Your education makes you who you are. You study during your childhood to half of your youthhood to prepare yourself for the career of your dreams. Your educational qualifications determine whether you are well suited for a particular occupation. As you grow older, you start specializing in various subjects that give you detailed knowledge about a profession that you go on to pursue. Combined with vocational courses, your education makes you more skilled, which helps you immensely when looking for a job.
However, how to make the most of your educational qualifications? How to present them in your resume so that they get noticed by your employers and consider you a potential candidate? Your education should make your employers more interested in your profile and encourage them to read more. The right qualifications and work experience would help you land your job in no time.
Here is how you can list your education on your resume.
Why is it Important to Have an Education Section on Your Resume?
Your education section will have all the degrees and diplomas that you have earned in the course of your student life. If you have won any special certificates, scholarships, and fellowships, all of that should be listed here.
It will prove to your employer that you are hard-working as a student, and this quality will come in handy when it is time to learn new skills on the job. The resume section often gives an idea of who you are going to be as a potential employee.
Where Do You Put Your Education on the Resume?
It would be best if you put your educational qualifications correctly in the resume so that your employers notice them. In most cases, this section comes just below the work experience section. However, it is advisable to put it under the resume summary, qualifications summary, or resume objective statement if you are just a fresher or a beginner.
Also, if you are a professional going back to school or writing an academic resume, this might be helpful. Research has shown that highlighting a renowned school or college also positively impacts employers because it shows that you are a better candidate.
What Should You Include in the Education Section?
It should be noted that different resume formats require various kinds of information. However, as a general rule, here are some of the things that you must include in the Education Section.
- The name of the college or university you went to. If you have been to multiple colleges and universities while pursuing higher education, list them from the latest to the oldest, stating the dates when you graduated from each university.
- The location of the schools and colleges.
- List out various degrees and diplomas that you have acquired from each college and university.
- Major field and department of study.
- Mention any subcategories of your subject or minor field of study.
- Names of the universities from where you received scholarship/s.
- GPA. However, if your GPA was not exceptionally high, then you could omit this section unless specifically asked for by your employer.
This is what an example should look like:
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
B.S. in Computer Engineering, 2007 – 2011
GPA: 3.8/4.0
Additional Information that You May Include
Suppose your education included paid or non-paid internships or included a lot of fieldwork. In that case, you could consist of them either under the education section or under the work experience section. Relating your education with your work experience is another way of ensuring that your employer takes note of your qualifications. Here you could talk about.
- Any internship that you completed as a part of your coursework
- Academic awards and sponsorships
- Academic assistantships with professors or other educational professionals
- Any research work and fieldwork
What Not to Include in Your Education Section?
It is essential to keep your resume adequately detailed yet crisp and precise. Hence, it is ideal that you leave out any unnecessary information that cannot be connected back to your job or does not enhance your resume in any way.
For example, you could have been the president of a sports club or could have been great at extra-curricular activities, but if it does not help your case for securing the present job, leave it out of the educational section.
If you still want to include them, you could list them under other achievements, but only if it does not make your resume lengthy.
However, if the same activity can help you prove that you held a leadership role and being a leader is relevant to your current job position, then go ahead and highlight this achievement. It all depends on how you are wording your resume and making the best use of your qualifications. However, try not to do it with long paragraphs.
How to Add Names of Institutions on your Resume?
Formatting is crucial when it comes to writing a perfect resume. This enhances the readability of the resume and increases your chances of going to the next level of the hiring process. Listing your high school, college, or university might be a good idea if you went to reputed institutions known for producing world-class professionals.
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#1. Adding High School
This section should be short. Start by including the name of the high school, the year you graduated, and the GED you received during this period.
For example, you could state it like this:
Cactus High School, Glendale, AZ
Graduated in 2018
#2. Adding College
You usually get your Bachelor’s degree from your college, and you should always include that in your resume. Include the name and location of the college and the date you graduated. Here you could also mention your honor societies and academic achievements. However, there is no need to include any detailed coursework.
For example, you could frame it like this.
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC
Completed 20 credits towards a BS in Communications
#3. Adding Doctoral Programs
While adding your Master’s or Doctoral programs can enrich your resume, you should try not to go overboard while listing your academic achievements. However, it is still relevant if you opt for a higher-level position as a managerial post.
On the other hand, if you seek a job in an academic or a scientific field, you could opt for a detailed CV and a long-form education section that includes all the coursework and research papers.
For example, you could state it like this:
- Harvard University Ph.D. candidate in Biological and Biomedical Sciences. GRE: 800Q, 610V, 5.5W, 99% BIOCHEM – Boston, MA, 20XX Expected
- Nanyang Technological University B.S. with First Class Honors in Biological Science. GPA: 3.96/4.00 – Singapore, May 20XX
- Minor in Entrepreneurship University of Melbourne International Student Exchange Program – Melbourne, Australia, May-July 20XX
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#4. Adding Certifications
In case you have not attended any college in the conventional sense of the term. Still, you had participated in a trade school or have been into vocational courses, where you had received different kinds of certifications, you should include that too in your resume. You could add a “certifications acquired” section and include the various certificates, like a CPR or First Aid certification.
#5. Adding Ongoing Courses
It is very much possible that you are in the middle of a course or degree, and you have still not completed it. However, it is ideal if you avoid words like “unfinished” or “incomplete” on your resume. Instead, you could include the details you are pursuing a course on a particular subject from a specific institution, and you expect to graduate the following year, or whichever year is applicable.
Once you have achieved the certification or degree, it would be highly relevant to the position you are applying for and state your reasons why. You could frame it briefly, and your employer might ask you to elucidate when you appear for the interview.
For example, you could frame it like this:
B.S. in Communications
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC
Expected graduation May 2021
Conclusion
Including your education on your resume should bring about positive results. It is true that some employers do not put much stress on your formal education, but they want to know more about the practical experiences you have gathered. Nevertheless, your educational qualifications play a considerable role in shaping your career, and the motto of your institute also shapes your character, which plays a subtle yet essential role in determining what kind of an employee and a person you might be. Hence, being particular about the details would help, and listing them will bring about positive results.
