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Building Your Resume

Your resume is not just a document. It is a lifelong reflection of who you are, what you have accomplished, and who you want to become. It is your bragging rights.

The Purpose

What Your Resume Should Do

When someone picks up your resume, they should think one thing: “Wow, this kid has done so much. I think this kid is very accomplished.” That is the reaction you are building toward.

Mr. Chan did not understand the importance of a resume until his second or third year of college. When he finally looked at his, he realized it had nothing to show. That was his wake-up call. He joined a research group, not out of casual interest, but with the specific goal of having something meaningful on his resume.

The most important rule: You must be prepared to elaborate on every single item listed. What stories do you have? What was your biggest lesson? Your most impressive moment? Your mistakes and what you learned from them? The resume is meant to invite questions — and you must be ready with answers.

Your resume should reflect who you are and who you want to be. It is not a passive record of things that happened to you. It is an active statement of what you chose to do, what you learned, and where you are headed.

Building Depth

Go Deeper Than a List

Under each item, include four to five specific things you have done. Whether it is an extracurricular activity, an internship, or a job — do not just list the title. Show who you are, how skilled and resourceful you are, and how each experience connects to who you want to become.

Mr. Chan recalls a student who was not at the top of his class but had built an extraordinarily impressive resume. When the student applied to a highly competitive major at UT Austin, Mr. Chan reviewed the resume and thought: “It would be our stupidity as a university to pass this great potential to another school.” He asked the student to walk through the resume item by item — and the student could elaborate on every single entry with stories, lessons, and specifics. The student was accepted and is doing well in college today.

Every line on your resume should make the reader want to ask, “Tell me more about this.” If you cannot elaborate on an item, either do more work in that area or remove it.

Your Initiative

Create Your Own Narrative

You do not have to wait for opportunities to come to you. You have the power to create your own experiences, and those experiences become the substance of your resume.

Mr. Chan built his own resume intentionally. As a young teacher, his goal was to differentiate himself from his peers. He presented at national conferences organized by NSTA (National Science Teachers Association), mentored new teachers, earned awards like Rookie Teacher of the Year in his early career, and started a YouTube channel in 2009 to help students study — years before it was common for educators. Every item was a deliberate choice.

If you want to be a doctor but have never done anything medically related — no internship, no volunteering — you are not out of options. Start a YouTube channel or a blog. Document your journey as a student exploring the field. Research questions you genuinely care about. Share what you learn with others.

Through that process, you deepen your understanding, spread knowledge, and build a compelling story. That content goes on your resume. Those experiences become what you discuss in interviews. And when colleges review your application, they see initiative — not just a list of activities.

We are living in an age where anyone can create something for themselves. You do not have to wait for a supervisor, a company, or a program to hand you an opportunity. As long as you have the initiative, you can do it yourself.

Strategies

What Students Get Wrong

Common mistakes Mr. Chan has observed as a teacher and mentor reviewing student resumes.

Treating the resume as a checklist instead of a collection of stories.

A resume that lists activities without depth tells the reader nothing. Under each item, you should be able to discuss what you did, what you learned, what challenged you, and what impressed you most. If you cannot elaborate on an item, either do more work in that area or remove it.

The resume is meant to invite questions. Every line should make the reader want to ask, “Tell me more about this.”

Listing quantity over quality.

Five activities with deep involvement and real stories are far more impressive than fifteen activities where you showed up but did nothing meaningful. Admissions officers and interviewers can tell the difference. Go deep, not wide.

Waiting for opportunities instead of creating them.

Mr. Chan’s resume as a young teacher did not fill itself. He actively sought out conference presentations, mentoring roles, and awards. He started a YouTube channel in 2009 because he saw a problem — students not paying attention in class — and built a solution.

You have the same power. Start a podcast, write a blog, build an app, volunteer, research. The world does not require anyone’s permission to create value.

Not connecting your resume to your future goals.

Your resume should tell a coherent story about who you are becoming, not just what you have done. If you want to study engineering, your activities should reflect curiosity, problem-solving, and technical initiative. If you want to study medicine, show that you have actively explored the field.

A resume without a direction reads as a collection of random activities. A resume with a clear narrative reads as a person with purpose.

Starting too late.

If you are a junior and your resume is empty, you still have time — but you need to act now. It takes months to build meaningful experiences. The earlier you start thinking about your resume as a living document, the more material you will have by the time applications are due.

Building Your Resume

Listen to the Full Episode

What Your Resume Should Do

Go Deeper Than a List

Create Your Own Narrative

What Students Get Wrong

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