Writing a professional resume
Writing your resume is an
essential aspect of applying for a job, as it requires a lot of effort
and planning on your behalf. A badly worded and poorly presented resume
can put off a potential employer totally!
We intend to provide some
broad guidelines to help you write a resume that could work for you.
Work for you to achieve what it is meant to i.e. to get you an interview
call for a job.
At the outset, it is
necessary to clarify that you could use the term "resume" or "curriculum
vitae" (CV), even though technically a CV is primarily meant for job
positions within the academic environment and is supposed to be a
lengthy document. The difference is not strictly followed and it is safe
to use these two terms interchangeably, but remember that whatever word
you use, be sure that you know how to pronounce it accurately!
Your resume should be about two pages long
A resume should be about two pages long. It is supposed to be a brief
presentation of your skills, work experience, achievements and
education. Anything too long runs the risk of being skimmed over and not
read properly. Long and detailed does not necessarily imply better! What
your resume has to get across to the potential employer is just this -
you have the required skills, experience and education to handle the
job! This can be done by appropriately focusing on the key aspects
unique to your experience, and leaving out the standard repetitive
details, which would be similar to those of your competitors applying
for the same job/position. So, try and stick to 2 pages!
Start off by identifying your job objective
The job objective is an excellent area to include in your resume and is
usually omitted. It puts your resume in the right perspective for the
reader and clearly shows where you are headed in your career plans. If
you are applying for an entry level position in marketing, your job
objective could be something like:
Objective: Interested in
an entry level position in marketing in a multi-national corporation.
The 'multi-national
corporation' phrase makes your objective generic regarding company
choice. It would be advisable to modify each resume to suit specific
companies that you apply to. Then the job objective would read like
this:
Objective: Interested in
an entry level position in marketing.
Provide a summary of your experience and skills
The next section that your resume should contain is a 5-6 point summary
of your skills and experience. That includes:
* No. of years
of past and relevant work experience
* a brief description of the work done
* specific skills acquired
* significant achievements
* educational qualifications.
This section is very
useful, in providing a snapshot view of what your resume contains for
situations where yours is one resume in a pile of fifty others. It
allows minimal information loss in case the resume is quickly skimmed
over and not given a detailed reading. In this section, the skills that
you present should help in answering the question -"How can you
contribute to the organization?"
In case of IT/Software
professionals, the skill set could be added to the summary. But be sure,
that all the skills mentioned are truly areas you have worked in or are
comfortable working in.
Use language and content that communicates a proactive style
The style of writing that you use and the particular words or phrases
can make a significant difference to your resume. It affects the
impression created about you regarding your past work experience and
your skills. For example, you might say in your past work experience
that you "maintained records and accounts". A better way of expressing
the same thing could be "Reported directly to the VP-Finance and managed
over 1500 accounts...". Your language and content should focus on what
you achieved e.g. saving so many lakh rupees for the organization,
rather than a standard listing of responsibilities which sounds like a
job profile common to anyone in a similar position to yours. If you have
been a brand manager in the past, do not just list your job
responsibilities like" responsible for sales, profits, advertising
related to the brand...". Instead highlight things like " Implemented
change in product formulation that saved Rs 50 lakhs per year for the
brand...". Quantifiable parameters have a better impact than just saying
" Implemented change in product formulation".
Prioritise details of your past work experience
After the summary section, you can go on to providing details of your
past work experience. Leave aside the job objective and summary and that
gives you just one and a half pages to cover the details of your work
experience as well as your educational qualifications. You need to
prioritise. Decide what weightage to give to different
organizations/positions. You should not skip any place worked at, but
you obviously cannot give all details of each position. A few points to
note while preparing this section:
You could present the work experience in reverse chronological order
Start with the most recent work experience at the beginning of this
section and the rest later on. That is the organization where you are
currently working first and the earlier ones worked in, later in the
resume. This should highlight your relevant work experience at the
outset.
