Resume is an important document for a candidate to reach their potential employer.
Job portals are flooded with thousands of resumes of suitable candidates and cherry picking your resume out of those by the recruiter depends on how attractive your resume is. Check out whether yours covers these sections:
These are the must haves in any resume, selection depends on how you present it.
Must haves in a Resume
- Your full name
- Your contact details like current location, email id and phone number
- Skill set and years of experience in them. (If you are a recent graduate mention your Institute of study and skills acquired)
- Current and previous employers.
- Achievements you have made. If it’s too many jobs and achievements, rewrite them in few lines under a single heading.
What makes a Resume an eye-catching one?
Summary is Key
Employers look for candidates matching their expected skill set and the selection of a resume happens in less than a minute’s time.
Have a crisp summary of your work experience /skill set in 3-4 lines in the beginning. This should highlight your experience and tempt the employer to consider you for the position. Use few keywords that matches your skill set with the Job Ad.
Customize the Resume
Don’t send the same generic resume to all jobs you are applying.
Read the Job ad thoroughly and make a note of the skills that matches your skill set. Accordingly mention about your experience in those areas in the Summary section. This doesn’t mean you have to exaggerate about skills that you aren’t qualified with. Only apply to jobs which you are confident of doing.
Format it well
The overall design and format of the document plays a great role in recruiter selection. The document should be easy to read, well formatted, with texts justified and aligned. Use spell checker to remove any grammatical errors.
Use a common font such as Arial or Calibri with 11 pt size for the content and a 14pt for the headings.
Keywords usage
Some employers use automated systems to filter resume’s to select candidates for interview. In order to be selected by those systems, ensure that your achievements and skills are mentioned using the right keywords. Technologies worked upon and relevant years of experience should be mentioned clearly so that they match the systems filter criteria.
References Matter
Mention one or two references whom you have worked with. In case of graduates, this could be your lecturer or professor who taught you.
Less is more
Last but not least, we might want to articulate every single fact about our experience and efficiency in the document and will end up with a lengthy document. But this is a turn-off for the recruiter reading the resume. Recruiters love simple and crisp resume’s. Restrict your resume so that it is not more than 2-3 pages long.
You are good to go!
I am excited to hear how your Interview went 🙂
Leave a comment below to let me know!! Or Contact me if you need assistance in preparation for an interview.
