Here is a collection of real resumes from journalism and media students that needed a lot of work when they were submitted. If your resume looks anything like the ones below get help now! It will be extremely difficult (never impossible) to land a job or internship in the media with the following examples.
**I changed some of the personally identifiable information to protect the identity of the students. That is why you should never submit a resume in Word format. It should always be in PDF.**
-Ray Ruiz, @EGMNRay
Media Production Resume: Way Too Long, Irrelevant Information
The general rule of thumb is to keep your resume to one page. Even accomplished journalism students don’t typically have enough experience to warrant two pages. This student’s resume spanned a whopping four pages and included his employment as a cartoonist, teacher, projectionist, animator, sales associate and even fleet service. When told that he should reduce the number of pages in his resume, the student stated that he hasn’t had “any real complaints”. Yikes!!
Broadcast Journalism Resume: No Experience, Minimal effort
I have to give this student a little bit of credit. She took my advice to keep her resume relevant to the position that she was applying for (Spanish TV internship). The student also submitted it in PDF format which is a best practice. The problem was that she didn’t have any experience to speak of. She was new to EGMN and had yet to establish herself as an aspiring media pro. To make up for her lack of experience at the collegiate level, she included her time anchoring for her high school (a no-no unless you’re a college freshman). The resume notes reporting and communication skills but doesn’t give any specifics.
You would be amazed at how often I see resumes like this from journalism students. The reality is that they don’t know how to gain the necessary experience that would produce a solid resume. As a result, they do the best with the experience they have and the end result is lackluster. This particular student did a couple of pieces for EGMN but was never particularly active. She submitted a resume that wasn’t much improved from this version to a local Univison station and got an internship. Go figure! Not suprisingly, the internship coordinator was replaced soon after.
