Whitespace

Various people have always complained about how unfair it may be to ask a fresh college grad not to have whitespace on their resume. I'm not sure if this is necessarily an unfair thing to ask. Many college grads have full resumes filled with competitions, clubs, sports and jobs they participated in (yes, they're participating in jobs, quit bitching) during college. I don't think it's unfair to ask a student to have participated in two reasonable commitments during college. I think two is enough to fill up a resume. People are often in fraternities/sororities, sports teams, maybe a part-time job, maybe an internship, and a competition here or there. The key is to put the right amount of detail into your resume. Don't rehash the same thing over and over again (as some people I've seen have done) and don't write down meaningless bullet points like "assured continuity of business as usual" (yes, I've seen that as a bullet point).

So what sort of detail should you give? Remember in grade school when they told you that the key to a good expository is to give the "who, what, when, where and why?" That's pretty much it. In particular, "who, what, where" are usually the most important. You should make sure you always discuss the "who" in each line you state. Were you addressing clients? Management? New hires? Students? The what should be detailed. Was it a $10M account or a $10Bn account? Was the PnL +25M or -15M? Was the audience 8 people or 500 people? Were you serving 10 customers a day or 1000? As to where, did you do this at your firm? Did you travel at all? Were you at an off-site? When and why can be a bit redundant. Most of us won't care why. And the answer to why is often "because my boss told me." If you took the initiative to do it yourself, you should probably mention that. Initiative is often associated with risk--taking initiative means you're willing to take some career risk, which is good. As for when, it's usually during business hours, so no one cares. You might mention the when if it's past normal hours or something, but don't get too cocky with this. No one likes the asshole who stays late just to stay late. One thing not mentioned above is HOW. You can include HOW you did things to strengthen a resume. So you were a waitress? HOW did you make customers happy? HOW did you gain more tips? HOW did you decrease the wait time at the restaurant?

The details you include in your resume are important and can show a lot about how you dealt with various trials. In particular they can show how you are different from someone else who may have taken the same task, and that is the key. You need to differentiate yourself in the particular role you may have had. If the next guy would have done your job just as well, then you're basically a commodity. If you added special value in that role, then you're a valuable asset.

Good luck.