Tips and resources to build Resume

According to the wiki definition,

A resume is a brief summary of your skills and experience over one or two pages.

A resume must be built according to a specific job opening and the company. Resumes can have different formats based on the profile for which you are applying, the company to which you are applying, etc. Here, we will discuss a format that is suitable for the role of Software Developers. Below are some of the key points that everyone should keep in mind while writing a Resume:

1. Single Page Resume: The most common mistake that everyone makes is to write every possible detail about themselves in their resume which makes their resumes lengthy up to 2-3 pages. Recruiters do not have this much of time to read a complete resume of 2-3 pages, they hardly pay around 20-30 seconds on each resume. So, keep your resume short up to a single page. Also, when you are writing less then you will write only important things about you.
2. No Career Objective: This is also a common mistake done by job aspirants. A career objective generally read as, “Objective: To utilize my knowledge, skills, and abilities as a Software Engineer”. Focusing on this quoted sentence it basically states the position you are applying for and your interests which the recruiter already knows. So, including this will only end up eating space in your resume.
3. Include Accomplishments: Try to make your resume accomplishment-oriented and not responsibilities oriented. Accomplishments state the things you have achieved and how well do you have managed your responsibilities.
4. Count Matters: Do not get confused with the word count here. By count, we mean that you should always specify the count whenever you are including any accomplishment in your resume. For Example, if you have won any competition then do specify this achievement along with your rank.
5. Avoid Grammatical Mistakes: Do read your resume multiple times to check if there is any grammatical error.
6. Mention the relevant keywords: If you are applying for the product based companies it’s good to mention the words like “Good at data structures and algorithms” or “Good in problem-solving or fixing the bug” at the top of your resume. Most of the companies have algorithms for CV scan. These algorithms search for these kinds of keywords. If you are an experienced developer already working in a product based company you can also mention this in your resume.
7. Mention how good you are in a specific programming language: It’s good to mention clearly in which programming language you are proficient, which programming language you are good at or familiar with.
8. More content, less space: Use a good resume template, with columns. This will allow you to fit more content on your resume while making it easier to scan for key information like company names and titles.
9. Projects: You must pick your top 2-3 projects to list on your resume. It does not matter if these projects are a part of your academic projects or it is an independent one. You may also list an ongoing project if the project matches the tech stack of the company you are applying to. For example, if you are working on an ongoing project based on ReactJS and the company for which you want to apply also uses ReactJS then you should include that project in your resume. This is said because many companies have a resume filtering option. That is when you apply for a vacancy on their website your resume passes through an initial keyword matching process before it reaches to the hiring team.
10. Additional Experience: You may also add additional experiences but it will be of benefit to you only when your additional experiences match with the position you are applying for. For example, consider that you are applying for a technical role and you have added an additional experience of “Content Writer“. This will not seek the attention of the recruiter in any way. But if you add an additional experience of “Technical Content Writer” then it will surely credit some score to your resume.
11. Do not Fake: Do not ever fake on a resume. Listing something fake on your resume have a very high chance of getting you into trouble. Recruiter always tries to ask questions based on the resume. That is, things you have listed you have expertise in.

Here is a sample resume to help you understand the above points more clearly.

The above content is originally published at GeeksforGeeks by Harsh Agarwal.

Frequently Asked Questions

Many people will contradict with few of the above-listed points. These points are not listed by me, but are written by surveying a lot of recruiters. I have listed two major FAQs below:

Why should I keep it a single page? What if I have more to say about me?

For a fresher or engineers with less than 2 years of experience, recruiters do receive a lot of resumes and hence they don't have much time to devote to every resume. A study showed that on average recruiters don't spend more than 20-30 sec on a single resume for screening. Also, the first stage is just screening, it doesn't guarantee you a job, you still have to go through the rigorous interview process to prove yourself. Therefore, until and unless you have less than 3-4 years of experience, keep your resume to a single page.

What is the problem with writing career objectives?

You must have read the job description before applying, right? It must have matched with your career objective. So, there is no point in repeating it again in your resume.

Also, what if you have written a career objective in your resume which doesn't fits well in the Job description of the vacancy to which you have applied? It will rather have a negative impact now.

Moreover, some people may still contradict that, career objective in a resume can help to tell more about yourself. Look, a resume is to judge your technical skills or how well will you perform in the job. To know your interpersonal skills, we have HR or Managerial rounds of interviews. You will be asked "Introduce Yourself", in each of your interview rounds.

Resources to build a resume:

You can find a resume building template easy over the internet and customize it as per your needs. I prefer using visualcv.

You can also find more such resources at: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/resume-building-resources-and-tips/