
Grad School Resume Examples, Templates & How-to
Admission counselors are on the lookout for well-rounded candidates. Show them you’re diverse with accomplishments and extracurriculars in a jaw-dropping grad school resume.
Believing in your employer’s mission is important, but it’s not all you need to be happy at work. Use your nonprofit resume to get a job with the full package. Here’s how.
You want to do something worthwhile—
But fuzzy feelings and self-satisfaction don’t pay the bills.
Get the nonprofit job of your dreams by showing that you’re the employee of their dreams.
How?
By writing one of the best nonprofit resumes they’ve ever seen.
In this guide you'll learn:
Save hours of work and get a job-winning resume like this. Try our resume builder for free. Start by choosing a resume template.
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Changing careers? Need a resume for a particular nonprofit job or a more general guide? Check these out for a start:
Morgan Bradshaw
Executive Director
Personal Info
Phone: 719-942-8496
E-mail: morgan.bradshaw@reslab.com
linkedin.com/in/morganqbradshaw
Summary
Dedicated executive director with 5+ years’ experience managing nonprofits. Seeking an opportunity to extend Mace Fair’s reach while broadening its support-services. At the Midwest Animal Welfare Alliance, leveraged $9+ million in revenue and created a partnership worth $350,000 a year while increasing capacity by 15%.
Experience
Executive Director
Midwest Animal Welfare Alliance
2017–present
Program Manager
Thompson’s Addiction Support Center
2015–2017
Education
MBA, Colorado State University
2011–2013
Accolades
Languages
Key Skills
Here’s how to write something just as good as the executive director resume nonprofit example above:
More and more people are looking for work in non-profit organizations.
Trading in some extra income for a clear conscience.
Here’s how you lose:
Write a resume that’s cramped, cluttered, and off-putting.
When winning is easy:
Make your resume layout neat, tidy, and a pleasure to read through, again and again:
One last thing. Don’t add an address to your resume. Your email address, telephone number, and LinkedIn profile will suffice.
Don’t want to be another ho-hum candidate lost in the crowd?
Condensing your entire nonprofit career down to 3–4 sentences is easier than you think.
Got experience?
Start with a resume summary statement—
Here’s how:
Have a look at these nonprofit resume examples:
The first summary quantifies its achievements and generally focuses on what the candidate can do for the nonprofit.
The second summary—
Not so much.
It’s vague, focused on responsibilities (not achievements), and all about what the candidate wants.
Short on nonprofit experience?
Write a resume objective statement instead.
Focus on achievements from other kinds of jobs and even non-work contexts, like college.
Who would you hire?
You’d be in the small and frankly mistaken minority if you chose the second nonprofit resume objective above.
It’s the first one that talks to relevant skills and keeps things grounded in facts and figures.
Having trouble writing a good resume profile?
There’s an easy fix:
Come back and write it last.
Expert Hint: Give your ATS resume an extra kick by mentioning the organization to which you’re applying by name.
Make no mistake—
Competition for the most attractive nonprofit jobs can be as fierce as that for any corporate opening.
Your resume work experience section is what’s going to get your foot in the door.
Show what you can do by showing what you’ve done—
How to write a job description for a nonprofit job:
Here’s a couple nonprofit resume examples to give you a better idea:
Executive Director
Midwest Animal Welfare Alliance
2017–present
Program Manager
Thompson’s Addiction Support Center
2015–2017
Executive Director
Midwest Animal Welfare Alliance
2017–present
Program Manager
Thompson’s Addiction Support Center
2015–2017
The second one’s not bad—
Too bad “not bad” doesn’t cut it.
Both make use of resume power verbs, but the first one does it better.
It also deals in hard facts backed up by numbers, in resume achievements.
Expert Hint: Do you worry about resume job gaps shorter than 9 months? Don’t. They’re not gaps, it just means you were out of work.
There’s another thing you’ll need:
No nonprofit resume is complete with a list of good resume skills.
Virtually every job in the corporate world has its counterpart in the non-profit space.
That’s a lot of different skill sets, whether they’re practiced from shiny foyer reception to dazzling penthouse or dilapidated front room to fire-hazard copy/break/powwow room.
Use the following as inspiration, but always tailor your list to the job ad at hand.
Aim for a good balance (not necessarily 50/50) of hard and soft skills.
Hard skills:
Soft skills:
Expert Hint: If the job ad mentions “collaboration skills”, use that phrase instead of “teamwork”. It’s called targeting a resume and helps pass the ATS scan.
The ResumeLab builder is more than looks. Get specific content to boost your chances of getting the job. Add job descriptions, bullet points, and skills. Easy. Improve your resume in our resume builder now.
Nail it all with a splash of color, choose a clean font, and highlight your skills in just a few clicks. You're the perfect candidate, and we'll prove it. Use our resume builder now.
List just the bare essentials:
Degree, school, dates attended.
Include an expected graduation date if you’re still at it.
Add bullets that point to key skills.
This nonprofit resume example shows how:
Education
MBA, Colorado State University
2011–2013
Short on work experience?
Expand your education section to cover more ground:
Include projects, classes, relevant coursework, and accomplishments that demonstrate the right nonprofit skills for your line of work.
Extra Hint: Scholarships belong on a resume, too. Simply include an extra section and give it an appropriate heading, e.g “Awards”.
Skills, experience, and education are fine, but—
There’s more to your nonprofit chops than that.
Add one or two extra sections to fill in the picture:
Check these out, for example:
Accolades
Languages
Hobbies
Languages
It had one job to do—
Keep it relevant. That’s the golden rule.
Hobbies are fine, but make sure they clearly relate to the job ad.
One final step—and it’s a doozy.
You’re going to need a nonprofit cover letter to go with that resume.
Assume writing a cover letter is required unless you’ve been asked not to include one.
Expert Hint: Email your resume directly to the hiring manager. You can find their contact details through the company’s website or LinkedIn.
Double your impact with a matching resume and cover letter combo. Use our cover letter generator and make your application documents pop out.
Want to try a different look? There's 21 more. A single click will give your document a total makeover. Pick a cover letter template here.
For a nonprofit resume that gets interviews:
Leave a comment below if you have something to add or any questions to ask. Getting a good nonprofit resume together is a step in the direction of a more meaningful work life. Let us know how you go!
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