Hi everyone.
I give a lot of the same resume advice pretty often, so I thought I'd put my standard advice in a thread so I can link to it.
This is geared towards interns and entry-level candidates in the US. I can't speak much for Canada, but much of it still may be applicable. Don't listen to me if you're on another continent since resume standards can vary widely across countries.
I'm an analyst with a couple years of experience. I've been involved in the hiring process for interns, entry-level analysts, and credentialed actuaries (my opinion obviously holds less weight for the latter). I've seen some bad resumes. This is all just my opinion. There are always exceptions but this is a good start for most candidates. Some credit also goes to vjvj as I'm sure I've picked up some of his advice over time.
Overall formatting:
I recommend Times New Roman or a serif font. Regardless, go simple. No weird fonts. No colors. No crazy borders or boxes. Simple horizontal lines or something may be okay, but don't go crazy. White space is good. Generally, single space within each job or section and put a few spaces between different jobs/sections. Keep bolding, underlining, and italicizing to a minimum. I actually would never use underlining. Be consistent with your formatting from section to section. Be careful with hyphens before dates. Double check your resume five times to make sure you don't have half long dashes and half short hyphens. This is a ridiculously common mistake that's gotten really annoying to me after seeing a lot of resumes.
The worst part about most resumes is that they have bad formatting. And it's not hard to use good formatting. Just stop changing the font and don't do anything complicated and you're better than 90% of the other resumes. I wouldn't recommend getting your resume professionally done. They aren't experts in specific careers, and I've seen some bad professionally done resumes. Some of those people have been making resumes since the 90s and haven't moved into the new century. Not a hard rule, but really, it's not hard to make your resume yourself.
In your header, don't use the words "email" and "phone" before your email and phone number. We can recognize emails and phone numbers. Don't make your name GIGANTIC. Bigger than the words on the rest of the resume is fine, but don't make it look obnoxious or use crazy fonts/formatting. Simple is good.
If you're in college and you're applying for jobs in your hometown, two addresses is fine. Otherwise stick with one.
In 90% of cases, your resume should be one page or less.
The sections of your resume should be Actuarial Exams, Education, Experience, Computer Skills and then optionally something like Extracurriculars, Activities, Leadership, Interests, etc.
Don't include references or "references available upon request." This is outdated.
Don't include a "career summary" or some buzz-word-filled profile section at the top. Let your experience, education, and skills speak for themselves. If your resume is so long that it needs a summary, it's too long and you need to cut something out. Your resume IS a summary.
Usually don't include an objective. These aren't expected, so don't feel obligated to include, and usually they aren't helpful. If you do include one, don't fill it with buzzwords/BS. It should just say "To obtain an entry-level actuarial position" or maybe "To obtain an entry-level actuarial position in property & casualty." There are really only two occasions when objectives can be helpful: 1) you're at a non-actuarial career fair handing your resume to a generic HR person, and 2) you're looking for either an internship or a full-time position (say "to obtain an actuarial internship or entry-level position" or something).
Exams:
The Actuarial Exams section should list your exams, whether you passed or are sitting, and dates (month/year).
You don't need to list the full exam name (like "Financial Mathematics"). Rather, either say "Exam FM," "Exam 2," or "Exam FM/2." If applying for property & casualty jobs, either use the numbers or the joint names. Don't say "Exam 3/MFE" or "Exam 3/MLC" since there is no such thing as just "Exam 3." For the former, use "Exam MFE/3F" (or "Exam 3F/MFE"). For the latter, it is trickier because the exam doesn't give the same credit for both the CAS and SOA. If you are applying life/health jobs (SOA), I'd recommend just saying "Exam MLC." If you are applying for P&C jobs (CAS), and you took MLC in 2013 or earlier, I'd recommend something to the effect of "Exam MLC (credit for LC and ST)." If you took MLC later, then it would just be "Exam MLC (credit for LC)." This is true even if you're using the numbers for all the other exams. You can also do something different if it seems more natural to you. I don't really like when people say "MLC/3L" because 3L is no longer an exam and they were never completely equivalent anyway (at least not in the same way the other prelims are). Most people probably won't make a big deal of any of this, but you never know. Some CAS actuaries will prefer that you list the numbers.
