By Amanda Butkiewicz, Assistant Director, Career & Professional Development Services, ASU
Resumes are dynamic documents that highlight an individual’s most relevant experiences and accomplishments related to a job description. In addition to standard resume sections like education, skills and experiences, class projects is a section that can be included to showcase additional qualifications that are relevant to jobs in which you have interest in applying to.
When should you add a Class Projects section?
Every statement on your resume should add value and relate back to the job opening. With only one page (for every 10-15 years of experience), every line counts, so you need to make sure that it is highlighting something that the employer is looking for in an ideal candidate.
When you review a job description, treat the qualifications section like a checklist. As you compare your resume to the qualifications listed, you should go through and check off each qualification as you see it listed on your resume. Education experience can supplement any work experience that you may not have, yet. If you have completed class projects where you have gained some of the listed qualifications, then you should include a section titled “Course Projects.”
Once you develop yourself as a professional outside of the classroom and your qualifications are primarily gained through employment, then you should re-evaluate if class projects should remain on your resume or be removed.
How should you list Class Projects as a section?
A “Class Projects” section can be treated very similarly to other work experience sections. You will list the project name, the institution where you completed the project, location and length of time. Then you write out an accomplishment statement (Action Verb + Project + Results) outlining the process of starting, creating and completing the project.
A quick note about order:
Your first accomplishment statement should include enough information so that the reader understands what you are capable of, responsible for and how you achieved a result. Sometimes the title of the project is too vague and you want to ensure that you are giving the bigger picture of what your goal was
The following accomplishment statements can then be more focused on certain skill sets that you used, but don’t forget to indicate how you used them. For example, don’t just say that you wrote code in Java; go into more detail about the project for which you wrote that specific code
In addition, if you worked with others on your class projects, highlight this. Employers want to see that you can work collaboratively. Show that you not only do you possess the technical skills to do the job, but you can also activate and motivate a team to accomplish a task
Career and Professional Development Services has Sample Resumes that feature Class Projects to help you in creating yours. Don’t forget to review them, along with our other Resume resources, to ensure that you’re putting your best professional self forward.