Content: Your resume will contain your name, address, and telephone number, and information about your education and work experience. Other sections, titles, and arrangements are at you discretion. Education and experience are usually presented in reverse chronological order. Give the most space to the most important experience. If you have several years of experience in your career field, your resume will focus on more specific accomplishments and skills. If you have years of work experience in several fields or are changing fields, a resume organized by skill areas may be more appropriate than a chronological resume.

Name. address and telephone: This is the most important information on the resume. Usually it is centered and in capital letters at the top of the page. If you must give a school address, and home address, place your name at top center and the addresses to the right and left.

Education: If you are a student or have just completed your education, put this section first. List your degrees or degree expected and date, your concentration, subject of senior honors thesis, and electives which are relevant to your employers. Include selected honors if you have received recognition for outstanding academic work. Ph.D. students hould list their department, area of interest, relevant electives, and selected honors. The dissertation topic may be included if of related interest.

College activities can be listed and described under Education, Experience, Activities, or most briefly under Personal Background depending upon how much emphasis and space you want to give them. If you've had leadership positions, responsibilities for organizing or initiating new programs, financial management or any kind of career-related experiences, be sure it is clearly described. Explain for the non-Harvard reader what the organization is.

Secondary school is usually listed on undergraduate resumes. Space devoted to honors and/or activities should depend on their contribution to the total message.

Work Experience: This section should include all experience, paid and unpaid, and extracurricular activities which have given you the opportunity to develop the kinds of personal qualifications that employers look for. You may mix paid and unpaid, part-time and full-time positions, but note in some way what the time commitment was.

List the job title and name of the organization you worked for, followed by a concise description of functions performed and accomplishments. Use action verbs to state what responsibilities you carried out, and use numbers such as size of budget, workers supervised, persons served, reports written, to add impact. Don't say, "Responsible for ..." This doesn't communicate what you did or what you achieved. Don't list the name and phone number of a reference. If you have letters of reference from the supervisors of your most responsible positions you may want to attach them.

Languages: Make a separate category to list languages skills if you are fluent and hope to use these skills on the job.

Travel: Experience traveling, working, studying abroad, should be described explicitly if job-related. It documents experience in adjusting to unfamiliar surroundings. If you decide not to have a travel section, you can mention travel under Personal Background.

Skills: If you have specific job-related skills such as computer programming or foreign language fluency you may want to list them in a skills section.

Interests: Save at least one line for a list in series of avocational interests such as, "Reading, playing guitar, running, and choral singing." Even a brief list rounds out your presentation and may establish an initial bond of common interest with the reader.

Personal background: On a one-page resume you have had to leave out a great deal. This section may be used to mention information that you consider important such as: "Have worked every term to help pay college expenses delivering newspapers, washing dishes, bartending, driving a shuttle bus." "Lived in a small town in Ohio until I came to Harvard." "Born and grew up in New York City." (Where you spent your youth may be an important message to the employer.) "Played varsity lacrosse and intramural basketball."

Job objective: Only if you have a clearly defined employment goal should you write a job objective. Otherwise, the cover letter is the better place to state your job objective. That way, you can tailor it to each job application and highlight and expand on relevant information from the resume