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In the world of theatre education, your resume is like the first round of an audition. With more applicants than positions available, this is your professional introduction and is crucially important. After serving on few hiring committees, here are some tips to keep in mind:

1. PRIORITIZE because page one matters. Many of us have more than one page on our resume, but most job application tracking  show only the first page of a resume “at a glance” to those on the hiring committee looking to peruse applicants. The top one-third of your resume is what will be scanned to determine if the hiring committee will read the rest, and that happens in a matter of seconds.

Your resume still should not be more than two pages. If that feels painful to you, keep in mind that the longer your resume is, the less likely hiring managers are to see the parts you most want them to see. If your resume is several pages long, how many highlights will they really spot?

It is time to prioritize and put your best, favorite, and most relevant work on the first page. There are many ways to do a non-chronological resume, such as a functional or skills-based resume, so find what works for you.

2. SPECIFY content matters. If your resume looks like a generic job description, you’ve let the hiring committee learn about the job and not you. We’ve seen many applicants whose resumes look a lot like this:

Drama Teacher, Aiden Middle School

• Taught 6th, 7th, and 8th-grade drama
• Taught rotating 9-week elective introductory theatre course
• Responsible for directing after-school productions of fall play and spring musical

For the most part, hiring committees will understand what duties are associated with your job titles, so putting those statements as bullets on your resume only uses up valuable space. On the other hand, by including accomplishments, you paint a picture of your abilities—one that will sell yourself. Using an achievement-based resume lets us know about you, the teaching artist.

Many people don't give themselves sufficient credit because they believe it will make them sound arrogant or conceited. The truth is that a resume doesn't require humility as the hiring committee wants you to tell them why you're the right fit for the job - in essence, it's a marketing document that demonstrates specific instances of transferable skills in regards to the position. It is so imperative that you highlight your accomplishments in your resume.

The hardest part of writing an effective resume is figuring out the content – how to talk about your achievements in ways that tie to what an employer is looking for. A trick to making it in the “yes” pile is to identify phrases and wordings from the job posting and mirror them on your resume.

Begin by brainstorming some of your accomplishments, here some paths to get you started:

• Projects that made you proud
• Programs or policies you revamped/improved
• Special projects or committees or meetings you assisted with
• Anything you designed or implemented
• Your annual goals or projects you’ve worked on for your evaluations
• Professional development you’ve taken
• Awards and recognition you’ve earned

Now think about specific things you have done, or do, in these categories:

• Classroom management
• Curriculum development/lesson plans
• Cross-Curriculum experience
• Cooperative learning
• Teaching strategies/styles/methods
• Use of theories, educational books, education exercises to encourage comprehension  Participation in meetings
• Collaboration with other staff
• Parental involvement
• Organizing field trips/special projects
• Participation in the community
• Participation in after-school activities
• Assessing learning
• Use of technology
• Interesting/innovative techniques to engage and excite students in a lesson plan/activity

Now that you have a list of accomplishments, how do we turn those into resume bullet point details? Just like we ask our actors to focus on action verbs and we focus on action verbs in student learning objectives, always begin your bullet point details with an action verb. A powerful action verb places you as an initiator of action, which leaves a positive impression on the hiring committee. Rather than beginning a description with a passive-sounding description such as “Worked on creative projects to teach children,” it is better to start off using an action verb such as “Designed and implemented a creative arts curriculum for elementary school children.” Try to avoid starting off descriptions with “responsible for” and instead, use action verbs such as “managed,” “implemented,” or “developed.”

Using an achievement based approach, here are some examples of what resume bullet points may look like:

• Developed new two-week improvisational unit based on Viola Spolin’s theater games to help students learn to work as an ensemble, focus, and respect for one another
• Integrated the Hochman Method, a set of specific writing strategies from The Writing Revolution, into curriculum to help students develop literacy and critical thinking skills
• Created constructivist lesson plans that utilized cooperative learning to discuss concepts in August Wilson’s “Fences” and related it to rules in society
• Initiated a track system to train student designers and technicians to foster student responsibility, leadership, and independence in after-school productions
• Collaborated with the history department to conduct dramaturgical research for a historically accurate production of Romeo and Juliet set in the Civil War
• Established strong relationships with district elementary schools by facilitating 20-minute performances and talkbacks led by the high school thespians

What you want is a balance — a smooth, clean look that’s got just enough panache to stand out. Remember, you have 10-20 seconds to snag the hiring committee’s attention. Presenting them with a resume that’s overly crowded, hard to read, confusing or just plain messy isn’t going to get you the job…it’s going to get you passed over. Watch your spacing and margins. Think of your resume as a piece of fine artwork. Your margins should create a beautiful frame around it. If you’re truly desperate for space, you can slightly adjust your top and bottom margins but try to avoid adjusting your side margins.

Also, put some thought into the font you choose. Your resume is not the place for a flowery cursive font or anything that's going to make it difficult to skim quickly (also not everyone is on the same operating system which means a unique or quirky font on your screen might show up as code or nonsense on someone else’s. And nobody’s hiring nonsense.) Sample different fonts and pick one that you like and that's easy to read. Georgia, Calibri, Arial and even old-school Times New Roman are all fine. Really, a good litmus test for your resume font is that no one should be thinking about it. You want your content to stand out, not your font selection skills. And don't forget that font size matters! Don't choose a font size smaller than 11; anything else can be hard for some people to read.

There are many, many resources out there to help you create resumes that stand out, but the number one advice we could give is let us see you in your resume. How does your resume reflect who you are?

If you’ve served on a hiring committee before, what advice would you give to someone making their resume?