CHAPTER 8: YOUR RESUME
Last updated
Last updated
Your resume is one of your best weapons. On a single page, you get to present the most important and distinctive parts of your candidacy to an admissions committee. This is your chance to show off the great things you have accomplished and the activities you care about. If you have never written a resume before, there are many resources out there that can help you. The US Chamber of Commerce and Hire Our Heroes have teamed up to create a resume builder specifically for veterans at . S2S also has models we can send you.
However, even though there are plenty of resume building services and templates out there, do NOT rely on them exclusively. A resume should always have a specific purpose and be tailored to you and to the position/program for which you are applying. A resume for a construction job should look very different from a resume for a teaching job, even if the same person is applying for both. Similarly, your resume for law school should be created specifically for that purpose. We will now go through some key points that your law school resume should hit.
Your resume should begin with your full name centered at the top. Under your name include your address, phone number, and email.
The first section of your resume should be your Education. You should include any schools that you have attended since high school (excluding high school) in reverse chronological order (most recent first). For each school, include the name of the university, degree/major, and year of attendance or graduation. You do NOT need to include summer school or one-off classes at other institutions unless they demonstrate something significant about your efforts to prepare yourself academically or your intellectual interests. You should also use this section to list any honors you received and important activities or leadership roles you had as an undergraduate, unless you list them later in an extracurricular activities/community service section. Ditto for any graduate programs you may have completed.
The next section should be your Work Experience. List your jobs in reverse chronological order with the name of the organization, your job title, start and end dates, and location. For each job, you should include bullets that detail the results you achieved in the job. As a rule of thumb, list all substantive jobs and internships you have held– you don’t need to throw in everything you’ve ever done.
If applicable, highlight additional strengths in your record in the next section: Extracurricular Activities, Community Service, Publications, International Experience, etc. The point of this section is to demonstrate what you are passionate about and that you have a life outside of work and school. For any activities, include the amount of time you spent on each activity during the week/month.
You should also include a section with any awards or special Professional Distinctions (Ranger Tab, Bronze Star, Purple Heart, etc.), and if it makes sense, you can add a Personal section with language skills and hobbies. But do not repeat items already listed elsewhere on the resume.
Do not include an Objectives, Skills, or High School section. Your objective is obvious– you are applying to law school. You do not need a skills section because you are applying to school, not for a job. And high school is too far in the past for anyone to care what you did.
There are several style guidelines for your resume. Three of these are iron-clad rules:
Always use the third person
Use action words for your descriptions
Use the past tense for jobs or roles that have already ended
In addition to these rules, here are some suggestions on style. First, you should use Times New Roman and 11 or 12 size font. Anything smaller is just too hard for admissions officers to read. You should have one inch margins on all four sides, and some white space in between sections. You should have a logical, consistent, and easy-to-follow format. Remember KISS and don’t try to make it visually “interesting." Also, your grammar, spelling, and wording need to be perfect. There is no excuse for these kinds of errors. If you are using a Mac or word-processing software other than Word, we recommend turning your resume into a PDF to ensure the formatting doesn't get screwed up when the admissions officers open the document.
The contents of your resume should ideally fit on one page (and some schools will specify a one-page resume), but if you’ve been out of college for more than 5 years or so and your military role requires some explanation, a two-page resume is acceptable. But do not go over to two-pages– pick and choose the most important things to make the cut. And ensure you have enough white space on the page to make it easily readable at a glance.
There are a number of common mistakes that applicants make on resumes. We will go through each one and how to fix them.
Listing Responsibilities Rather than Showing Results. The first common resume mistake is to describe the responsibilities you had during your jobs and activities rather than the results you achieved. The focus should be on what you accomplished. To the best of your ability, try to quantify your achievements. If you have been the best at something, the proof is in a ranking, personnel evaluation, or award.
Failing to Use Action Verbs. Never use passive voice and vary your action verbs. Don't just say "participated in X, participated in Y, participated in Z." When you describe your accomplishments, to the extent possible, use leadership-oriented verbs such as “led,” “managed,” “coordinated,” and “supervised.” But do not overstate your role and say you led something when you really didn't.
Stretching the Extent of Your Involvement. Do not exaggerate and definitely do not lie about anything on the application. Deep involvement in one or two activities is much better than superficial involvement in many activities. Focus on showcasing the significance of what you did do.
At first, it can be difficult for veterans to translate their military experience into terms that civilians can easily understand. For example, an admissions committee likely won't know what a Stryker Brigade or a Marine Expeditionary Unit is, and they may not know what being a squad leader, platoon commander, or company commander means in terms of leadership experience. Definitely avoid all military jargon and acronyms– you will quickly lose people if you throw in things like E-5, O-3, TAD, OER, MOS, etc. You have to do your best to translate these experiences and responsibilities into plain English so that anyone can understand them. For instance, if you were a platoon commander for a Tank Platoon, a bullet point could read: “Managed and supervised a 30-person unit in the employment, maintenance, and care of $30M worth of vehicles and equipment.” A good test is to give your resume to several friends– no less than three– who have no military background. Ask them if they understand what you are describing. If not, ask for suggestions on better phrasing.
