How to Build a resume for International Scholarships in (2023): 8 Steps that works

So you want to…

• Craft a unique Scholarship resume.
• Build an awesome Resume for International Scholarships that gets you a grant.
• Leave a great Impression on Scholarship Selection Committees.
• Gain an International Scholarship that offsets your Tuition, Accommodation and Other Cost associated with College.

If that defines you…

…I will show the best way to stand out in your Scholarship resume and get your dream international study grant.

By the end of this blog post, you will learn how to…

• Write an awesome resume for international Scholarship that stands out.
• Redefine your current academic experience and professional Skills.
• Ace your scholarship Resume Objectives.

 

Here’s what we would cover:

Table of Content.

1. What is a resume for International Scholarship?

• 1.1 Why International Scholarships ask for Resumes.

2. What makes a Great resume for International Scholarship?

3. Step by Step Ways to Build a Resume for International Scholarships in 2023

4. 8 Key Tips to Spark Attention into your Crafted Resume for International scholarships.

5. FAQ about Resume for International Scholarship.

Let’s dive in…

 

1. What is a Resume for International Scholarships?

A resume for International scholarship is a resume mostly used to apply for International Scholarships.

It displays your Unique Academic Background, Awards, achievements and Volunteering Activities plus your strongest Professional and Work Experience which is a perfect fit for the targeted scholarship.

Your Scholarship resume should showcase your Goals and Academic Interests, this defines who you are to the Scholarship committee and shows them why you are the best candidates to receive their assistance.

Moving on…

 

1.1 Why International Scholarships ask for Resumes?

You must be wondering why a Scholarship Team wants to view your Resume.

The reason is quite simple…

The Scholarship Resume helps to define your Achievements and Activities in more details.

Sometimes the resume organizes those details in a concise and logical way.

 

 

2. What makes a Great Resume for International Scholarships?

There are only two things that make you resume stand out:

• The Design (Outlook) and
• The Key Components.

2.1 The Design

The Design is the exterior view of your Abilities, period!

How your resume is presented to the College scholarships committee makes up 25% of your success.

Don’t let the design be shady, add some quality fonts (10-12 px) and graphics.

You can use up icons to make it look attractive or beautiful templates from world-known websites.

• Zety
• Resume Genius
• Resume Lab

These websites offer your free and paid Scholarship resume templates to use.

Check them out.

When you use them correctly, your resume stands out more.

Like I said, your résumé accounts for 25% of your scholarship success.

It is often the internal components that make up 60-70% win rate.

Let’s talk about the key components…

2.2 Key Components.

Let’s be honest…

…most scholarship committees at international colleges don’t read through every résumés they get.

They often skim, scan through searching for unique and relevant points.

It’s only worth it since they have to go through thousands of scholarship applications every year.

Absurd, right?

But I will show 5 key components to help your scholarship resume stand out from the crowd.

The 5 Key Components of a Scholarship Resume

1. Personal/Contact Information.
2. Career Goal or Résumé Objectives.
3. Academic Experience or Leadership.
4. Awards and Honors.
5. Working or Internship Experience.
6. Primary Skill sets.
7. Foreign Languages.

These key components are the core roots of your résumé.

You entire focus should be on those 5 components.

We will be talking about each of them, one after another.

Let’s dive deeper.

Read also: 45 Undergraduate Scholarships for Nigerian in (2023)

 

3. How to Build a Resume for International Scholarships in (2023): 8 Simple Steps

Right now, I will show the step by step ways to creating a unique and Awesome scholarship Résumé that stands out.

With each step, you get to craft a Resume that resonates with your core attributes and leave the Scholarship Team in shock.

Step 1: List your Core Personal Information

This part appears at the top of your College Scholarship Résumé.

It should contain the following details (if applicable):

• Your Full Name.
• Valid Mobile Number
• Email Address
• Home Address (City & State is Great)
• A Professional LinkedIn Profile

Don’t include a contact info that’s inactive, and Unreachable.

Your Contact Details should be active and always monitored regularly.

Step 2: Craft an Irresistible Scholarship Resume Objectives

 

Your Scholarship Resume Objective should be Succinct.

