In the six sample resumes delivered by pdf when you click on the link below, you’ll find students who present their material creatively, experimenting a bit with form, tailoring the resumes to suit their background or circumstances, and stressing their skills and experiences to help them stand out from the crowd.

The first resume in the group stresses two related experiences by creating the category “Internships,” which are presented with such thoroughness that the writer has the courage and wisdom to treat three unrelated jobs with only three lines. The second resume also stresses experience and skills by creating special categories, while the third resume—from a student with three professional experiences within her field—decides to spread the text out completely over the horizontal space of the page so that she has room to stress the details and value of her various internships. Her resume also ends strongly with special categories for leadership and additional professional qualifications—she even goes so far as to give the date on which she received clearance for Top Secret information.

In the last three resumes, all written by seniors who had recently graduated, physical prominence is given on the page to specialized computer skills, teaching certification and classroom experience, and an overall skills summary. The first writer, chasing a technical computing job, provides the URLs to which he has contributed so that readers can further investigate his credentials and affiliation, and he breaks down his computer skills into five separate categories. The next writer, seeking a teaching position, makes sure to spell out his specialized teaching background and shows how his volunteer experience involved teaching as well. The final resume, used by the writer to land an international sales job outside of her field, articulates her transferable skills and stresses her international travel and “Jane-of-all-trades” approach to life—a broad range which takes her from being a photographer for a large student newspaper to working as a kayak/mountain bike tour guide in Alaska.

All six of these resumes show that even the one-page constraint need not stop writers from exercising creativity of form and providing depth of content specific to their life circumstances. All of these resumes represent a high level of individuality, and our sense is that no one else but the writer could have composed them.

Click here to download a pdf of six sample advanced, more daring resumes.