Your Resume Education Section
Must Fit YOUR Needs

Your resume education section is much like a suit. The mark of an expensive suit is how well it fits YOU. The choice of material is completely immaterial if you cannot button the coat, if the sleeves only come to the middle of your forearm, or if your pant legs refuse to let your feet reach your shoes.

Just like your body has specific curves and bulges, so does your career. While it may appear that pecking out your college information is one of the simplest parts of your resume, there are certain issues that can alter the material you present. That alteration can make your education the perfect fit for the job you want.

The task of your education section is to present your education so the employer sees you as the perfect fit for his job. While the task may be more complex than first imagined, there are several alterations that make for a better fit.

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Some Positions Have
Specific Resume Education Section Needs

Some positions have rigid academic requirements for specific degrees at specific academic levels. For instance some counseling jobs require a masters level degree in a specific counseling related field.

For someone applying for such a job, failure to have that degree in the education section of the resume will promptly get that resume toasted.

However, in similar fashion, if you can demonstrate that you did get the required degree, and that it is from an accredited institution, your resume may get a second reading.

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Minimal Resume Education Section Requirements

Regardless of your academic history, there are some obvious elements you must include in your resume education section:

• Your highest educational achievement that prepares you for this job
• The Name of the academic award (degree, diploma, certificate) you received
• The institution from which you received the degree
• The institution's city and state

There are other adjustments that can make your education a better fit for this position. Many of the adjustments depend on the level of education or training you bring to the job as well as the demands of the job itself.

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Resume Education Section For
A Person With An Advanced Degree

Graduate education, prepares a person for more specific work. The higher the degree, the more specific the work. Many with doctoral degrees need them for careers in

• Medicine
• Academia or
• Science fields

These fields usually require a more specific approach for career documentation than a resume. If you want to enter any of these fields, and have a doctoral degree, you should consider a curriculum vitae approach rather than a resume. I plan to publish CV information on this site sometime in 2009.

Masters degreed persons will have a more lengthy education section than those with bachelors degrees simply because of the more advanced degree. There will also be other issues to resolve, such as, should you include your

• GPA
• Class rank
• Thesis
• Research projects
• Course work
• Internships
• Studies abroad

The answers to these questions must be passed through the sieve of "it depends."

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Resume Education Section For
A Bachelors Degreed Person

Bachelors degreed persons must use the same "it depends" sieve, as well. I know there are many who just want a fast answer to how to list your education.

Unfortunately, there are questions you must answer first. You must know your assets and the demands of the job. If you have

• 20 years experience
• 11 as chief of the engineering section of the motors department of Chevrolet, Inc., and
• 5 as vice president of corporate engineering,

your experience will impress your potential employer more than your

• 4.0 GPA and
• internship with Ferrari

21 years ago.

You should opt for more resume real estate dedicated to your experience and only put a minimum of emphasis on your education in spite of the fact it was outstanding. For you,

may be sufficient. Your focus is on the great accomplishments you have made since you graduated, not the fact that you are educated.

You will do this by placing your education section toward the end of your resume, giving it reduced focus.

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Resume Education Section For Matriculating College Seniors

If, by contrast, you are a matriculating senior with a

• 3.95 GPA
• Are graduating Suma Cum Laude
• Have a class rank of 3rd of 452
• Attended Harvard on a National Merit Scholarship
• Were named Captain of the football team
• Came in 2nd in voting for the Heisman Trophy and
• Have had an internship with a Nobel Prize Laureate,

you will definitely want to emphasize those facts in your education section. That is because at this point in your life, your education is your strong suit. It is your best foot. Put it forward.

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Should Your Resume Education Section
Include Your GPA Or Class Rank?

The GPA mention is based on how well you scored. If you scored 2.4 on a 4.0 scale, it might not be a good idea to make mention of this. The tipping point of your decision to mention GPA is debatable. Some authorities suggest no mention of anything less than a 3.4, while others congregate around 3.0.

Class rank similarly has divided the experts. Some call for mentioning only the top quadrant, while some suggest mention of the top half. This is clearly a judgment call on your part. Similarly, mentioning

• Academic awards
• Lab skills
• Internships and
• Relevant coursework

depends on where you are with your career. If you are in the early stages of your career, education will play a more prominent role in your qualifications for a job. If you are very experienced, move your education section toward the end of your resume and feature your experience. Experience has now become your primary asset.

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Resume Education Section For
Candidates Without College Degrees

For individuals without college degrees, who are in the early part of a career, be sure to mention any training you have gained. It does not matter whether it is

• On the job
• At a tech school
• A seminar
• Something you got on the internetAn apprenticeship you served or
• Something on the order of job corps.

That is your training. You need to mention something about

• how you obtained it,
• how much of it you have and
• who certified you.

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Formatting Your Resume Education Section

Formatting your education section is also a matter of choice. If you are in the early part of your career, your education plays a larger role. You will need to use as much resume real estate as you can as soon in the document as you can. You would want to spell out your degrees:

Since North Georgia (as it is locally known) does not have the national prominence and /or prestige of Emory University in Atlanta, you may wish to feature your degree first.

However, if you got that MBA from Harvard, you most certainly would list it this way:

The point is to place the most emphasis on your greatest asset. That emphasis is placed by

• position in the resume (closer to the beginning is more prominent) or
• by bold face type or
• larger type.

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Resume Education Section For
College Graduates With Honors And Awards

If you have earned many honors in your career, you may wish to set up a separate section of your resume for them.

If you are only a recent graduate, with no accumulated honors or awards since college, you may wish to include any you do have in your education section.

If you have enough, you can draw additional attention to them by making a separate subsection of your education section this way:

Bachelor of Science in Aeronautical Engineering,
Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 2004.

• GPA: 3.97/4.0
• Class Rank: 4th of 287
• Honors and Awards:
  • Winner of Davis Award for Design Excellence in Solar Panel Energy Systems
  • Summa Cum Laude graduate
  • President's List 8 consecutive semesters
  • Student of the Year, 2002
  • Studies in Vladivastok, Russia to work on International Space Station solar panel re-design project, Summer, 2003.

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Resume Education Section For
Job Seekers With No College

For job seekers without a college education, mention of your highest educational level is appropriate.

Certified Novell Administrator, The Computer Lab, Norcross, GA 1995 Completed all classes toward CNE, including TCP/IP, Network Troubleshooting.

Diploma, Copperas Cove High School, Copperas Cove, Tx 1966. Band, Track, District Slide Rule Contest, Honorable Mention, District Number Sense Contest.

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The Ultimate Issue For
Your Resume Education Section

The ultimate thing to remember about your education section is that the decisions you make are flexible. They need to be made in context with their relevance to your greatest assets and the potential job's greatest demands.

Selection and placement of both the items constructing your education/training section and where the section is placed in the resume reflect what your greatest assets are. The more valuable the asset, the more prominence it should get.

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