Here’s a formula that will help you out:

• Briefly introduce yourself
• State your Academic Background
• Redefine your Honors, awards, and Societies
• Tell them what kind of Fund you are seeking.
• Brief them on the Kind of Research you would like to conduct.

You need to showcase that you are a serious candidate with a valuable academic background, top educational achievements, plus an applicant with an awesome futuristic vision.

A Terrible Résumé Objective Format looks like:

Craft something that makes you unique and worth their time, something that can convince them that you are a great investment.

A Good Example looks like:

Pro Tip: Craft your Scholarship Resume at the Very End of your Résumé Process.

It serve as a summary of while résumé.

How can you give a summary of a Résumé you haven’t made?

Step 3: Write the Best Academic Experience on your Scholarship Resume

Select the best Resume format, Checked.
Write a unique Scholarship Resume Objective, Checked.

Academic Experience, Oops On It!

How do you sell your Academic Experiences against hundreds of thousands of candidates with the same pursuit as you?

How do you craft an academic section that delivers and stands Strong?

To do this…

Here’s what to put in the Academic Section:

Your Graduation Date or expected year of Graduation.

• University/School Name.
• Current GPA
• Academic Major and Minor
• Project/Journal Title (if applicable)
• Field of Study (favorite)
• Extracurricular Activities

Point 1 through 3 are the basic information in any academic section in a Scholarship Resume.

Point 4 to 7 gives you more credibility during Evaluation.

How do you fill your Scholarship Resume Education while applying?

It depends on where you are in your educational background.

If you are applying for a College Scholarship, you can showcase your secondary school Education.

1. If you are a University student, Include your secondary school education (have graduated within 4-6 years) in your Scholarship Application.
2. When pursuing a PhD Scholarship, you should include your B.Eng. & Master’s Education (Skip Secondary School Education).

Don’t forget to…

…Showcase your leadership Experience.

Most students squeeze this as an Extracurricular Activity, but its wrong.

Rather, create a Leadership Experience section and place them in.

Write down any leadership position or offers you have held in school or in an academic society.

It should be relevant to the Scholarship you are applying for.

Step 4: Transform Your Work Experience into 5 star rated Asset.

The Scholarship committee are attracted to candidates with active work duty in and outside of school.

You should add as much outside school responsibilities or duties you take on whether it’s part time.

Remember, your working experience doesn’t have to be income based.

If it’s volunteering roles, internships or Club duties you play, don’t be afraid to include them all.

Step 5: Place in Your Awards, Voluntary/Leadership Roles, Honors plus Events, Conference attended.

This is where you show them what you are worth.

Spill the mind blowing Awards and Honors you have achieved in your Academic career.

It will serve as a big turning point during the Scholarship Selection Exercise.

Here’s the types of honor to include in this section:

• Scholarships Awarded.
• Academic Awards (Subject related or Conferences).
• Volunteering Awards.
• Academic Societal Memberships.
• Journal or project Publications.
• Dean’s List Award.
• Non Academic Awards.

Focus on writing out those types of awards in your Résumé, you will be closer to your International Scholarship Success.

Step 6: Don’t Put Your Key Skills to Waste, write them down.

What skills have you acquired in school?

What skills have you obtained that are related to your Field/Scholarship Application?

List them down with ratings, though.

There are only 2 types of Skills:

1. Soft Skills
2. Hard Skills.

Hard Skills

They are on demand skills which may involve you take on an intensive training or exercise for a period of time.

Examples include: Graphics Design, Front End Development, 3D Modeling, Foreign Languages, Digital Marketing, etc.

Soft Skills

These are Emotional or Relationship Skills often learnt through Experience working with people in school, companies or in industries.

Examples include: Leadership, Team work, Excellent Communication, Analytics or Technical Skills.

List any hard or soft skills that are linked to the career you are pursing.

Step 7: Skim, proofread, Scan and Save as PDF.

Here’s where things get complicated.

Always remember to skim your nicely written Scholarship Résumé for grammatical Errors.

It should be neat and clean, presentable and easy to Read.

You can Use Google Docs or MS Word to craft your Scholarship Résumé anytime.

