Resumes are so much more complicated than I ever imagined them to be.

When I was applying for the Public Relations internship I just got, I was faced with the daunting task of cutting down my resume. A task which leads to many stressful questions.

I have my “master resume” which basically means that it includes absolutely everything I could ever want on a resume, and does not have to conform to the one-page limit. When applying for jobs or internships, I copy and paste this onto a new Word document, and begin cutting out those experiences that are not as applicable to job to which I’m applying until I do get to this much-desired one-page summary of my past experiences.

Generally, however, even this “master resume” is very much tailored to writing and blogging and editorial journalism. Faced with the Public Relations application—and an ever-growing resume—I felt more uncertain about what to delete, what to keep, and how to phrase things.

(Can I really just change the “WRITING EXPERIENCE” title to “PUBLIC RELATIONS EXPERIENCE?” What is Public Relations, anyway? It involves writing, doesn’t it? Is writing for the school paper or the magazine better? How long should the description of my responsibilities as editor-in-chief of the magazine really be? Is any of this memorable? Do I have to make my margins smaller yet again?)

I think one of the biggest challenges is knowing how to describe what you did with that job or internship in a way that related to the job you’re applying for. This is actually a challenge I’m still working on—with this Public Relations internship, I looked at most of my current descriptions and simply decided they were good or close enough instead of trying to make any changes in wording. Of course, we’ve already gone over the fact that Public Relations was a little too vague for me to fully know how to address.

I know that when I start applying to other internships for next summer that will probably be more competitive, I will definitely stop in the Career Planning & Resources Office to work on this if I have these questions again!

I’ll leave you with a slightly silly Youtube video I found about tailoring resumes:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef7nvtbdrPg&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]