You can also put VEEs in your exam section. They can just be one line that says something like "Fulfilled coursework requirements for VEE Economics and Applied Statistics" (or "for all VEEs" or something). You don't need to call the section "Actuarial Requirements" or anything like that. Call it "Actuarial Exams" but you can still include the VEEs. Also note that very few people care about your VEE status.
A common layout for the exam section is to do three columns, all left aligned, for exam name, passed/sitting, and date. If you look through the forum you can probably find some examples of this. There are other ways that might look good too depending on the overall format of your resume.
Note that if you're not entry-level, the exam section can be more condensed, dates aren't always necessary, etc. But for entry-level it's a good idea to have this level of detail.
Generally most people don't recommend putting exam scores. Maybe if you had all 9s and 10s, but even then, it's not expected. If you had an otherwise really poor resume, I might recommend including high exam scores.
Education:
I recommend degree above school name. But if you have a dual degree or double major or lots of minors or something, it may be easier in terms of layout to list school first and degrees on the lines below, and that's okay.
I'd recommend against "Candidate for Bachelor of Science Degree" or anything like that. I also don't like "Expected Graduation." It's just unnecessarily wordy. I recommend just putting your expected graduation month and year. There's no ambiguity there, and you save some space. Don't use dates attended but rather just the grad date.
I recommend just saying "B.S." (periods optional) instead of "Bachelor of Science." This makes your major easier to be spotted, and everyone knows what a B.S. is. Of course, say B.A. or B.B.A. if that's what your degree is, etc.
Don't say /4.0 for your GPA. In the US, we will all assume that all GPAs are out of 4.0. If your GPA is out of something other than 4.0, then list it. If your GPA is 3.0 or above, it should go on your resume. Otherwise, it may make sense to exclude. Don't say "cumulative" if you only have one GPA on your resume and it's your cumulative GPA. That is assumed. If you include your major GPA too or something, then you can say "cumulative" for the cumulative one. If your cumulative GPA is 3.75 and your major GPA is 3.79, I don't care about the difference and you don't need to put your major GPA. If the difference is more substantial, especially if your cumulative is under 3.5 and your major is over 3.5, then it might help to include.
Don't list your "relevant coursework" unless you were in a completely non-quantitative major but have a lot of unexpected quantitative courses or something. If you're a math, econ, finance, actuarial science, statistics, etc. major, in most cases I do not care about your coursework. If we really care, we'll ask for your transcript with the application. Especially don't list your coursework if it's really standard for your major. E.g. math major lists calculus, actuarial science major lists theory of interest, computer science majors lists programming. You may have read elsewhere on the internet to include coursework on your resume, but I generally would not recommend it. MAYBE okay for internships. But still usually a space waster.
You can list honors programs, scholarships, awards, etc. if you want but try to keep it to one line, and definitely not necessary to include unless something really impressive. "Dean's list Fall 2013" probably won't help you if your GPA sucks because we all realize that Dean's list just goes to high GPAs and getting a high GPA once in your entire time in college isn't that impressive.
Usually there's no need to include your high school, but if you are applying for jobs in your hometown, one line including your high school's name could be okay. I wouldn't do much more than that. Unless you're like a freshman looking for an internship, then probably more acceptable.
Experience:
Your Experience section can be called Experience or Work Experience. I don't like Professional Experience. Also, don't do Work Experiences (common among non-native speakers).
It's okay to include completely irrelevant jobs, especially if you have very little work experience. Any job is better than no job on a resume. Yes, even your fast food or retail job is acceptable when you're coming out of college.
In general, go in order of the dates that you held the job. Be consistent with whether that means start date or end date. Your current job should say " - Present" (preferable to the occasional " - Current" that I've seen). Try to consistently use Mon YYYY - Mon YYYY. I don't like semesters or seasons. Even if the start/end date are in the same year, it's usually clearer if you list the year twice.
If your work experience consists of an actuarial internship and then some fast food jobs, it's okay to list the actuarial job first even if the fast food jobs come later chronologically. If you have several relevant jobs (actuarial, insurance, finance, computers, analysis, etc.) then it's okay to cut off other irrelevant jobs. You don't need to list every job you ever had if you have other things to fill the space. At entry-level and if you're coming right out of college, job gaps are fine if you were in school at the time.
