Education on Your Resume

Recruiters spend an average of 6 seconds looking at a resume.  In these 6 seconds, we decide if we should spend the time to actually read your resume and call you.  I guarantee less than 1 second is spent on your education, and usually it's just to make sure you have the required level of education.  So K.I.S.S...

If space on your resume is valuable, then this section should be no more than two lines.  Location on the resume varies   Some people put this at the beginning of the resume, some at the end - your choice.

The education section should list what college you went to and your degree.  If you didn’t graduate, make that clear or don’t include it at all.  Let’s get this out of the way right now, DON’T LIE ON YOUR RESUME.  It isn’t worth it and will be discovered during the interviewing process or a background check.  If the job requires a degree and you don’t have it, you’re screwed, if it doesn’t then you don’t need to put it. 

If you didn’t go to college, list your high school, or don’t include an education section – experience is far more important, and a high school diploma or equivalent is usually assumed.  Also, if you have any kind of college degree, don’t list your high school education, it’s your degree that matters.

If you're new to the job field, then you can add more to this section, such as relevant electives that you took, or important projects you did that are relevant to your field.

Example:

California State Polytechnic University, Pomona                                                                 June, 2010

Bachelors of Science in Business Administration with an emphasis in Management and Human Resources