Do you send a three-page resume in answer to a classified ad for a summer internship? Does your resume go back to the years when your main income was from baby-sitting and tips from your job at Applebee’s? If so, you may be sending the wrong signals to potential employers.

“I call it ‘resume bloat,’ ” confides my friend Cheryl, who works in Human Resources at a large law firm in Chicago. Other people call it “padding.” Job searching is not like applying to college, where the number and breadth of your extra-curricular activities can make the difference between getting into your first-choice school and your safety. Knowing”when to say when” is just as important in crafting a resume as it is when you’re downing beers.

“Make sure your resume has focus,” advises Cheryl. “If you’re applying for a job as a paralegal, that job as a lifeguard is not really going to sell you.” On the other hand, if you have published an article in a local newspaper, even if it has nothing to do with the job you’re seeking, put it in, she suggests, because it shows that you are articulate and can communicate at a higher-than-average level. That skill is highly prized by employers.

First-time full-time job seekers often face the problem of not having enough information to put on a page, but Cheryl suggests filling in the blanks with academic achievements rather than dredging up minimum wage mall jobs. If you have a decent grade-point average (or better yet, an academic honor like earning a Phi Beta Kappa key), it belongs on the resume of a 20-something. Study abroad is a plus as well, particularly if you can honestly say you speak a foreign language fluently. (”I’ll know if you’re faking it,” Cheryl warns, “because I know enough French and Spanish to fake it too.”)

Naming your school–especially if it’s a “good” college or university–can be a plus. Naming your academic major might work against you. “Employers like to see the basics,” Cheryl says. They want to see degrees in history, English, computer science, biology–things like that. They are not so keen on degrees in semiotics, philosophy or medieval studies, no matter how fulfilling they might have been.” There’s time enough to discuss your educational choices in the interview, when you have already impressed your interviewer with your sincerity and commitment to landing a job with their company.

Your resume gets you in the door. Make sure it’s a reflection of your best self, and the self that best fits the job at hand rather than a scatter-shot, one fits all document. If that means you have to have two resumes (or more), so be it. “I don’t recommend people get ‘creative’ in the sense of lying on their resumes,” Cheryl says, “but they need to get creative in their approach to selling themselves.”

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