Jobs should generally be formatted job title, then company below, with dates to side somewhere (normally to the right but I've seen other formats that work). It's okay if you do company name above job title, but I think it's better to focus on what you did, not who you worked for. if possible, be consistent with your education section (if your school was above degree name, then try company above job title, and vice versa). Then below each job you should have a few bullet points. If you have a few relevant jobs and then some fast food jobs below, it's okay if you don't have bullets or only have one bullet for the fast food jobs. If your only work experience is the fast food jobs, try to have a few bullets if you can make them meaningful. Bullet points should start with a verb. If it's a past job, don't use the present tense. If it's a current job, use the present tense for things you do regularly and the past tense for completed actions/results you achieved. Results-oriented bullets are generally better, but one or two bullets that describe your day-to-day tasks are also fine. Try to focus on what you did and what you achieved. If at all possible, try to avoid verbs like "assisted" or "helped." I also don't like bullets that focus too much on just the names of technical skills without describing much about what was done with those technical skills. You'll have a computer skills section later to name-drop programming languages. Here, focus on what you actually accomplished with those skills. Don't try to make your projects seem overly complicated or technical. Your goal is to get across a complex project to someone who has no idea about any of the details of your job or company. If you can explain something that was complicated in not-so-complicated language, that's good.
If you're not a native English speaker (and even if you are) have a native English speaker reread your bullet points A LOT for grammar. Ask several people, since the first person you ask might be bad at English or not know anything about grammar. Be especially careful with articles and plurals, which are common areas where foreigners make mistakes.
Some people with limited work experience (or with some work experience but with substantive extracurriculars) embed their "leadership experience," club membership, volunteer work, school projects, etc. into their Experience section. This is okay if you have limited work experience, but in other cases I'd generally recommend against it. I prefer this section to focus on paid jobs. There are always exceptions though.
Don't use crazy looking bullet points. A simple circle is fine. Maybe a small square. I wouldn't use dashes, and I don't really like arrows or other shapes.
Computer Skills:
Can also just be called "skills." Generally limited to computer/tech skills but could vary if you weren't entry-level (but this whole post is geared towards entry-level). Don't say "Microsoft," "Microsoft Office," or "Microsoft Office Suite." In general, I wouldn't list PowerPoint or Word. MAYBE if the job listing specifically mentioned PowerPoint and Word as desired skills. No actuary will care. If you know them, list Excel and Access. Capitalize them. They should often be the first skills you mention, because they are used in many actuarial positions.
Don't say "Expert in." I really doubt you're an expert. I'm skeptical of "proficient in" also. I prefer "Experienced in" if you consider yourself pretty knowledgeable. "Working knowledge of" and "Familiar with" are other choices to consider for varying skill levels. If you consider yourself at least "working knowledge of" level, it's fine to just skip all of these words and just list the skills, in my opinion.
Programming skills are good to list if you have them, even if they're totally irrelevant to actuarial jobs. Even though most actuaries aren't using Java on a day-to-day basis, if you have a programming background, that probably means you have the logic skills to do most entry-level work and could pick up other technical skills.
Don't list irrelevant skills like Photoshop or something.
The skills HR will be looking for will probably be Excel, Access, VBA, SQL, SAS, or R, so if you know any of them, list them first.
Other:
At the bottom, you can include an optional section for either your extracurriculars, leadership experience, volunteer work, interests, etc. - whatever you think wasn't covered above but may help your resume. Depending on space, you may even be able to have two of these sections. But don't try to cram it in if you have another otherwise substantive resume.
My personal opinion is I don't like really long descriptions for every club you were in. But if you have limited work experience, it may be okay. Usually I think a line per club is more than enough. These sections are usually just to make you seem like an interesting person, to give possible conversation topics for an interview, etc, but unless you've got something really impressive, it's probably not a substitute for work experience, so don't take space away from your jobs, especially if they were relevant jobs, to write more about your college clubs.
If you include interests, it's traditionally just one line that's a list of random interests ("Skiing, basketball, classical music, and poker" or something).
These sections are more important for internships than entry-level positions, and in both cases are only necessary/important if you don't have a lot else helping you on your resume.
Hope that helps. I may add more if I think of anything I forgot that comes up a lot. Anyone else feel free to comment if you disagree or add additional advice.
