Resume I: Philosophy, Format, and Content Rules

Your gateway to everything else.

Why this matters

Your portfolio is the most important document in your application package. Your resume is what gets someone to open it. If the resume fails — through poor design, irrelevant content, or lazy presentation — your portfolio may never be seen. Treat it with that understanding.

Your resume is a design object governed by the same principles as your portfolio: hierarchy, clarity, proportion, and personality. The only difference is that you're working with text instead of imagery. Build it in InDesign. One page. A resume built in Word signals that you didn't apply your training to it — and in a profession where visual communication is the job, that's not a message worth sending.

What to include

• Education — in reverse chronological order, most recent first.
• Relevant experience — professional and academic, reverse chronological. List only experience with meaningful skill overlap with landscape architecture or design practice.
• Software and production skills — stated accurately at your actual competency level.
• Personal interests — brief, selective. Gives a reader a sense of who you are beyond the academic record.

What to leave out

• Objective statements. The objective is to get a job. Firms know this. Skip it.
• Skill bar graphics, proficiency ratings, or pie charts purporting to quantify your abilities. These add nothing and signal a lack of design judgment.
• Irrelevant work history. No one at a design firm needs to know about the grocery store job from high school. If the experience doesn't share meaningful skills with design practice, cut it.
• Headshots or photographs.
• Padding of any kind. A lean, honest resume outperforms a padded one every time.

On honesty

Be accurate about software competency. Don't list skills you can't demonstrate under pressure. Design firms are small environments where actual abilities surface quickly. An awkward conversation with your supervisor about something you listed on your resume is entirely avoidable — and entirely your fault if it happens.

Your resume may be thin in some areas at this stage. That is expected and acceptable in internship applications. Own it. A slim, honest resume reads as self-aware. A padded one reads as insecure.