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Spring is on the way, and students face the reality of their impending graduation. College and university career centers are an excellent resource for soon-to-be graduates leaping into the working world.
Many students who seek help with their resumes are surprised when their career center provides a template that is unimaginative and simple. What they don't know is that every career center uses the same unimaginative and simple template – and there's a reason.
The career center resume template is called the Wharton resume format, named after the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania. Wharton decided to standardize its students' resumes and developed the format. Soon, the format was adopted by other business schools, then by non-business schools, until the Wharton format became the standard resume template for colleges and universities coast to coast. Why?
The Wharton format has the following characteristics:
1. One page.
2. Jam-packed with information.
3. A specific format - Contact Information > Education > Work Experience > Volunteer Work/Special Skills.
The template's design gives students' academic and work history equal representation. Let's say a recruiter asks Wharton for fifty resumes. If everyone's resume is the same simple one-page format, there is an inherent sense of fairness and equity. Wharton can't send a pile of resumes of varying lengths, colors, formats, etc., or they could justifiably be accused of playing favorites. This way, each applicant's resume is indistinguishable from the other.
The form is the function, and the Wharton form functions as a vehicle to deliver job applicants to employers in a standard and predictable manner. Career centers handle resumes in two ways.
1. Acme, Inc. requests the resumes of marketing graduates from a college or university. The school sends them a bundle of resumes that fit their parameters.
2. Students upload their resumes to a database accessible to employers.
The Wharton template and the ways employers obtain resumes from school career centers reinforce a uniform format and a uniform process. Sometimes resume databases require entering the content of a resume into online forms, adding yet another layer of uniformity.
I Just Gotta Be Me!
Question – how do you stand out as a job applicant in an environment designed for uniformity? A system built to be as blind and fair as possible also makes it difficult to shine. Here are some quick tips to make the Wharton format work overtime for you:
1. Maximize your space utilization. The Wharton format does not give you much room to maneuver, so strive to fill every centimeter of your one page with the best, most dynamic content you can create. If you can say something with three words instead of five, then do it.
2. Flaunt your academic and professional achievements. Load your resume with bullet-pointed achievements. No matter what you studied or what jobs or internships you had, you accomplished more than you realized. When you write out your accomplishments, you can truly assess the work you've done. Don't be modest. Be confident and succinct.
3. Align your content. A one-page resume has little real estate. Each word is precious and should strategically align with your desired job/field. If you're graduating from a business school, then the content of your resume should focus on your business studies, acumen, and outcomes. That may be a big ask for new graduates, but the advantages outweigh the difficulty.
4. Talk to your career center advisors. The staff of your career center knows what employers want. It's worth listening to what they recommend and optimizing your resume accordingly. Do research as well.
5. It's all about keywords. You want to load your resume with keywords to maximize the chances Automatic Tracking Systems will advance it to a person for review. Once again, consult your career center advisors for insight into the appropriate keywords in your field of endeavor. You can also mine keywords from the job description, the position's requirements, and preferred skills. Adjust your resume for each job to which you apply.
And, a bonus tip for experienced professionals who went back to school:
6. It can't hurt to have a two-page resume in reserve. If you are mid-career and using your school's career center, chances are you have a new resume in the Wharton format. When you land an in-person interview, you can bring a longer resume into the room with you that gives you a chance to detail your work history.
Philip Roufail contributed to this article.
Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, career coaching services, and outplacement services. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.