I give a lot of the same resume advice pretty often, so I thought I'd put my standard advice in a thread so I can link to it.
This is geared towards interns and entry-level candidates in the US. I can't speak much for Canada, but much of it still may be applicable. Don't listen to me if you're on another continent since resume standards can vary widely across countries.
I'm an analyst with a couple years of experience. I've been involved in the hiring process for interns, entry-level analysts, and credentialed actuaries (my opinion obviously holds less weight for the latter). I've seen some bad resumes. This is all just my opinion. There are always exceptions but this is a good start for most candidates. Some credit also goes to vjvj as I'm sure I've picked up some of his advice over time.
Overall formatting:
I recommend Times New Roman or a serif font. Regardless, go simple. No weird fonts. No colors. No crazy borders or boxes. Simple horizontal lines or something may be okay, but don't go crazy. White space is good. Generally, single space within each job or section and put a few spaces between different jobs/sections. Keep bolding, underlining, and italicizing to a minimum. I actually would never use underlining. Be consistent with your formatting from section to section. Be careful with hyphens before dates. Double check your resume five times to make sure you don't have half long dashes and half short hyphens. This is a ridiculously common mistake that's gotten really annoying to me after seeing a lot of resumes.
The worst part about most resumes is that they have bad formatting. And it's not hard to use good formatting. Just stop changing the font and don't do anything complicated and you're better than 90% of the other resumes. I wouldn't recommend getting your resume professionally done. They aren't experts in specific careers, and I've seen some bad professionally done resumes. Some of those people have been making resumes since the 90s and haven't moved into the new century. Not a hard rule, but really, it's not hard to make your resume yourself.
In your header, don't use the words "email" and "phone" before your email and phone number. We can recognize emails and phone numbers. Don't make your name GIGANTIC. Bigger than the words on the rest of the resume is fine, but don't make it look obnoxious or use crazy fonts/formatting. Simple is good.
If you're in college and you're applying for jobs in your hometown, two addresses is fine. Otherwise stick with one.
In 90% of cases, your resume should be one page or less.
The sections of your resume should be Actuarial Exams, Education, Experience, Computer Skills and then optionally something like Extracurriculars, Activities, Leadership, Interests, etc.
Don't include references or "references available upon request." This is outdated.
Don't include a "career summary" or some buzz-word-filled profile section at the top. Let your experience, education, and skills speak for themselves. If your resume is so long that it needs a summary, it's too long and you need to cut something out. Your resume IS a summary.
Usually don't include an objective. These aren't expected, so don't feel obligated to include, and usually they aren't helpful. If you do include one, don't fill it with buzzwords/BS. It should just say "To obtain an entry-level actuarial position" or maybe "To obtain an entry-level actuarial position in property & casualty." There are really only two occasions when objectives can be helpful: 1) you're at a non-actuarial career fair handing your resume to a generic HR person, and 2) you're looking for either an internship or a full-time position (say "to obtain an actuarial internship or entry-level position" or something).
Exams:
The Actuarial Exams section should list your exams, whether you passed or are sitting, and dates (month/year).
You don't need to list the full exam name (like "Financial Mathematics"). Rather, either say "Exam FM," "Exam 2," or "Exam FM/2." If applying for property & casualty jobs, either use the numbers or the joint names. Don't say "Exam 3/MFE" or "Exam 3/MLC" since there is no such thing as just "Exam 3." For the former, use "Exam MFE/3F" (or "Exam 3F/MFE"). For the latter, it is trickier because the exam doesn't give the same credit for both the CAS and SOA. If you are applying life/health jobs (SOA), I'd recommend just saying "Exam MLC." If you are applying for P&C jobs (CAS), and you took MLC in 2013 or earlier, I'd recommend something to the effect of "Exam MLC (credit for LC and ST)." If you took MLC later, then it would just be "Exam MLC (credit for LC)." This is true even if you're using the numbers for all the other exams. You can also do something different if it seems more natural to you. I don't really like when people say "MLC/3L" because 3L is no longer an exam and they were never completely equivalent anyway (at least not in the same way the other prelims are). Most people probably won't make a big deal of any of this, but you never know. Some CAS actuaries will prefer that you list the numbers.
