Gyan session 4 - Tips for creating a great resume:

I conducted a webinar recently to talk about tips for creating a quality resume. As promised, I am enclosing an?editable sample resume?and a?download of my presentation?in this post.?

Here are the 10 points which summarize my discussion:

1) Prework: Please go to the career site, download the job description for the role, and note the skills the position needs. When you write your resume, the skills you write in the resume should match the skills the company is looking for. In short, each resume has to be customized for a job. Please use a different resume for each job. Customization involves a lot of hard work, but that is the right way to proceed. Instead of focusing on 40-50 companies (where your chances of success are almost zero), focus on 4-5 companies, where your chances of success can go up to 60-70% by networking and doing due diligence.

2) The person's name and contact details should be available right at the top. In addition, the email ID should have the full name and a number, if necessary, to help differentiate it from other similar candidate names. Any fancy names email like "coolcat" or "crazycat" is a strict no.

3) Make sure that the resume has an objective. It should list what the person is looking for (internship or full-time role) along with three skills they bring to the table. The identified skills should match the job description for that role.?

4) When you write your resume, mention the month and year together, especially if you have less than ten years of work experience. If you have gaps in your resume, you don't need to mention if you have done something during that period (like entrepreneurship or sabbatical) on your resume. At the same time, the question can come back to you during an interview; hence be ready with an answer. If the gap experience is connected with the job you are looking for, you can mention that on your resume.

5) Everybody should target a one-page resume. Two-page job resumes are only for candidates with more than 15-20 years of work experience. All students should use a one-page job resume but can create a separate two-page research resume for higher studies. Only Professors tolerate a more than one-page resume.

6) The formatting for the resume should be perfect. There should be no pronunciation errors or additional spaces anywhere. Fonts and italics have to be consistent throughout the resume. All resumes also need to be standard. Sample resume format enclosed below. The only exception to the one-page standard resume is for computer science (CS) students, who can split the resume page into two sections to include all their CS projects in one single page. Every other discipline, including management aspirants, should stick to the standard resume.?

7) Never mention personal details like your complete home address, father's name, date of birth, gender, age, etc., on your resume. Doing so makes you look like a novice.

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