The law school resume: not the one you use for jobs

Most applicants submit a lightly edited job resume, which is a mistake of purpose rather than of formatting. An employer is asking whether you can do a specific job. An admissions reader is asking what you have done with your time and whether you finish things.

What changes

• Length. Two pages is normal and often expected, where a job resume is compressed to one. Do not cut real substance to hit a page count nobody imposed.
• Education stays at the top, with more of it — honors, thesis, relevant coursework if it is genuinely relevant. On a job resume this shrinks; here it does not.
• Include the unglamorous jobs. Working through college is evidence of exactly what a committee is looking for, and applicants routinely delete it out of embarrassment.
• Explain gaps rather than hiding them. A reader who notices an unexplained two years will wonder; a one-line entry stops the wondering.
• Keep meaningful activities even without a title. Sustained involvement in something reads better than an officer position held for one term.

What to cut

High school, unless it is genuinely extraordinary or you are applying straight from an unusual path. Objective statements, which say nothing. Skills sections listing software everyone uses. Anything you would not want asked about in an interview.

Also cut the buzzwords. "Results-driven team player with a proven track record" is invisible to a reader who has seen it four hundred times this cycle, and it costs you a line that could have held a fact.

Write in specifics

The difference between a weak and strong entry is almost always concreteness. "Assisted with research" tells a reader nothing. "Coded 400 survey responses for a study on municipal housing policy; co-authored the methods section" tells them what you actually did and how much of it was yours.

Numbers help where they are real — how many, how long, how large. Invented precision does not, and a committee reading closely can tell.

The mechanics

So the same resume usually goes to every school, which is an argument for making it good rather than making it targeted. Reverse chronological order, consistent formatting, dates that line up, and a font a tired person can read at speed.

One last check: the resume should agree with the personal statement and the letters. Three documents describing the same person is the point; three describing three different people is a problem a reader will notice.