You can also put VEEs in your exam section. They can just be one line that says something like "Fulfilled coursework requirements for VEE Economics and Applied Statistics" (or "for all VEEs" or something). You don't need to call the section "Actuarial Requirements" or anything like that. Call it "Actuarial Exams" but you can still include the VEEs. Also note that very few people care about your VEE status.
A common layout for the exam section is to do three columns, all left aligned, for exam name, passed/sitting, and date. If you look through the forum you can probably find some examples of this. There are other ways that might look good too depending on the overall format of your resume.
Note that if you're not entry-level, the exam section can be more condensed, dates aren't always necessary, etc. But for entry-level it's a good idea to have this level of detail.
Generally most people don't recommend putting exam scores. Maybe if you had all 9s and 10s, but even then, it's not expected. If you had an otherwise really poor resume, I might recommend including high exam scores.
Education:
I recommend degree above school name. But if you have a dual degree or double major or lots of minors or something, it may be easier in terms of layout to list school first and degrees on the lines below, and that's okay.
I'd recommend against "Candidate for Bachelor of Science Degree" or anything like that. I also don't like "Expected Graduation." It's just unnecessarily wordy. I recommend just putting your expected graduation month and year. There's no ambiguity there, and you save some space. Don't use dates attended but rather just the grad date.
I recommend just saying "B.S." (periods optional) instead of "Bachelor of Science." This makes your major easier to be spotted, and everyone knows what a B.S. is. Of course, say B.A. or B.B.A. if that's what your degree is, etc.
Don't say /4.0 for your GPA. In the US, we will all assume that all GPAs are out of 4.0. If your GPA is out of something other than 4.0, then list it. If your GPA is 3.0 or above, it should go on your resume. Otherwise, it may make sense to exclude. Don't say "cumulative" if you only have one GPA on your resume and it's your cumulative GPA. That is assumed. If you include your major GPA too or something, then you can say "cumulative" for the cumulative one. If your cumulative GPA is 3.75 and your major GPA is 3.79, I don't care about the difference and you don't need to put your major GPA. If the difference is more substantial, especially if your cumulative is under 3.5 and your major is over 3.5, then it might help to include.
Don't list your "relevant coursework" unless you were in a completely non-quantitative major but have a lot of unexpected quantitative courses or something. If you're a math, econ, finance, actuarial science, statistics, etc. major, in most cases I do not care about your coursework. If we really care, we'll ask for your transcript with the application. Especially don't list your coursework if it's really standard for your major. E.g. math major lists calculus, actuarial science major lists theory of interest, computer science majors lists programming. You may have read elsewhere on the internet to include coursework on your resume, but I generally would not recommend it. MAYBE okay for internships. But still usually a space waster.
You can list honors programs, scholarships, awards, etc. if you want but try to keep it to one line, and definitely not necessary to include unless something really impressive. "Dean's list Fall 2013" probably won't help you if your GPA sucks because we all realize that Dean's list just goes to high GPAs and getting a high GPA once in your entire time in college isn't that impressive.
Usually there's no need to include your high school, but if you are applying for jobs in your hometown, one line including your high school's name could be okay. I wouldn't do much more than that. Unless you're like a freshman looking for an internship, then probably more acceptable.
Experience:
Your Experience section can be called Experience or Work Experience. I don't like Professional Experience. Also, don't do Work Experiences (common among non-native speakers).
It's okay to include completely irrelevant jobs, especially if you have very little work experience. Any job is better than no job on a resume. Yes, even your fast food or retail job is acceptable when you're coming out of college.
In general, go in order of the dates that you held the job. Be consistent with whether that means start date or end date. Your current job should say " - Present" (preferable to the occasional " - Current" that I've seen). Try to consistently use Mon YYYY - Mon YYYY. I don't like semesters or seasons. Even if the start/end date are in the same year, it's usually clearer if you list the year twice.
If your work experience consists of an actuarial internship and then some fast food jobs, it's okay to list the actuarial job first even if the fast food jobs come later chronologically. If you have several relevant jobs (actuarial, insurance, finance, computers, analysis, etc.) then it's okay to cut off other irrelevant jobs. You don't need to list every job you ever had if you have other things to fill the space. At entry-level and if you're coming right out of college, job gaps are fine if you were in school at the time.
