All About Making Your Resume |
Posted: June 13, 2018 |
Resume is your first presentation in the eyes of the employer wherein you make the first impression about yourself. And believe it or not, it is a matter of mere seconds whether you should be selected or rejected. Thus, making a resume that creates a strong impression is indeed a challenging task. Most of the job seekers go berserk on writing a flawless resume. Many a times it happens that good students have a tough time finding a good job. They keep wondering where they went wrong during their academic years, not actually realizing that the issue can be with the resume itself. In a resume, each word matters. Thus, one needs to think well about every word. Yes, each word indeed. Nowadays, companies receive a number of resumes minutes after they post a job online. They do not even go through all of the resumes, but rather choose the ones which they find worthy to go through. Did you get the actual thing? Your first selection happens within seconds. To mark an impression in the reader’s mind within those seconds is indeed a challenge. We are discussing here the must know tips to craft the right resume for your profile, which will take you ahead of the rest of your competitors.
Why Do You Need a Resume? To tell the company who you are, what are you good at, your learning though your professional experiences with which you can benefit the company. In a brief, your resume helps you set your foot into an organization. It is your first introduction about yourself to your employer. As the saying goes, first impression is the last impression, a similar role is played by your resume as well.
How Much Time Does Your Resume For First Impression? The game happens in mere seconds, not even minutes. Consider this situation and you would understand the stressed times of the hiring process. Let us say you are the hiring manager who has to find the right candidate for a post which has recently been vacated in the organization. You just posted the job vacancy online and it got an over whelming response from many regions of the nation. As a result, your desk is now piled with resumes. Your email too is filled with candidates’ information and cover letters. Now you start narrowing down on the resumes to shortlist the worthy ones out of the entire stack. There are a number of resumes, spread out differently from each other in a number of varieties. Some of them do not have even the proper font to read out, or a few have not given relevant titles to their resumes. Some of the applicants went too far in order to impress you and have given too much focus on page decoration rather than focusing on the content, while a few of the resumes have pointless mentions on the resumes, such as ‘won first prize in singing standard v’, ‘love travelling since camping trip in standard vii’ etc. You feel like making just running away from your own desk now. And then you get your hands on a resume which seems perfect; readable font style, apt title, mentions of skills that you actually require and a brief of the person’s experience. Putting the applicant’s profile into the ‘selected’ slot, you continue to dig out the right resumes further. You see, you first impression lies on a sheet of paper, which will be tumbled with a lot number of other’s ‘first impressions’. Hence, it is extremely important to make a strong resume, which really points out that preparing a resume is an art, which every applicant should be skilled at.
How to Make the Perfect Resume? Following are some crucial points which must be kept in mind while working on your resume. Abiding by these steps will surely help you bring out the best of your in your resume. 1. Keep the font style and size readable Avoid those curvy, decorative fonts that are barely readable. Go for professional styles such as Arial, Times new roman, Calibri etc. The standard font size for official purposes is 12 for the content. Make sure the headings are not too large in size as well. Font size 14 and 16 can be ideal for the headings. 2. Professional layout You must know that resume is a professional application which showcases your skills and knowledge to the employer. Hence, do not try making an impression or being unique by putting fancy page borders, textured backgrounds, colors sprinkled here and there etc. it would more be like ruining your work. A professional layout is a must, wherein the focus should go on the content of your resume. 3. Follow the format strictly Put your listings in the order in which they should be. Your name and contact information would be mentioned on the top, followed by your career objective. You skills, experience and education should be mentioned accordingly thereafter. 4. Plan your career profile well The objective of your career should be carefully planned, as it is a play of words. Reading the sentence, employers should be able to make out a quick impression about who you are and how can you contribute to the organization. Often people end up describing their ideal job or describing their academic years. Well, the hiring person wants to know how you can be of use to the company, not what kind of job you are looking for. Make sure to include these crucial points in your career profile: (a) Strong words that describe you professionally Whether you are a leader, smart working, confidant, hard working, dynamic, optimistic, creative, go getter etc, describe yourself briefly with such words in the career profile. It gives a hint about how you see yourself and how would you describe in the shortest way. (b) How can you benefit the organization Here, your experience, skills and knowledge which you have learnt so far should do the talking. Tell the company about the skills you have which can for their use. Do not end up writing an entire paragraph on it. A few words would be sufficient enough. (c) Do not mention your flaws It is true that no person is perfect. But, to make the right impression, it is not suggested to mention them, which would create a negative remark about you. While you add words that describe you, make sure that you do not mention any word that hints towards your flaws. (d) Strict word limit Career objective does not require a paragraph to be written. Keep a strict bar on the word limit, not exceeding 50 words.
5. Work Well On ‘Work experience’ and ‘Skills’ Sections These are the most important parts of your resume, the ones that the employers actually want to know, which are thoroughly discussed below. (a) Work Experience If you are working presently, then Work experience should be mentioned before Education, but after your Skills. The vice versa would be applicable only if you are a fresher or looking to change your job field. Write your work experiences in a reverse chronological order, i.e. the recent one should be mentioned first. Mention your job profile, the company where you worked and the duration of your employment in the organization. Briefly discuss about your achievements that have been fruitful for the company. Describe briefly about your work there and what experience you gained from it. Keep in mind that the description should be really short and crisp, not exceeding 50 words. An example is given below to help you get it better. Fashion DesignerShiza Exports Pvt. LtdJune 2015-September 2017 (2 years 3 months)Gained experience in analyzing fashion trends, developing theme boards and worked on casual women’s wear for European market. (b) Skills Just as the words that you describe yourself wit in your career profile, you should talk about your strong points and positive side in the Skills section. Also mention the software, languages, techniques etc which you care specialized in. Employers pay a lot of attention to what you write in skills. Hence, make sure that you include the right words which add on to your impression. Some of the words which are appropriate to be mentioned are: Excellent communication skillsGood listenerDedicatedOptimisticLeadership skillsPatienceConfidantPositive attitudeCheerfulDynamic6. Language skills Communication is an important part of any job, as you will be dealing with a number of people. Hence, mention the languages which you know. Also give brief information about your skill level in a language, i.e. can read, can write, can read and write, native speaker. 7. Categorize the details to be mentioned Not every detail about you is required to be mentioned in your resume. As discussed earlier, the selection process happens within a short span of time. Thus, a good resume should not have any information which seems irrelevant or misleading to the employers. Do not fill up sheets for your resume by mentioning prizes you won in schooling days too many hobbies crammed in. keep each point short and to the point, which speaks directly about your professional life. 8. Keep your resume updated Feed in your recent activities in your professional field. That does not mean to end up writing it like a diary entry, but major activities and tasks performed should be described in your resume. An updated resume helps your employers to know more about your profile. A resume which you updated months ago, after which you have even switched your career direction but not mentioned in the resume will not be of any help. 9. Use easy to understand form of language Remember well that it is not a creative writing assignment, wherein you have to express your thoughts in a creative manner. Resume writing is rather a straight forward kind of work, wherein the hiring people should understand you easily through your resume. People often confuse that using difficult, are or unheard words that are hardly used in the common day language will improve their resume, which is not true. Information that can be understood easily is well appreciated by everyone. 10. References Conclude your resume by mentioning one or a maximum of two people, who can give a reference and a review about you. Companies may or may not contact them, thus it is a must to choose your references smartly, the ones who will surely give a good and strong review about you. Mention the person’s name, his designation, company’s name and contact details.
Following these tips, you will surely build up a scoring resume which will take you ahead of your competitors. Keep in mind that it is your first impression in the employer’s mind, thus make sure it is a great one.
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