Resume pronounced re-su-me is concise one page document, with pertinent job related information. It is your most important marketing tool, in your job search in India and demonstrates how employable you are, that you would potentially meet the organization’s job requirements. It shows you have the right qualifications, education, experience, skills and professionalism for the job.
Read our previous blog => Career Counseling for a Bright Future
Ensure the Right Keyword Mix
These days a lot of companies employ software applications to scan industry pertinent keywords and phrases and the resumes, cover letters or applications that lack in these keywords are automatically sifted out. Therefore it makes sense during your job hunting to be aware of and include the terms the software is programmed to look for. These are usually searched — Jobs, skills, activities, qualifications, tools, software and many more.
In your own interest ensure your resume for job search has the right mix of key words and phrases. The best places to find them are job listings and job ads, use job search engines to find the right ones.
Follow Resume Basics
- Use A4 size white paper, black ink with one side printing
- Standard typefaces like Courier, Arial, Times, Helvetica, Optima, Palatino, Times, and Futura.
- 10 to 14 points font size should be used
- Your name must appear on the top of every page
- Standard address format must be used below your name
- Complete name of school, degree and dates must be used
- Comprehensive job information must be provided with dates
- For section headings use capital letters with boldface type
- Use keywords primarily nouns representing skills and experience instead of action words or verbs. Key words must be carefully picked up from job listings and job descriptions.
- Use concrete words to describe your job experience, never be vague in your descriptions.
- By including specifics you increase the chance of increasing the number of keywords in your resume
- Personalize it to the job by including industry specific jargons and acronyms.
- Pronouns like us, my and I must be avoided
- Ideally a resume should be limited to one page, add another page only when absolutely necessary.
- Use a laser printer for a hard copy
- Spacing between letters is not advised
- Never use two column format, keep everything in a single format.
