421Y: Technical Writing Online

As I took a first glance at this resume, I noticed that the top is a little unbalanced. You could leave your address as is, but I'd recommend moving your email address to the left side. You could also add a contact phone number to fill empty space. The professional objective could us a minor tweak too. Instead of an “authentic” learning environment, how about an “effective” learning environment? People usually prefer effectiveness and reliability over authenticity.

In performing the “column test,” I noticed that the right side is slightly inconsistent. Inserting a table of cells to achieve a more consistent column might give your resume a more solid look.

I like that you listed your education first, as it seems to be your strongest asset right now, and I’m going to assume that you chose not to list your GPA. The “W. Lafayette, IN” almost runs into the “May, 2010.” You might consider making it two lines to give a more prominent division between the two segments of text.

“Extracurricular” is one word, so you could also get rid of the hyphen, and maybe say “Extracurricular Activities.” I like that you placed this section ahead of your work experience because extermination might not be as closely related to the job you’re applying for. However, I do see some inconsistent punctuation. One sentence contains a period, whereas the others do not. It looks as though you use parallel action verbs though, which is good.

Using the “squint test,” it looks as though your resume has very clear-cut sections. The titles, however, may be in a font size that is slightly too large. I also noticed that you don’t use any bold or italicized font. These formats can help draw attention to certain points, so you may consider using them too.

I don’t see any spelling errors either. Good work. Hopefully I didn’t miss any.

Evan, I definitely think that your resume gets the job done and would get you the job. Just like jrdavis said, the top is unbalanced but can be fixed by putting both of your permanent and current addresses. The next thing that I noticed was that your educational information was sort of confusing. Even though the study abroad in Australia was a great addition, I think that you should highlight that you are from Purdue (bold) and specify your major after it. Everything else is fine under that but reading it was just confusing.
Looking at your organization, I think that your work experience should go before the extracurricular activities. I would assume that if someone was trying to hire someone for their company that they would look for work experience before extracurricular activities. I might be wrong but I would think that work experience is the most important thing on a person’s resume. That is mostly an opinion and is your choice though.
I thought that the underlined words in the extra-curricular section make the resume unbalanced. I would recommend that you make the resume consistent with either bold words or underlined sections. If you are trying to highlight those two things then you might be right in doing that. I think that the border around the resume is great. Most people’s resumes that I have saw have had the “references upon request” statement on the bottom of the resume and might be a good addition to the bottom of yours.