In the movie “The Paper Chase,” Susan Kingsfield, James T. Hart’s girlfriend, notes that paper represents the key moments of our lives. She states that we start with our birth certificate; then we proceed to our grade school diploma; next is our driver’s license and then our high school diploma; in college years, we either get our diploma or our marriage license; when we’re working, we get our stock options; and finally, the will rounds out our lives.

She probably should have included the resume as one of those important pieces of paper.

Before you even break open the listings of jobs in the Career Services Center or leaf through the classifieds in the newspaper, you must have a resume ready to go.

Career Services Center offers some tips to laying out a good resume: Provide a heading, complete with your address, telephone number and e-mail address. If you live on campus, it’s probably a good idea to put your campus address and home address, because you never know when prospective employers will call.

Next, declare a professional objective. This includes your career goals, or expresses your interest in the particular job which you’re applying for.

Then, include your educational information: your degree and major, date of graduation, the college or university and the location of the college or university. Include your grade point average if it’s a 3.0 or above on a 4.0 or better scale.

Also, put down the GPA you earned in your major. Add any minors you had or related coursework.

In the experience section, list your prior jobs in reverse chronological order. This section should include: the job title, employer, location of employer, dates of employment from the month and year you started to the month and year you left, and a brief description of the work you performed.

Finally, include additional resume information, such as campus activities, community involvement, computer experience, special skills, honors and awards, military service, language proficiency, travels abroad and interests. Any inclusion of these details will help your resume.

Some other things to consider when putting your resume together: Keep it to about one page; print it on white paper; make the layout appealing and easy to read; and proofread it.

Kathy Day, director of Career Services, offered a few thoughts on the resume building process. “A resume is a marketing tool. It really should reflect what the student wants to do. We encourage students, when they’re describing their work experience, to focus on accomplishments and use action verbs. And, I strongly encourage students to have their resumes reviewed.”