What Is a Takeaway Résumé and How Can It Help You?

Having trouble crafting your resume? Try making the "takeaway résumé" to enhance your applications and show what you've learned. Here's how to do it!

Résumés are an essential part of applying for jobs, colleges, and scholarships. They organize your experiences, convey your accomplishments, and are required for most applications. Traditional résumés detail information about what school you go to, what jobs you’ve had, and what organizations you’re a part of. They summarize what you did and when. But I’m here to talk about an alternate form of a résumé called the “takeaway résumé.” In a nutshell, the takeaway résumé should be a running log of specific skills and experiences you’ve gained from your jobs, classes, or clubs with examples. Traditional résumés focus on what you did and not what you learned. The takeaway résumé focuses on what you took away from the experience—what you learned or gained. This is what adds value. It’s not a traditional résumé, and it’s not the final product you’ll send to employers, but it’s an extremely useful tool you can use to prep for interviews, write cover letters, or add detail to your real résumé.

The difference between traditional and takeaway résumés

Here’s what a traditional résumé might look like:

Sales Associate

  • Maintain constant presence on sales floor and address customer needs
  • Sign customers up for marketing lists
  • Process customer payments

And here’s how a takeaway résumé differs:

Sales Associate

  • I learned effective interpersonal skills by dealing with difficult customers.
  • I learned how to use a combination of evidence and persuasive argument techniques to convince customers to sign up for mailing lists.
  • I learned computer and technology skills when working with a point of service register system, as I often had to troubleshoot problems on my own.

Related: Infographic: What Skills Should You Put on a Résumé to Land the Job?

How can a takeaway résumé help?

Many scholarship applications or interviews ask what you learned from certain organizations you’ve been a part of or which class has been the most impactful. A takeaway résumé can help you answer questions like these. It’s invaluable when it comes to applying to colleges and scholarships, and it’s never too early to start yours. It can also help you stretch your résumé if you don’t have much job experience. Instead of thinking about your required chemistry class during sophomore year as learning about stoichiometry and balancing chemical equations, think about it as what you really took away from the class. Did you learn how to communicate and collaborate with a team on a lab? Did you learn how to carefully document and explain your work in a lab notebook? These skills are relevant, and they’re a lot more meaningful to a potential employer or college than simply listing the class on your résumé.

Related: Tips for Writing a Cover Letter With Little or No Work Experience

Starting a takeaway résumé now will save you the headache come senior year when you’re trying to remember everything you’ve done over the last three years. Start doing this as soon as your freshman year, and writing your résumé will be a cinch!

Use your takeaways to your advantage! Find related scholarships with our Scholarship Search tool.

Like what you’re reading?

Join the CollegeXpress community! Create a free account and we’ll notify you about new articles, scholarship deadlines, and more.

Join Now

Tags:

About Chrissy Ramakrishnan

Chrissy is a sophomore Statistics major at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who loves all things Wisconsin, ice cream, coffee, and dancing no matter the occasion. A self-proclaimed college application and financial aid nerd, she thoroughly enjoyed taking the ACT and hopes to get her PhD in Education Policy so she can stay in school forever!

 

Join our community of
over 5 million students!

CollegeXpress has everything you need to simplify your college search, get connected to schools, and find your perfect fit.

Join CollegeXpress
Carlie Cadet

Carlie Cadet

High School Class of 2019

CollegeXpress has helped me learn about an abundance of scholarships available to me and my situation. I was able to do research for colleges in my best interest with your website. I've had multiple colleges email me and offer me multiple scholarships and things of that nature because of this website! Thank you so much for uploading scholarships I didn’t even know existed, even if my life took a huge turn and I wasn’t able to go to college straight out of high school. CollegeXpress helped me a lot in high school to be even more motivated to get into my dream college (which I did, by the way). I'm looking forward to using the materials CollegeXpress has kindly provided me for free to look for scholarships to help pay for college.

Lorena Bacallao

Lorena Bacallao

High School Class of 2022

CollegeXpress was the foundation of my college search process. Because of CollegeXpress, I was able to make a more informed and confident decision as to where it was best to pursue my higher education. I have recommended this website to fellow peers and for first-generation students like me. It’s a website I will continue to promote because of how simple it was to use and how many opportunities were offered to me at my fingertips!

Wendy Thompson

Wendy Thompson

Owner, Westport Educational Consulting

I just discovered your site and LOVE it—fun, interesting, full of incredible information you can’t find anywhere else, and a godsend for those of us in the college counseling business. I am a fan!

Victoria

Victoria

High School Class of 2019

CollegeXpress has helped me by opening my eyes to new opportunities. I learned about such easy ways to get financial help to achieve my dreams while also learning about myself and who I truly am. I know this isn't a very long explanation of what CollegeXpress has done for me, but nonetheless, I believe it's crucial to how I developed as a person throughout my time as a college student.

Dani York

Dani York

High School Class of 2022

CollegeXpress helped in my journey by comparing multiple colleges for my final decision. While looking at different colleges, I was able to compare the tuition expenses and that landed me with the college that I’m currently enrolled in, Western Kentucky University. Thank you!

College Matches
X

Colleges You May Be Interested In

SUNY Maritime College

Throggs Neck, NY

Elon University

Elon, NC

Seton Hall University

South Orange, NJ