Interview 110 - How to create a solid resume

Whether you are an experienced professional or a graduating senior in university, the first step in the job search process for both groups is the need to create a good resume. Recruiters, especially in the big MNC companies, typically get 300-400 applicants for every job posting. They are also working in 30-35 job openings at one time. Hence, the amount of time spent reading a resume is around 5 to 30 seconds. Hence, your goal should always be to get the recruiter's attention.?

Things to do:

1. Always begin with your name at the top. Then, right below your name, all of your contact information (phone number, Linkedin ID, location, etc.) should be listed right next to each other.
2. The resume should begin with the objective. Do not leave the recruiter guessing if you need a job or an internship, want full-time vs. part-time, etc. Instead, mention that you are looking for a job in a particular function in a specific business. Also, mention your skills and how that is a good match for the role. To ensure that it is a good match, look at the Job Description (JD) in advance and rewrite your resume keeping the keywords of the JD in mind. Be wise about using the keywords.
3. Use a reverse chronological way to describe work experiences, the latest at the top and furthermost experiences at the bottom of the resume. Recruiters show interest for 5-10 seconds, and you want to make every second count.

Things to avoid:

1. In the past, there used to be something called a Curriculum Vitae (CV). CVs differed from resumes in that a CV was long and detailed while resumes were concise. Unfortunately, CVs have ceased to exist, and the only place to write your life story is in a resume. A resume has to be one page for a person with less than five years of work experience and can be two pages for someone with more than 15 years of work. From an HR perspective, all resumes need to be 1 page unless you are applying for a VP position, which is where the senior roles begin.
2. Refrain from wasting your time ever placing your photograph on your resume. Also, mentioning your date of birth or age, personal address, salary expectations, or your parent's name is a major faux pas. Any recruiter reading such a resume will think you are old-fashioned or stupid. Either way, you will leave a wrong initial impression on the recruiter.
3. Never have an email id that says Hotmail, Yahoomail, or any old email suffixes. Try to get a Gmail or company ID; otherwise, you may be considered a dinosaur unwilling to change. In the same way, have a professional-sounding Gmail ID, which should have your full name in it. Using IDs like crazycat or coolcat speaks volumes about how frivolous you are. If your name is unavailable, try to find your name with a number attached to it.
4. Do not go overboard with taking the skills from the JD and placing that on your resume. Typically, skills emerge from exposure to work experiences over a long time. If you try to spam your resume with all the skill keywords from the JD, the reader will become fishy and think that you are puffing up your resume, which is a bad sign.
5. A spelling error or a writing mistake in the resume can be very damaging. The resume is a critical document because it represents you. In a way, it is you speaking to the recruiter through the writeup. Mistakes create the impression that you need to be more detail-oriented (a required skill at every level in the workplace) and that you are comfortable with making mistakes with the most important document of your life. If you make such mistakes, how can a company trust you with higher-order company data? Always do a Microsoft Word spell check, Grammarly writing check, and, if possible, a ChatGPT writing check before you create a final draft. More reliance on automation and AI may be counter-beneficial as it may not catch all the bugs. Ask your siblings, family, or friends to give feedback if the resume is readable.?
6. Don't waste your time writing about hobbies at the bottom of the resume. Firstly, few applicants have writing space (in a packed one-page resume) to write about extraneous activities outside work. You can instead bring this up in an initial icebreaker chat when you meet the recruiter. When mentioned correctly, personal disclosures can lighten the mood and make the interview more pleasant.?
7. Do not provide references at the bottom of the resume. At one point in time, this practice made sense. Currently, organizations will send you a separate online form if they want some reference information.?

What makes a great resume:

1. Like interview preparation, the best resumes typically employ the STAR format when listing the work accomplished under each company. STAR stands for Situation (context before you entered the project), Task (expectations set out by the manager), Actions (whatever you did), and Results (end results of actions). In a resume, writing down the Situation and Task will make the resume verbose; hence focus on listing your Actions and provide metrics on the outcomes.
2. Recruiters are impressed when every action ends with a dramatic change - Productivity increase, cost savings, efficiency increase, and so on. Even in the workplace, performance evaluations and year-end promotions are increasingly led by metrics and numbers. As a job applicant, if you know the language of business, it will be easier for the recruiter to push your hiring case in front of the hiring team.?
3. Nothing looks out of place in a great resume- all the fonts and text align perfectly, there are no extraneous spaces, and there are no bombastic words used.?
4. If there are gaps in your resume, avoid drawing attention to it. For example, if you are very experienced and senior, you can afford to skip dates of your education or even skip the months you worked in a company. Simultaneously, always be ready with an answer if the question is asked.

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