Welcome to crowd-sourced resume review for LIS job hunters!
Please help the job hunter below by using the comment button to offer constructive criticism on her resume. Some guidelines for constructive feedback are here, and the ALA NMRT has brief tips for reviewing resumes here.
This 1 page resume was submitted by a job hunter who says,
I have been seeking entry-level positions at public libraries – I’m specifically interested in reference services, but am flexible in terms of the positions I would take.
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Hiring Librarians 
Nice formatting!
Because you’re a recent graduate with limited library experience, consider pulling your internship out of the Education section so that it stands on its own. If you do this, you can then change Work Experience to “Experience,” include more detailed information about the internship and potentially reduce the amount of content you’ve placed under Barnes & Nobles.
Other minor changes you may wish to consider: remove coursework (if it’s applicable, you can always mention it in a cover letter); remove skills; since they’re somewhat general; and remove objective.
Good luck!
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I think you have good stuff on here! Don’t worry about your resume being completely linear- market yourself and the skills you want to highlight. Maybe try headings like: work, volunteer, internship, leadership, presentations, or projects. Have you done a few interesting, relevant projects you’d like employers to see? Call them out- don’t hide them under each piece of experience. For example, I was in charge of summer reading where I work, so I called it out under a leadership heading on my resume, instead of adding a sub-bullet under my work experience.
As for skills, I think you’re shorting yourself. I see lots of skills being listed in your work experience: customer service, project management, event coordination, etc. Now, those are skills! Beyond adding your current items to a cover letter, maybe consider adding them to a LinkedIn profile. Give a few meaty skills down there and then leave your reader with a link to be further impressed with you over on LinkedIn. Employers are likely to check on you socially anyway, so why not take advantage of that?!
Sorry for the long reply, but I saw a lot of potential in your resume! Good luck on the job hunt! 🙂
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I would list the education section first since you’re still a relatively new MLS graduate.
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This is well formatted. I hate bullet points, but I’m giving you a pass, because there aren’t a ton of them.
Having said that, I would place your education at the top. You’re new in the library field and for entry level jobs one of the first things that is check is if you have the required MLS.
Next, I would also recommend pulling out your internship. That’s library experience and that’s important.
Lastly, I would take a good hard look at your “Skills” section. I assume that if you graduated library school than you can use most of the programs listed, expect Access. Access is specialized enough to warrant a mention. If you have database experience than that is something worth highlighting. Consider something like, “Experience using Access to develop databases” or something like that. Skills sections are a little rough to write well. Good luck.
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Now I want to run to my resume and take out all the bullets. I’ve seen enough negative comments to make me worried
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