HW Venture hosted a resume creation workshop led by alumna and resume expert Evan Keare ’18 on Wednesday. The workshop provided students with strategies to write and strengthen resumes by focusing on how to make them stand out.

Keare presented a step-by-step procedure to organize and format various details of the resume as well as ways to highlight special skills and noteworthy achievements. Although resume writing can be a daunting task for most students, Keare said that it’s important to start with the basics.

“If you’re just beginning the resume process, start by writing down what you have to work with for each section – without thinking about how it looks,” Keare said. “Once you have all of your material in front of you, you can strategically organize it based on what fits and who your audience is.”

In order to create a resume that stands out, Keare emphasized the importance of a strong first impression.

“One way to guarantee that is to get really creative and original with your resume’s style and design,” Keare said. “Even if you use a more basic template, you can use contrast (bold or color) and strategic whitespace to make your resume particularly attractive. Ultimately, it should be so approachable that a recruiter actually ‘wants’ to read it.”

Rustom Malhotra ’24 said he found the workshop to be a valuable learning experience with many applicable elements that he can incorporate into his own resume.

“I learned a lot about the numerous details and style of formatting necessary to ensure one creates a captivating resume,” Malhotra said. “I hope that people obtained skills they can remember and easily employ when writing their own resumes.”

Zoe Roth ’24 said the workshop provided a perfect opportunity to learn some essential skills needed to prepare for the application process for colleges and jobs in the coming years.

“I thought the workshop was very helpful because I am going to be applying to both jobs and colleges in the near future,” Roth said. “Though we talk a lot about these things happening, no one ever mentions what it will look like, which is what I got a glimpse of today. I hope that just like me, people will use the skills taught to give them an advantage that not a lot of people get when [they] first start this process.”

As a follow-up to the workshop, Venture will give students opportunities to submit their working resumes to be reviewed by experienced resume writers for feedback in the coming weeks.