to burnish resume

6.5

To make a resume look more impressive to employers

phrasal verb

: mejorar el currículum

Many students take internships to burnish resume before entering the job market.

Examples

He enrolled in advanced courses to burnish resume for competitive graduate schools.
Some applicants volunteer to burnish resume and stand out among thousands of candidates.
I will burnish my resume!
She decided to burnish resume before applying for jobs.
She took extra workshops to burnish resume and impress potential employers.
He completed a certification course to burnish resume and increase his job prospects.
Many individuals volunteer at local charities to burnish resume and showcase their commitment to the community.

Antonyms

to weaken

305 2.8

To make people and things less strong or effective

How Impressive

to burnish resume

6.5

polish

18 5.3

Surface Forms

burnish resume infinitive

burnished resume past

burnished resume past participle

burnishing resume present participle

burnishes resume third person singular

Morphology

burnish + resume

The literal verb 'burnish' (to rub to make shiny) can be metaphorically extended to 'polish' or improve something, so applied to 'resume' the phrase plausibly means to make the resume look better. This metaphorical extension is cross-linguistically common (e.g., 'polish a CV') and thus inferable if a learner knows both words, but because the shift from physical shining to improving document content is figurative it is not fully predictable for all learners.

Etymology

Burnish resume comes from the verb burnish, which means to polish something until it shines, and resume, the short document that shows your work and study. Imagine rubbing a dull coin until it becomes bright; that image shows why to burnish your resume means 'to improve it so it looks more impressive to employers'.