HKS t 617-495-1161 t career_advancement@hks.harvard.edu t www.hks.harvard.edu/career
CAREER ADVANCEMENT
t OCA
OFFICE
OF CAREER
ADVANCEMNT Skills: Resume
resumes that Work: 1
Market Your Story Successfully
1. Design
introduction The Office of Career Advancement
(oca) has developed design templates
A good resume presents a prospective employer, and all that are pleasing to the eye and easy for
potential advisors in your job search, with a clear and concise a reader to scan. We recommend that
students use the overall design,
summary of your knowledge, skills and accomplishments. In incorporating appropriate changes to
essence, it is a snapshot of the “professional you” designed to fit individual circumstances. You may
get you the interview! download the template from the jack
document library on the oca website.
As you start to prepare a resume, always keep in mind that it may be Additional samples of mpa and mpa/id
resumes are also available in the library.
a person’s first introduction to you, the candidate. First impressions
If you have fewer than five years of
count. In just a few seconds, the reader will form a judgment on the professional experience, we usually
care and reflection you have brought to writing your resume and, recommend a one-page resume.
by inference, how committed you are to the job search. Both the We suggest these design specifications:
presentation and content are important to forming the employer’s t Times New Roman 10.5 or 11 point
initial impression of you. Therefore, be sure your resume reflects the throughout the document
same level of professionalism that you would bring to a presenta- t Margins:
top and bottom —
tion to a client. Be sure that the content is thoughtfully prepared to
minimum of .5 inch, maximum 1.0 inch;
emphasize your most significant accomplishments and to address left and right —
the specific requirements of the type of work you plan to pursue. minimum of .5 inch, maximum 1.0 inch
Employers usually scan a resume quickly, rather than reading it as t Text left justified, except header,
which is centered, and locations,
a narrative. Therefore, the resume must be clear and consistent, which are right justified
making the highlights of your training and accomplishments easy to t Insert your name and page number
spot. Your reader will be asking: “Do I want to talk to this candidate; in header, if your resume is more than
does s/he have the skills and knowledge we need?” Your reader will one page
have many applications to consider and will be making quick com- t Use FULL CAPITALS, Initial Capitals,
and Bold to help the reader readily
parisons between candidates. Of course, you want to stand out for
distinguish the elements in each
the clarity of your presentation of your knowledge, skills and accom- block of text
plishments. The Office of Career Advancement (oca) has consulted t Use italics for book or thesis titles,
with employers about their preferences and recommends the follow- for example: Soft Power: The Means
ing guidelines in preparing a resume. to Success in World Politics;
Understanding International Conflict
Office of Career Advancement
, HKS
CAREER ADVANCEMENT
t 617-495-1161 t career_advancement@hks.harvard.edu t www.hks.harvard.edu/career
1 resumes that Work
2. Content t honors Be selective in honors you
list, enumerating the highest in each
of verbs, for example: “managed,”
“directed,” and “oversaw.”
Present information in reverse chrono- category. Similarly, if you were awarded
Emphasize your accomplishments in the
logical order within each section of the several scholarships/fellowships, list only
context of the resources available to you.
resume. those to which you attach the most
Be specific about size of budget, size of
importance. The terms summa cum laude,
team supervised, etc. Numbers are more
3. Name & Contact magna cum laude, and cum laude are
always italicized.
effective than adjectives in describing
information GPA is not routinely included in an HKS
your success. For example, “increased
enrollment by 15%” lets the reader learn
Provide your current mailing, e-mail resume. However, if an employer states a more than “successfully increased
and telephone information. minimum requirement, include your GPA enrollment.”
in the resume. Similarly, if an employer
Within each job, organize information in a
4. Education requires high proficiency in quantitative
analysis, you may include your GRE or
logical flow so the reader can understand
Your educational history should be the different elements of what you have
GMAT score.
described in reverse chronological order. accomplished. Assign more space to
describing more recent and/or more
Present the information in a consistent
format, listing university first, then school
5. Leadership significant experiences and less space to
within the university as appropriate, for This section of your resume is less recent or less significant experiences.
example: Harvard University, John F. discretionary. You may wish to include The description of each experience should
Kennedy School of Government. information on extra-curricular activity be presented in a bulleted format that
that highlights your growing interest in a highlights your accomplishments and
Write the full name of your hks degree:
professional field, your capacity to results. These descriptions should market
t Master in Public Policy organize and manage people and teams, your skills and accomplishments, not
personal accomplishments, or simply list tasks and duties. We suggest
t Master in Public Administration
management skills that may not be readily that each bullet point be one to four lines.
t Master in Public Administration in discerned from the Experience section
International Development described below. t for example:
t Mason Fellows may add below • Wrote successful grant proposals
Master in Public Administration: 6. Experience generating $1.2 million in new revenue.
t Fellow, Edward S. Mason Program Funds supported development of
As in Education (see above), you should
in Public Policy and Management innovative literacy programs reaching
always list your professional experience in
100,000 additional clients across five
If your resume includes credentials reverse chronological order. List the name
states.
from universities outside the U.S., use the of the organization, followed by your
exact name of the degree as provided by department within the organization. If the • Received “Top Volunteer” award from
the granting institution. If necessary, you organization is not well-known and its local City Council for more than 100
may add a phrase to clarify the level of mission is not evident from its name or hours volunteering in homeless shelter,
training attained, for example: the context, you may choose to add a food bank and senior citizen day
“equivalent to JD.” descriptive phrase. program.
t coursework Here is an opportunity Provide a brief description of each
to educate your reader about your experience. Present the information in
program and your own focus. You may abbreviated sentences, omitting definite
include selected course titles, if they are and indefinite articles such as “the,” “a,”
short, or key words such as “statistics” “an,” and also omitting pronouns, such
or “environmental policy.” mpps may wish as “I” or “their.” As a convention,
to include their pac. numbers with $ or % signs and all
numbers 10 and above are written as
mpps and mpa/ids are advised to use
figures, for example: 9%, team of 25.
the term “Policy Analysis Exercise” or
“Second Year Policy Analysis,” respec- Use verbs, in the past tense, to describe
tively. In a cover letter, you may then your work. Use active voice. See page 4 of
explain briefly that the pae or sypa is the this document for a list of verbs
hks-equivalent to a master’s thesis. commonly used in resume writing.
Whenever possible, introduce a variety
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