An effective resume quickly sells your your knowledge, skills and abilities to the reader. After reading your resume an employer should feel like they would be missing out if they did not hire you.
It is a mistake to think of your resume as a history of your past, as a personal statement or as some sort of self expression. Focus on your employers needs, not yours. A resume is a sales publication, and the product is you. Your prospective employer is the customer. Your resume must convey the message, If you buy this product, you will get these specific, direct benefits.
There is no one perfect resume. Each company is different, and some business sectors are used to different formats. If you are a physics graduate different parts of your education will be relevant for any given job. To be most effective, you must tailor your resume the business sector, the company and the exact job you want.
But there are some general rules you should follow,
Make it neat and simple to read
The appearance of your resume is the first thing the reader will notice. If it is neat and concise, the reader may assume that you will be an organized, reliable employee. Whereas, a sloppy, unorganized resume tells the employer that you are careless and not very thorough - perhaps even that you aren't capable or don't care about the quality of your work. Check and re-check your resume for proper grammar and for spelling errors.
Use one inch page margins on the top and bottom and 1.25 inch margins on the sides. Avoid overcrowding the text onto the page. Allow a few lines of space between the sections. Never use any fancy or unusual fonts or ink colors on your resume. Remember that many employers scan resumes into a database, so you want the characters to not only be easy for human eyes to ready, but also for digital scanners.
Keep it short
A resume is different from a curriculum vitae, and the latter is more common when applying for professorships and senior positions. A resume should be no longer than 2 pages, and ideally be just one page.
Use a format that presents information in a logical sequence
A good ordering of headings is
Be sure to use a reliable contact information, perhaps including both your school and permanent home address. Make sure your email address projects a professional image.
Get focused on your job objective before writing the rest of the resume and tailor the resume to the job and the field. If you are responding to a specific posting clearly state that position with all its reference information. More generally you should indicate if you are seeking a internship, postdoc, temporary professorship, or other kind of position. Also indicate if you want aa full-time or part-time job or an internship.
Summary of Qualifications
The "Summary" or "Summary of Qualifications" consists of several concise statements that focus the reader's attention on the most important qualities, achievements and abilities you have to offer.
Identify your degree, major, graduation date, and school. Include education abroad and any relevant workshops you have attended, any professional certifications and licensures you have, and any other relevant professional training. You may include your GPA if it is 3.0 or higher. Employer expectations may vary. If the GPA is not there many will assume that it is below 3.0. The longer you past graduating the less relevant your undergraduate GPA is. If you are an graduate degree, your undergraduate GPA is probably irrelevant.
What do you know how to do? How can you help this employer? Why should this program take you? Why should a professor take you into his/her lab? Your skills are the main selling point of your resume. Be sure that your skills track back to your objective.
Many employers look for keywords. In fact, where they use digital scanners for resumes they have computer programs to look for them specifically. You should know what keywords are important to the business sector, proposective employer, and if possible, for the specific job.
The section is closely related to the skills section. Here you amplify your skills by articulating where you have used them or learned them. Use the active voice to present evidence of your skills.
You can give your employment history. Use your most important and relevant experience to convince the employer that you have the skills necessary to do the job.
You can include professional and extracurricular affiliations and activities, honors and awards. In particular list professional society memberships since they indicate your interest in the field. You should be a member of as many professional societies in your field as you can.
Hobbies and and other personal information should be added only if they are relevant to the position or your objective. But do not put them there just to fill up space.
All of this should be put into a standard format that employers are used to seeing.
http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~kagan/phy596/Lectures/P596_Lecture4.html
http://www.collegegrad.com/resumes/quickstart/physics.shtml
Should you include a list of courses taken?
If you are a physics major and have taken the standard physics courses, you might not want to waste the space by stating the obvious. Remember space is at a premium, and the shorter the sweeter. Do not feel compelled to fill up space on a page. But if you have taken some electives that are especially relevant to the job you are seeking, then you should mention them.
Items to avoid
Every employer assumes that you can provide references, but you do not have to include them on your resume.
Omit your age, religious or political affiliations, marital status, social security number, drivers license number, or other personal data that could be used to screen you out, or that could expose you to a high risk of identity theft.
Depending on your objective, company or business sector, there may be some circumstances where you may want to indicate your citizenship status.
Special considerations for online resumes
Online jobs board usuall have a WYSIWYG editor for inputing a resume. WYSIWYG editors often have problems rendering text that is directly pasted from MS Word documents. Be sure to check the formatting on your online resume and trying to use the onboard formatting tools rather than depending on the editor to translate your exernal word processor's code.
Online jobs board resumes usually have present fields for which there are search algorithms. You should make sure your text has keywords that are relevant for the specific field. Many jobs boards allow you to have multiple resumes for different types of jobs. For confidentiality purposes most jobs boards store contact information interally. In general you should not include any text in the data fields that would clearly reveal your identity.
For more information
For a great resume template for physics majors
