Ultimate Resume/CV Guide (for Internships, Jobs, Academic Programs)

This guide will help you create the best possible resume given your experiences. Creating the perfect resume is absolutely essential for you to reach (and obtain) your target internship, job, scholarship, or program. The resume–despite usually being reviewed within a minute–can determine whether or not you are accepted or rejected. This may be the single most important document you can produce and share.

This guide includes a template, descriptions, diagrams, and insider advice. It takes my more than 10 years of experience reviewing hundreds of resumes and summarizes it here. I have directly advised hundreds of students and recent graduates applying to blue chip companies, national fellowship programs, and highly selective internships but this familiarity and insight can help anyone apply to any position.

Students and recent graduates I have helped have successfully obtained offers at blue chip companies (Amazon, Apple, Facebook/Meta, Goldman Sachs, Google/Alphabet, JPMorgan Chase, Stripe, Tesla, Twitter), national Fellowship programs (Rhodes Scholarship, Fulbright Fellowship, Marshall Scholarship, Schwarzman Scholars Program, Luce Scholars Program, Gates Cambridge Scholarship), and many other opportunities (White House Internship, Salesforce internship, high governmental positions, summer research opportunities, etc.).

While accessing this material does not guarantee admission or acceptance into any program, you will be able to better plan ahead and position yourself for that future position and opportunity.

Included

1. Introduction. I explain exactly what recruiters want in their candidates, and background that allows you to understand the importance of creating the perfect resume.
2. Long-term Planning Exercise. It always helps to plan far ahead (even if you truly don't know exactly what you want to do). You have to create a general target ahead for aiming. You might not achieve that specific goal, and you might even change the actual target along the way, but you need to establish one ahead of time. This could mean that you want to get X job or Y position 1, 2, 3 years from now. The planning exercise will help you mentally 'fast forward' a few years to 'create' the resume that you wish you had. This will help you 'uncover' exactly what you need to do to become competitive enough to get that X job or Y position in the future.
3. Content + Annotations. This diagram will help you understand the "why" behind the content you will include in your resume. So many resume guides do not answer the question of "why is this done in this way?" which results in your inability to self-correct and improve over time. Every annotation here should break down in clear detail how you need to think about the experiences you share.
4. Design + Layout + Visual Structure + Annotations. This diagram will help you understand how to organize the information correctly. The 'design' or 'layout' of a resume is incredibly important, but is not something that a lot of people mention. Reviewers will at least subconsciously judge you based on this aspect of your resume.
5. Template (Editable Word Document + PDF). This is a word document of the example that you see with the annotations. Having this should save you half an hour to recreate the layout. Know that there are other totally acceptable resume layouts, too. The point is that you have access to one that is structurally sound, and that you are aware of the importance of both content and design.
6. Communication Strategy. Having a resume itself isn't enough. You have to learn how to effectively delivery the document to the right people. This takes time, effort, and great communication. Here, I share the general background that can help you begin to understand how to approach 'the delivery.'