From the course: Writing a Resume

How to present your education

From the course: Writing a Resume

How to present your education

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- This section of the resume is easy. Throw your educational background at the top of the resume and move on. Right? Well, do you put your education first or do you put it last? How much education should you include? What happens if you're in college and don't have a degree yet, do you include your high school diploma? And what about certification courses or unfinished degrees? Let's tackle the easy stuff first. Assuming you have a college degree and work experience, place your education at the bottom of the resume. But if you're a recent college grad with no work experience, then you'll place your education after your objective. You also might place your education near the top of your resume, if you completed a new degree that helps you transition into a new industry. If you're currently enrolled in college courses and haven't completed a degree, you can place your education on the resume with an anticipated graduation date. But please, write the actual words anticipated on the resume. Otherwise, you'll give the appearance that you have graduated and can be considered less than truthful. Alternatively, if you started a degree program and did not complete it, list the dates of attendance and highlight specific courses completed which are relevant to the job. Consider the example of a candidate of mine that listed a degree with no date. When you do that, the assumption is that you graduated. We move forward with her as a candidate under that assumption. I assumed, the interviewer assumed, and it wasn't until a subsequent conversation when I asked further about her degree that she mentioned, "Well, I didn't actually graduate." Needless to say she didn't get the job and the employer wasn't happy that she wasted time interviewing her. So now what about dates, include them, don't include them? If you don't have much or any work experience I recommend including your graduation date. Alternatively, if you have been out of school for awhile, it's okay to leave the dates off. When completing an online application, you'll be required to include graduation dates at that time, but until then, feel free to leave it off your resume. I hope you still think writing the education section is relatively easy, and now you have some tools for those special circumstances. So go ahead and get started.

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