Jobs should generally be formatted job title, then company below, with dates to side somewhere (normally to the right but I've seen other formats that work). It's okay if you do company name above job title, but I think it's better to focus on what you did, not who you worked for. if possible, be consistent with your education section (if your school was above degree name, then try company above job title, and vice versa). Then below each job you should have a few bullet points. If you have a few relevant jobs and then some fast food jobs below, it's okay if you don't have bullets or only have one bullet for the fast food jobs. If your only work experience is the fast food jobs, try to have a few bullets if you can make them meaningful. Bullet points should start with a verb. If it's a past job, don't use the present tense. If it's a current job, use the present tense for things you do regularly and the past tense for completed actions/results you achieved. Results-oriented bullets are generally better, but one or two bullets that describe your day-to-day tasks are also fine. Try to focus on what you did and what you achieved. If at all possible, try to avoid verbs like "assisted" or "helped." I also don't like bullets that focus too much on just the names of technical skills without describing much about what was done with those technical skills. You'll have a computer skills section later to name-drop programming languages. Here, focus on what you actually accomplished with those skills. Don't try to make your projects seem overly complicated or technical. Your goal is to get across a complex project to someone who has no idea about any of the details of your job or company. If you can explain something that was complicated in not-so-complicated language, that's good.
If you're not a native English speaker (and even if you are) have a native English speaker reread your bullet points A LOT for grammar. Ask several people, since the first person you ask might be bad at English or not know anything about grammar. Be especially careful with articles and plurals, which are common areas where foreigners make mistakes.
Some people with limited work experience (or with some work experience but with substantive extracurriculars) embed their "leadership experience," club membership, volunteer work, school projects, etc. into their Experience section. This is okay if you have limited work experience, but in other cases I'd generally recommend against it. I prefer this section to focus on paid jobs. There are always exceptions though.
Don't use crazy looking bullet points. A simple circle is fine. Maybe a small square. I wouldn't use dashes, and I don't really like arrows or other shapes.
Computer Skills:
Can also just be called "skills." Generally limited to computer/tech skills but could vary if you weren't entry-level (but this whole post is geared towards entry-level). Don't say "Microsoft," "Microsoft Office," or "Microsoft Office Suite." In general, I wouldn't list PowerPoint or Word. MAYBE if the job listing specifically mentioned PowerPoint and Word as desired skills. No actuary will care. If you know them, list Excel and Access. Capitalize them. They should often be the first skills you mention, because they are used in many actuarial positions.
Don't say "Expert in." I really doubt you're an expert. I'm skeptical of "proficient in" also. I prefer "Experienced in" if you consider yourself pretty knowledgeable. "Working knowledge of" and "Familiar with" are other choices to consider for varying skill levels. If you consider yourself at least "working knowledge of" level, it's fine to just skip all of these words and just list the skills, in my opinion.
Programming skills are good to list if you have them, even if they're totally irrelevant to actuarial jobs. Even though most actuaries aren't using Java on a day-to-day basis, if you have a programming background, that probably means you have the logic skills to do most entry-level work and could pick up other technical skills.
Don't list irrelevant skills like Photoshop or something.
The skills HR will be looking for will probably be Excel, Access, VBA, SQL, SAS, or R, so if you know any of them, list them first.
Other:
At the bottom, you can include an optional section for either your extracurriculars, leadership experience, volunteer work, interests, etc. - whatever you think wasn't covered above but may help your resume. Depending on space, you may even be able to have two of these sections. But don't try to cram it in if you have another otherwise substantive resume.
My personal opinion is I don't like really long descriptions for every club you were in. But if you have limited work experience, it may be okay. Usually I think a line per club is more than enough. These sections are usually just to make you seem like an interesting person, to give possible conversation topics for an interview, etc, but unless you've got something really impressive, it's probably not a substitute for work experience, so don't take space away from your jobs, especially if they were relevant jobs, to write more about your college clubs.
If you include interests, it's traditionally just one line that's a list of random interests ("Skiing, basketball, classical music, and poker" or something).
These sections are more important for internships than entry-level positions, and in both cases are only necessary/important if you don't have a lot else helping you on your resume.
Hope that helps. I may add more if I think of anything I forgot that comes up a lot. Anyone else feel free to comment if you disagree or add additional advice.
lllj's resume advice
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