Harvard Resume Template

Harvard Template: Education Focused

The Harvard resume format emphasizes the author's educational experience. This format pushes the author's education to the top of the resume below the contact information. This is a departure from other templates that place the education section below the contact information, executive summary, and work experience.

The Harvard resume is an excellent choice for job seekers in the dawn of their career, when the author lacks pertinent work experience. The Harvard style is also an excellent choice for ambitious students seeking an internship in their field of study. Similar to a chronological resume, the Harvard resume is arranged in reverse chronological order, prioritizing the author's most recent education and work experience.

This is a professional resume template although the Harvard resume template emphasizes education first. The educational focus allows the job seeker to feature relevant coursework related to the target job. Hiring managers use applicant tracking software that searches for specific keywords to filter and remove unqualified applicants from the candidate pool. A job seeker's coursework descriptions, class projects, and other university experiences will satisfy these filters.

The Harvard resume template is easy to read and can therefore attract the hiring manager's or recruiter's attention. The template de-emphasizes category headings by reducing the entries to bold font and elevates institutions and former employers' names in bold and all capitals. The job seeker's previous roles are also capitalized and written in bold font. The reader can quickly scan a Harvard resume and determine whether the author is a good fit based on these attributes.

Harvard vs. Chronological

The chronological resume is most often selected by a resume writer with multiple years of work experience. Typically, the job seeker who is pursuing a lateral or promotional move in an existing career wouldn't select the Harvard style because it focuses more on educational achievements as opposed to real-world experience.

However, if the target job involved switching career fields, the Harvard style is an excellent choice to de-emphasize work experience and refocus the hiring manager's attention on education and coursework.

Harvard vs. Functional

The functional resume template, like the Harvard resume template, does not focus on work experience. The functional resume style allows the author to demonstrate that they acquired skills rather than formally learning them. Military veterans typically use functional resume templates to demonstrate that they are qualified and that their skill set exceeds those of their competitors. Veterans obtain their knowledge outside of the classroom and learn on the job.

The Harvard style follows the same ideology to demonstrate skill proficiencies but focuses on formal education to provide the job seeker the skill set to match or exceed the hiring manager's requirements. The Harvard resume template accentuates education and credentials to satisfy all requirements and qualify the author as the ideal candidate for the target job.

When Is a Harvard Resume Best?

The Harvard resume template is designed to be flexible so that it can be tailored to meet the specific needs of various industries and job positions. A job seeker should use the Harvard style when they have the knowledge and skill set to perform the target job but lack the formal work experience to perform the task. This makes the Harvard resume template the ideal choice for students who want to acquire practical and formal work experience to solidify the knowledge they acquired in the classroom. The Harvard template is designed to be visually appealing and easy to read, with clear but de-emphasized headings. The template's focus is the university name and degree.