It’s practically easy and simple, no technical knowledge needed.

Just a laptop or even your mobile phone can serve.

Why Google Doc or MS Word?

Using both software is practically simple, but the best part is that you can edit your resume at ease.

I use Photoshop to construct my scholarship Résumé, but it’s always difficult to edit.

You have to, open Photoshop, and use the existing tools to make a clean Résumé.

It often requires you learn Graphics Design, which is a hard-skill all together (requires a lot of time).

PS: you don’t need complicated software to make a clean and beautiful scholarship Résumé, Use simple software’s like MS Word or Google Docs.

Read Also: 3 Smart Ways to Get Internships In Nigeria Oil & Gas Companies

 

4. 8 Key Tips to Spark Attention into your Crafted Resume for International Scholarship.

So you have created your Scholarship Resume…

…You have dot the I’s and cross the T’s.

Awesome.

The question now is, how do you make your newly crafted Resume stand out?

How do you spark attention and exceed the scholarship Committee expectations?

Here are 8 Key Tips to Spark attention into your crafted Resume for International Scholarships.

Tip 1: The Outlook of your Scholarship Resume Matters

How your scholarship Resume looks reflect your success rate.

You need to make it attractive, beautiful, neat and fancy.

So, how do you do this?

First…

Make each Section Headers bold and slightly larger than the rest of the text.

You want to make the headings easier to spot, and understand.

Also try to be consistent with your heading formats and predefined layouts.

Use tons of Whitespace to distinguish your arrangements and layouts, plus clear and legible fonts.

Make sure you scholarship Résumé look beautiful, but try to limit the amount of graphics.

Moving to the tip 2…

Tip 2: Redefine your Scholarship Resume Last Touch

You want to keep things handy, try to keep the résumé clean with lots of Whitespace.

The Scholarship committee would need breathing spaces while reviewing it.

The last touch on you Résumé is the most Important…

…You will need to go over it hundreds of time, give out to people, friends or family for review.

Try to make it beyond perfect.

The words used should be in sync.

No grammatical Errors, or sketchy paraphrase.

Don’t ever lie in your resume.

Be honest about your work and academic experience, it shows your integrity to the scholarship panel.

moving to tip 3…

Tip 3: Your Ideal Focus is on The Educational Section.

Your focus should be on the Educational Section.

Why?

Because that’s the only section you have tons of values, potential and skills to display.

You probably are a student with little to no, professional Experience, sometimes not even a glimpse of hard skills.

How do you expect to stand out among the crowd?

Redefine the educational section in your scholarship Resume.

Be thorough, detailed and cover relevant academic Experience.

Don’t hide anything, do you have honors, societal awards or certification?

Place them down, every single details count, so you ought to write them down.

moving to tip 4…

Tip 4: Your professional Section is your Turning Point.

Redefine your Educational section, check!
Professional Section, Oops I don’t have anything to write home about.

But you do…

…Look out for little professional Experience you stashed out from working with Industries.

The Workshop & Hard-Skill Training, High school Internships, Paid Jobs all counts as Professional Experience.

If you got any, write them down.

moving to tip 5…

Tip 5: Leave the Outdated Stuffs outside the Scholarship Resume.

So you just finished college…

…and you are looking to get a master scholarship abroad.

When crafting your scholarship resume, leave the outdated stuff.

Don’t go putting your high school experience into it, try to update it.

You finished college right, so you must have acquired a lot of experience and awards plus certification, if so add them up.

Update your scholarship resume regularly, at least twice a Year.

The recent expertise, awards, or skills should always come up first.

The scholarship committee want to know who you are and not who you were.

So always refresh and update your Resume.

moving to tip 6…

Tip 6: Add Bad ass Strength to boost your Scholarship Resume

Mighty strengths, Better odds.

When you lay out your biggest strengths in your international scholarship resume, you add value to your personality.

What are you good at?

Being a Leader, Creating Ideas, Solving technical problems, Innovation, Technical analysis, or Team player?

Whatever it is, place them all in the resume.

Show them your best side, let your strengths crash their expectations.

Depending on how your do this, chances are you increase your success rate by 60%.

moving to tip 7…

Tip 7: Don’t Forget to Craft a Compelling Cover Letter.