Within an organization, present your career path in the correct
chronological order
While you may present the organizations you have worked in, in reverse
chronological order, for a particular organization it is easier to
follow your career path if the positions are given in the way they
happened e.g. " joined ABC co. as management trainee in 1989 and was
promoted to assistant manager (finance) in 1991.....". You could then go
on to elaborate your responsibilities and achievements at this position.
Remember to highlight the more important designations with their
accomplishments, as this will be more relevant than just focusing on
your training period.
Mention responsibilities briefly, focus more on accomplishments
If responsibilities are similar across positions in an organization, try
to avoid repeating the same set of responsibilities with each position.
That will unnecessarily increase the size of your resume without giving
any additional value. Instead, try and include your different
achievements at each position, or something that you introduced or did
differently in your job. This would also hold true for situations where
responsibilities are similar across organizations. Avoid tautology and
stick to the accomplishments.
If worked in many organizations, merge information to reduce
chronological details
To avoid presenting a long, chronological detail of each organization
worked in, try and merge information on similar
positions/responsibilities across organizations into one category. This
will be easier to read and will also avoid presenting a negative image
of you being a job-hopper.
If changing your area of specialization, classify the information by
function
If you are changing your field from finance to marketing, then instead
of just presenting the details of your past work experience in reverse
chronological order by organization, you could classify the information
into different functional areas e.g. your responsibilities and
achievements in finance (even if across companies); similarly for
marketing. You should try and incorporate some marketing experience (and
hopefully you will have some) if you intend to get into that area.
Include other information only if significant
You may like to mention your hobbies, interests or extra-curricular
activities, under a separate heading, but it will really not add value
to your resume unless you have made a significant achievement there. For
example, mentioning mountaineering as a hobby is not relevant unless you
have achieved something like taken a trip to Mount Everest or
Kanchenjunga!
Such achievements which are not directly related to your work experience
can be put under the heading "Other information".
Present educational qualifications with the
most recent one first
When giving information on your educational qualifications in a separate
section, it is advisable to begin by presenting the most recent
degree/diploma achieved, as this is usually relevant to the work you are
currently doing. For example, if you have acquired a post-graduate
degree in management, give that information at the outset.
There is no need to go as far back as schooling, unless you are a fresh
graduate with no work experience. Remember, the resume is just 2 pages
and you need to give better reasons for being recruited than the school
you studied in!
If you have acquired a degree in some other country, mention a degree
that it is equivalent to which is internationally recognized, to put it
in the right perspective for the reader.
Avoid tables while presenting details of educational qualifications
because they occupy more space and interfere with the smooth flow of
sentences and points.
Provide information on training if it is at least 3 months or more.
Short term one week courses do not really look good on your resume
unless you do not have enough to say in 2 pages!
Even if you are not a software/IT professional, today computer literacy
is assumed for most positions. So don't list competencies in MS-Word and
such like but do include any significant packages you may have learnt,
helped develop or are in the process of learning.
For a candidate applying for an entry level position in an organization,
the educational qualifications will be more important as there is no
significant work experience other than training. This section could
therefore, come before work experience, in your resume.
References should be provided on request
Though it is useful to have names and contact numbers of people to give
as references, it makes sense to provide them only on request. You
should not give the details on your resume but provide the information
later on, when asked for, or further on in the selection process.
The reason for this is that at the outset you do not know how long your
resume will be with a company before you get an interview call. By then
the persons you mentioned as references may have moved or their contact
numbers could have changed.
Also you can tailor your list of references based on the company you are
applying to. So there is no need to provide the same information to all
the places you send your resume to.
It is also a good idea to inform your references that you have given
their names before they receive a call out of the blue. This way when
the employers who have included you in the short-list for recruitment,
contact your references to check you out, there are no hitches or
surprises.
Try and follow these guidelines and you will be surprised at the
improvements you can make to your resume!
Remember the resume format is flexible depending on the specifics of
your background and experience.
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