You have spent the past four years living off Ramen Noodles and driving a ten year old rust bucket just to ensure that you reach the point you are at now – a new college grad ready to enter the workforce, shiny new degree in hand. You got good grades and all your professors loved you – so why aren’t prospective employers clamoring for your services?

Your resume may not be helping. The problem is that employers want to know what you can do for them and are just not all that interested in what you did in school, so you need to tailor your resume to convince them that all that experience you gained in school and all that knowledge really does transfer to the workplace. Some tips:

State your Goals – As a new graduate your resume has to feature a good, targeted objective statement. Whether you add a formal objective section or reference it in a qualifications summary is up to you, but whichever you choose avoid the kind of flowery jargon laden nonsense that too many new college grads tend to use. Investing a few dollars to have a resume writing service come up with a good one for you is a wise move if you are not sure how to put your aspirations into words.

Highlight the Positive – If you have little in the way of real world work experience your academic achievements should be highlighted in as positive a way as possible. And that doesn’t just mean stating your GPA, or mentioning the fact that you made the Dean’s list (although that certainly won’t hurt) Did you do an internship while you were in school? If so make sure you mention it. Did you win Employee of the month at the restaurant you were waiting tables at to pay the bills? Mention that too. Although the job duties may not be related to the job you are chasing now such things do go some way to demonstrating your worth as an employee in general.

Pick the Right Format – A traditional chronological resume format, which emphasizes employment history, rarely works well for a new college graduate. A functional resume, which highlights all those academic achievements and unique skills that you can bring to the table will be far more successful. Again, if you are not sure that you have done a great job by yourself consider hiring someone to do take your rough draft and polish it into a resume that will really help you land that all important first job.