If you resume is the skeleton of your application, then the cover letter is its body.

It’s the first thing, the international scholarship team would open up, before going through the resume.

You Cover Letter states your intention, with a brief about your background, skills and what you would be bringing to the table.

Depending on how it’s written and the format used, it could literally kill your scholarship application success.

I will create a post in the future to help you craft a Heart warming Scholarship Cover letter that gets accepted without question.

so stay tuned.

moving to tip 8…

Tip 8: Keep a Scholarship Resume Swipe File.

You will be applying to tons of International scholarships.

Sending lots of resume and cover letters, tweaking here and there, adjusting and perfecting every section to meet the scholarship criteria.

How do you simplify this process?

Can you make it far easier and less stressful?

Yes, you can. All you need is a swipe File.

What is a Swipe File?

A swipe file is a folder that contains several files under a specific category, it could be scholarship, internship, college grants or fashion clothing.

How do you create this?

Create a folder that contains a list of Scholarship resume you have crafted.

Store them in a container if hand written or in a computer if typed.

You can gather up to 30 files in a folder, quantity doesn’t matter.

Store as much as you can.

This will help simplify the process in the future.

Here’s some of the benefits of having a swipe file:

No more starring at the blank screen for ideas.

Less time crafting irresistible resumes or cover letters that works.

Easy tweaking or perfecting of former crafted resume files.

You have a ton of advantage doing this, Think about your time, resources and income.

Always create swipe files.

Read also: High Paying Scholarships in Nigeria

 

5. FAQ on resume for International Scholarships.

Let’s look at some of the common questions students ask about International scholarship.

I listed only 4 questions though, but I hope to streamline any doubts you might have when applying for a scholarship abroad.

Let’s dive in.

Q1. What type of International scholarships are available to college students?

International scholarships comes in various forms, but the two major are:

• Part time Scholarships
• Full Time scholarships.

Let’s dive deeper into them.

Part Time Scholarships are grants that covers some tuition fees of students during their college program.

Whereas,

Full Time Scholarships covers 100% tuition fee and students expenses such as accommodation, feeding, clothing and travel fees.

But too often do you see that he available international scholarships are part time.

With hundreds of thousand of students applying for the scholarship, it is highly competitive.

Some based on financial needs and others on academic performance.

Q2. What are your Chances of Getting an International Scholarship?

Honestly, it’s slim.

Let’s say 0.01 to 0.5% success (this has no statistical backing).

But you can boost your chances by spending a lot of time reviewing and tweaking your scholarship application.

Although you would be competing with thousands of other candidates, you have to be willing to outperform yourself.

Spend quality time optimizing your scholarship motivation letter, essay, resume, and cover letter.

You have to prepare actively for Impromptu Interviews by the scholarship committee.

As far as one can tell, getting an International Scholarship is based on your willingness to succeed.

Q3. Can you get a Postgraduate Scholarship abroad?

100%, you can.

Postgraduate scholarships abroad are quite common than undergraduate scholarships.

Most of them are fully funded in a range of fields or department, you need to look actively for them and apply soonest.

PhD & Masters Scholarships are a lot easier to find, and their criteria’s are less compared to undergraduate scholarships.

Q4. What are the required documents for International Scholarships?

This should be the easy part because most required documents for an international scholarship application are made public.

If you can’t find information for that, you basically have to visit the scholarship official portal online.

Fill in your personal Information, Contact details plus the following documents:

• Scholarship Resume
• Cover Letter
• Current Academic Result slip or Transcript.
• Scholarship Essay or Motivational Letter.

 

Conclusion

As promised, you have learnt the 8 Simple ways to craft, design, and optimize a resume for International scholarships…

…plus the 7 key Tips to boost your scholarship application success.

I hope this guide helps you fulfill your dreams of studying abroad.

If you have any question concerning drafting out a resume, or writing a Scholarship Resume, Ask Away in the Comment Section.

If you want Us to help you build an Irresistible Resume from scratch to finish that gets you an Internship or Scholarship offer

Click on the link below:

Let’s Make Your Clean and Professional Resume Now.