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Application Materials

Application tips

Resumes

i. Purpose of Resume—your resume often determines whether you get in the front door. It is your opportunity to showcase who you are and provide evidence of your writing skills. (Remember, for many employers, the resume and cover letter may be the only writing sample they receive from you.)

ii. Harsh Realities

  • Time and space are limited.
  • You have ten seconds and one page to convey who you are and how you can help.
  • Your resume determines whether you get through the front door.
  • The legal industry is more conservative in resume formatting than many other industries.
  • You are responsible for, and should be ready to discuss, everything on your resume.
  • Be careful when you copy material from other documents, as you may bring in formatting that is unexpected.

iii. Tips for Maintaining and Preparing Resumes

  • Long-form resume—a living document that includes all of your education and experiences and can be used to prepare short form resumes.
  • Short form resumes—this is a resume that is tailored to the specific job to which you are applying. Generally, this information would be copied or pasted from your long form resume (with the caveat to remove any unintended formatting).
  • Submitting resumes—while you should prepare resumes in Word or another word-processing program, when you submit resumes, you should submit PDFs. This is the only way you can control how your resume will look when it is printed or opened digitally.
  • Second set of eyes—always have someone else (spouse, friend, classmate, or career advisor) review your resume before you submit it. They may see things you do not. 

iv. Materials to Assist in Preparing Resumes

  • Resume Check List
  • Resume Guidelines
  • Resume Template
  • Action Verbs
  • Why You Should Include Your Interests on Your Resume
  • Use of Dashes:
    1. Hyphen (-): compound words.
    2. En-dash (–): “through”; to show a range.
    3. Em-dash (—): strong break in sentence structure
    4. No spaces before or after any dash.
    5. Date and page ranges should be separated by an en-dash (May2017–Jan 2018; pp.17–35).