Are college students over-optimising their resumes?

Consider two undergraduate students applying for their first serious internship. The first’s resume runs to two pages. It is packed with achievements: three online certifications in different areas, two short-term internships, membership of four college societies, a volunteering experience, a college-level competition, a webinar series, a few workshops, and several certificates of participation.On paper, there is very little blank space. Yet, when asked what she is actually interested in pursuing, she struggles to articulate an answer. Her experiences span marketing, social work, finance, event-management, and content creation, but there is little continuity between them. Each appears to have been added because it seemed like something a “good college student” ought to have on a resume.The second resume is considerably shorter. There are fewer certificates, societies, and only a couple of internships. But there is a discernible thread running through her experiences. She has consistently explored one broad area of interest, taken up projects that have helped her understand it better, and gradually developed relevant skills. She can explain not only what she has done, but why she chose to do it and what she learnt from each experience. Her resume may have fewer bullet points, but it tells a clearer story about the kind of professional she is beginning to become.The real testWhich of the two students has a stronger profile? The answer may not be as obvious as the number of lines on their resumes suggests.Given the increasing awareness among students about the importance of having a well-rounded profile for future employability, there is a tendency to over-optimise the college experience. Some of the common ways in which students get this wrong are collecting certificates for the sake of it, completing endless online courses, feeling anxious about resume-building from the first year itself, and trying to make every college experience appear productive or resume-worthy.What these students sometimes miss is that accumulating certificates or documenting a variety of engagements does not necessarily translate into a strong profile. A long list of activities may demonstrate that a student has been busy, but does not always show what they have learnt, what they are capable of, or what they are genuinely interested in.Interest comes firstThe extracurricular activities students choose to pursue during college should ideally be rooted in their genuine interests and their evolving vision for themselves. For instance, a student interested in dance and theatre could join the corresponding college societies, while a student interested in English and media studies may look for internships in the media and join the literature society. Workshops they attend or projects they undertake can then be chosen to deepen these interests and develop relevant skills.At the same time, not every student enters college with a clearly defined career goal. For them, extracurricular activities can serve a different purpose: exploration. Trying out different experiences can help them discover what they enjoy, what they are good at and, equally importantly, what they do not want to pursue. Career clarity need not always precede exploration; sometimes, it is a result of it.Broadly speaking, the idea is to be like the letter“T” — developing both breadth and depth. Students should be exposed to a variety of experiences but also allow themselves to go deeper into areas that genuinely interest them. It is this combination that can transform an activity from another bullet point on a resume into an experience that contributes meaningfully to their learning and development.Choose what countsThis also means that students need to become comfortable with leaving out some things. Not every webinar needs to be attended, every certificate earned, or every opportunity pursued. Learning to make choices — and understanding why a particular opportunity is worth one’s time — is itself an important skill.Having a strong resume can certainly contribute to future employability. However, the pressure to build one should not become so pervasive that students begin to perceive their college experience as a checklist rather than something to be explored and savoured. Their instinct to prepare themselves for a competitive higher-education and employment environment is entirely understandable and, in many ways, rational.At the same time, it is important to remember that a resume is not a scorecard. The pressure to keep adding to it should not come at the cost of figuring out who one actually is and what one wants to do.Perhaps, the strongest resumes are not those that contain the most, but the ones that showcase the most meaningful evidence of who a student is, what he/she has explored, and where he/she is headed. Ultimately, a resume is not meant to manufacture a story; instead it should document one that has already been thoughtfully lived.The writer is an independent consultant and career counsellor.