Resume for grad application? Lab skills?

[oceanlover]

Hey I was just wondering what exactly people tend to include on the resume they upload if your grad app asks for it.  i'm applying for a masters in marine bio and my resume is current broken up into related experience, achievements (where i have a conference i presented in, awards, and my TA position listed) and skills.  a grad student i currently work with took a look at my resume and recommended taking out skills (which had a couple juvenile microsoft office related things) and adding research skills instead, and listing the lab skills i know how to do.  has anyone else done anything like that, and specifically listed lab skills?  I've also been crazily adjusting margins to get my resume to stay on one page, do you think 1 page with a couple lines on the second page would be bad?

[TakeruK]

Is there a 1 page limit? If so, then going over is probably a bad idea. If not, then you don't have to stick to the standard "1 page resume" that we learn to write for most job applications. Grad school application CV/resumes can be longer than one page -- many are much longer -- but don't just fill up space with "filler" material.

 

I wouldn't have a section for "achievements" but instead, I would have:

 

Education

Research Experience

Awards/Fellowships (prioritize the ones that are competitively awarded and/or for research -- e.g. NSF; don't list every single award)

Publications and Presentations (put your conference presentation here)

Teaching Experience (put your TAship here)

[if necessary, an "Other Experience" or something like that here, to list things like student group leadership, outreach, etc.]

 

You should probably reorder these based on what you are strong in (e.g. switch Awards and Research Experience if you have lots of awards but less experience etc.)

 

And I agree with the grad student to remove MS Office related skills. That's for job applications, not for grad schools! Instead, list your research skills / lab skills with each research experience posting, I think, unless you feel it's better to have its own section!

 

I would recommend looking up research websites of grad students and post-docs that you might know in your field and looking at their CVs online. Model yours after theirs!

[oceanlover]

great ideas, thanks so much for your help!