Resume Help

[blonde893]

Hello!

So I am having trouble tailoring my resume for my applications. I know it's supposed to be an academic resume and I've been reading a lot of posts that say not to include too much about work experience. I have 2 years of work experience in finance and then left to pursue a masters degree in liberal arts which entailed extensive research and writing. Should I be putting the titles or information about the theses I wrote for my graduate degree instead of including too much information about my previous work experience? I'm stuck!

Thanks for your help!

[Jon Denning]

Hey blonde,

Thanks for the question and welcome to the Forum! A few pieces of advice, based on my (admittedly often personal/anecdotal) experiences

First, I'm not sure there's a perfectly universal prescription for what schools are after with resumes. That is, while I can say with some confidence that the emphasis should be on academic accomplishments over professional when possible (in much the same way that letters of rec tend to be better if written by someone familiar with you academically), schools often differ in what they're after and the points they'd like highlighted.

Some schools may want a highly-detailed account of everything—college, post-grad, and work-world—while others may prefer you keep it strictly academic. Still others may be somewhere in between, where it all gets a mention but the focus is undergrad, or post-grad, etc.

In situations like that there's really only one thing to do, and that's to contact your target/possible schools directly and ask! The truth is, they want you to apply as a candidate they can accept (that's step 1 to you writing them a check, after all), and they will almost always do whatever they can to help you help them say "yes." Some hurdles are insurmountable, of course, like a 122 LSAT score or a 0.4 GPA (or a prolific criminal history...the list goes on). But things like how to best present your resume information is entirely within the realm of their influence, and they're happy to exert that influence as they await your application.

Now, they won't help you write the resume, but that doesn't seem to be the concern here nearly as much as how/what to highlight as you write it. However, if you find that the construction of it to whatever standards you're encouraged to meet presents a challenge, that's where you'd be very well served enlisting some professional help. We offer a few programs that you could consider at that point (in fact, both of our personal statement programs include not only PS help, but also full resume review and revision: https://www.powerscore.com/lsat/law-sch ... statement/), but it's probably premature to dive into one before you speak to some schools and get a better sense of what you can and should do on your own

I hope that helps, and please keep us in the loop as you get some additional feedback!

Thanks!

[blonde893]

Thank you so much, Jon! I am visiting with my #1 school tomorrow so hopefully I will find my answer!

[Jon Denning]

Good luck! Keep me/us posted!