Begin the resume with your name and contact details, and ensure it is free of errors. Provide separate sections for education, certifications and awards, experience, presentations and publications and memberships of associations relevant to the profession. Use positive action words that portray a vivid picture of you as an enthusiastic, proactive candidate. After you finish preparing the resume, double check it to be sure it is free of errors in spelling, grammar and sentence construction.
Make the educational section the highlight of your resume, giving names of the college from which you graduated, the main subjects your coursework included and your GPA. Provide details of a few upper-level courses that are relevant to the program for which you are now applying. Draw attention to your special accomplishments such as awards, scholarships, publications and research work related to the subject in which you wish to pursue further education.
Graduate schools look for students with excellence in academic as well as extracurricular performance. Whether it is an internship you took up, service as a volunteer or work experience, quote all experience that is relevant to the course of study you plan to pursue. For example, if applying to medical school, stress your volunteer experience at a local group home rather than experience of fund-raising for a charity organization. If you have teaching experience, highlight that giving brief information of the courses you taught. Students who join doctoral programs often have to assist their research guide in handling undergraduate classes, so this information makes your application more appealing to the admission committee.
Create the resume using Microsoft Word. Although many resume templates are available online, you may find that their formatting features are complicated, and therefore difficult to modify, leading to an appearance that is not very attractive. Also, when using templates, you need to spend more time finding one that has categories suitable to your resume headings. Ensure the layout of the resume is clean, with sufficient spacing to allow easy reading. Use size 12-point font for the entire text except for your name, which should be bigger, bold and centered as a heading at the top of the page.