Hello friends,
I hope the below guidelines would help anyone trying for a job.
However, there are a lot of small details which people tend to miss while building their resume. To be frank, in big companies whether you are short listed for the job depends as much on how your resume looks like in the 1st view as it depends on your technical or other skills.
I just formulated a few guidelines that might help you to get yourself resume more noticeable. These are my thoughts only. If you find something incorrect please feel free to point it out and add your valuable insight. Any further advices are also welcome.
1. Always send your resume in PDF format (for more traditional people, you are welcome to try video/website/audio/painting etc also). DOC format is not a portable format and tends to change the layout from one system to another. Moreover, the DOCX format (office 2007 onwards) cannot be opened on earlier versions of office unless specific plugins are installed.
2. Do not write multiple page essays for your CV. HRs dont have time to read it all. Freshers to few years experienced people can limit their CV in just 2 pages. People with more experience may require more pages to describe their projects.
3. Do not use fancy formats unless you are going for a design or humanities kind of field. You never know what the person reading your CV prefers. So use classic and formal templates.
4. Put your name/DOB/Nationality/current address/telephone/email/work permit status (for international jobs) in first few lines. Be short and specific.
5. Objective: I have seen many saying they want to work in a reputed company to gain experience in so and so field. Lets be honest. The guys reading your CV are not fools. They know when you are buttering. Be precise what are you looking for. For example "Seeking internship in digital circuits on memory design".
6. Freshers: As you have no experience you have to show your technical skills. Put your educational background including college and your specify your grades. Unless you are from highly known school, dont mention your 10th 12th schools. If you have got excellent grades in 10th and 12th just mention them. If you have any academic achievements like 1st in district or 99 percentile or anything like that, mention it with your qualification. The skill is to spend less than 10 lines on your education (specially applies to experienced people).
7. Dont bet your CV on grades. Grades can pass you in the cutoff but they dont help you in 2nd level filtering. Put your projects, explain the purpose, your contribution, and skills utilized.
8. Internships are very important. Give them more exposure. Explain what you learnt in them. What you worked upon. Duration, location, host.
9. Few (1-3) years Experienced: Keep education qualification last. Explain briefly projects you have worked upon, your contribution, what you learnt from them, team size, responsibilities, if you can client or a general reference to his field (eg Medium scale health services provider in US and Europe), duration, location, etc. Team work, leadership, cross culture relationship are well used words. If you use them, be sure you can defend that in your project. A guy working in a team size 2 for a client in US on a small module that have been allotted by his PL saying he learnt team work and multi cultural work wont look very good. Try to be honest in what you write. Do not exaggerate.
10. Skill set: 99% of people at your level can operate Windows. Even my 7 year old niece can open and play a game on laptop. Specifying that wont get you anything. XP/7/Vista are just flavors. Specifying operating systems is useful only if you are working on them or environment specific applications or linux/sun specific fields.
11. A long list of tools isnt helpful. Put specific tools you are good at first and then you can put the rest in a second category as also worked upon.
12. Freshers can specify important courses. They dont want a detail list of all your courses from 1st sem. Write ones specific or related to your field and prefer advance courses.
13. Language skills can add you extra points. However, if you are only partially knowledgeable about a language then specify your level of skill in verbal, comprehension and written skills. Mother tongue, fluent, native, basic, passable are few options.
14. Hobbies: Movies, video games, playing cards, chatting, internet surfing, are a big NO. Write creative things or leave it. Sports are good. Reading can be accompanied by specific type like social issues, war history, classic literature, fiction. Photography, part time social worker, debate, DIY, etc are good.
15. Extra curricular activities can be used if you are involved in organization, management, etc of events or participation, awards, in these events.
16. Be honest in your CV. Lies can come back to haunt you later on. Companies are known to have expelled worked on false claims. And It is becoming more common now.
PS: please pass this on .
I hope the below guidelines would help anyone trying for a job.
However, there are a lot of small details which people tend to miss while building their resume. To be frank, in big companies whether you are short listed for the job depends as much on how your resume looks like in the 1st view as it depends on your technical or other skills.
I just formulated a few guidelines that might help you to get yourself resume more noticeable. These are my thoughts only. If you find something incorrect please feel free to point it out and add your valuable insight. Any further advices are also welcome.
1. Always send your resume in PDF format (for more traditional people, you are welcome to try video/website/audio/painting etc also). DOC format is not a portable format and tends to change the layout from one system to another. Moreover, the DOCX format (office 2007 onwards) cannot be opened on earlier versions of office unless specific plugins are installed.
2. Do not write multiple page essays for your CV. HRs dont have time to read it all. Freshers to few years experienced people can limit their CV in just 2 pages. People with more experience may require more pages to describe their projects.
3. Do not use fancy formats unless you are going for a design or humanities kind of field. You never know what the person reading your CV prefers. So use classic and formal templates.
4. Put your name/DOB/Nationality/current address/telephone/email/work permit status (for international jobs) in first few lines. Be short and specific.
5. Objective: I have seen many saying they want to work in a reputed company to gain experience in so and so field. Lets be honest. The guys reading your CV are not fools. They know when you are buttering. Be precise what are you looking for. For example "Seeking internship in digital circuits on memory design".
6. Freshers: As you have no experience you have to show your technical skills. Put your educational background including college and your specify your grades. Unless you are from highly known school, dont mention your 10th 12th schools. If you have got excellent grades in 10th and 12th just mention them. If you have any academic achievements like 1st in district or 99 percentile or anything like that, mention it with your qualification. The skill is to spend less than 10 lines on your education (specially applies to experienced people).
7. Dont bet your CV on grades. Grades can pass you in the cutoff but they dont help you in 2nd level filtering. Put your projects, explain the purpose, your contribution, and skills utilized.
8. Internships are very important. Give them more exposure. Explain what you learnt in them. What you worked upon. Duration, location, host.
9. Few (1-3) years Experienced: Keep education qualification last. Explain briefly projects you have worked upon, your contribution, what you learnt from them, team size, responsibilities, if you can client or a general reference to his field (eg Medium scale health services provider in US and Europe), duration, location, etc. Team work, leadership, cross culture relationship are well used words. If you use them, be sure you can defend that in your project. A guy working in a team size 2 for a client in US on a small module that have been allotted by his PL saying he learnt team work and multi cultural work wont look very good. Try to be honest in what you write. Do not exaggerate.
10. Skill set: 99% of people at your level can operate Windows. Even my 7 year old niece can open and play a game on laptop. Specifying that wont get you anything. XP/7/Vista are just flavors. Specifying operating systems is useful only if you are working on them or environment specific applications or linux/sun specific fields.
11. A long list of tools isnt helpful. Put specific tools you are good at first and then you can put the rest in a second category as also worked upon.
12. Freshers can specify important courses. They dont want a detail list of all your courses from 1st sem. Write ones specific or related to your field and prefer advance courses.
13. Language skills can add you extra points. However, if you are only partially knowledgeable about a language then specify your level of skill in verbal, comprehension and written skills. Mother tongue, fluent, native, basic, passable are few options.
14. Hobbies: Movies, video games, playing cards, chatting, internet surfing, are a big NO. Write creative things or leave it. Sports are good. Reading can be accompanied by specific type like social issues, war history, classic literature, fiction. Photography, part time social worker, debate, DIY, etc are good.
15. Extra curricular activities can be used if you are involved in organization, management, etc of events or participation, awards, in these events.
16. Be honest in your CV. Lies can come back to haunt you later on. Companies are known to have expelled worked on false claims. And It is becoming more common now.
PS: please pass this on .
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