Two Powerful Tips to Enhance Your Resume

And Boost Your Chances of Getting into SLP Grad School

Boosting your chances of getting into graduate school for speech-language pathology isn’t easy. Your GPA and GRE scores definitely play a big role, but maybe you feel they’re not fair representations of your ability. Crafting an excellent personal statement is an incredibly important of the application process, but you don’t have a lot of space for extras.

Your resume is an often-overlooked tool for building up your application to graduate school in SLP and boosting your chances of getting into your preferred program. This post contains some tips on cultivating the right attitude toward your resume and maybe some experiences that would benefit you.

Many times people ask, “how many volunteer hours do I need?” or “I joined 4 clubs during undergrad. Is that enough?”

The first answer to those questions is: quality over quantity.  

The second answer is actually another question: how does it enhance your personal statement?

Quality over Quantity

Imagine both of these examples from a resume. Which one sounds more impressive?

• Completed 100 volunteer hours at a summer camp for children on the autism spectrum.
• Volunteered 10 hours to lead recreational summer camp activities for 19 children ages 6-12 on the autism spectrum; worked with multidisciplinary team of SLP’s and OT’s to adapt activities for each child

The second one is clearly a fuller, richer experience.

Do you see how the second one, even though it is “less hours” provides more insight into the quality of the experience? It shows…

• You know what a multidisciplinary team is
• You worked with a multidisciplinary team
• You worked with a specific age range
• You have experience leading
• You can handle large groups of children (19)
• You know about adapting activities for access

Do you have something similar to these examples on your resume? If so, consider how you can improve them to provide more information about the quality of your experience.

• Observed an SLP X hours
• Shadowed an SLP/AUD/OT/PT for X hours
• Volunteered X hours with NSSLHA
• Raised $X for children with disabilities
• Served as [Insert Officer] for [Insert Organization]

Think about skills that you will need to be a speech-language pathologist. If you’re not sure, take a look at this article in the ASHA LeaderLive about soft skills. It is a short list, but they’re highly transferrable skills that you have probably been developing from other experiences.

Also take a look at this inventory of clinical skills for clinical fellows. Let’s be real, some of these you won’t (and shouldn’t!) be doing until you’re a graduate student or practicing SLP. But if you think critically about them, you can find ways to relate your experiences.

For example: “Develops and implements specific, reasonable, and necessary treatment plans” comes straight out of the CF skill inventory. You’re not going to be doing this until you’re in graduate school. But what if you’re an assistant manager at a grocery store. Have you ever needed to create an individualized behavior plan to support an employee? Wouldn’t something like that sound nicer than “Responsible for employee discipline”?

Maybe you’ve volunteered as a tutor. Rather than writing “Volunteered 10 hours as a math tutor” on your resume, consider something like “Create and implement individualized tutoring plan to address student needs in Math.”

How does it enhance your personal statement?

When you are looking back at things you have already done or (maybe things you might like to do in order to boost your application to SLP grad school), think about how those experience can enhance your personal statement.

If you’re not sure what I mean, let’s think about the same example as before: you volunteered at a summer camp for children on the autism spectrum.  

In order to make this experience work for you and benefit your application, you need to think like a member of the admissions committee. Ask yourself (and answer!) Why would the admissions committee care that you did that?

• You’ve shown you have experience working with children on the spectrum. So you’re probably sure you like this and you’re not likely to drop out after your first clinical rotation.
• You know about adapting activities; this may help you be more successful in clinical rotations.
• You have experience with a multidisciplinary team; you’ll be able to bring a unique perspective to class discussions.

Some other questions to ask yourself that may help are…

• What did you learn from doing ____?
• Would you do it again? The same or differently?
• What did you need to achieve that?
• How did ____ affect your perspective on SLP / disabilities / the field?

Your personal statement should not rehash everything on your resume. There probably is not enough space. But, when you’re reflecting on your application, look critically at each component of your resume and see if there is something you can pull into your personal statement to make it more vivid, real, and ultimately helpful to the admissions committee.

For more activities…

For more activities to improve your personal statements and boost your applications, check out these posts:

• Pre-Writing Activities for your SLP Personal Statement
• A How to Guide to Writing Personal Statements
• How to Write a Resume for Grad School

There’s also a lot of great activities to help you enhance your personal statement in my book: SLP To Be available on Amazon (<– Note: That’s an affiliate link to my own book).