A resume is essentially your visiting card and it introduces you to your prospective employer. Providing a summary of your vital information at a glance, a resume is one of the most important pieces of documents that you take to an interview. A resume represents your overall experience, skill and knowledge and its structure, presentation and content must be prepared in a manner that you are able to grab the reader's attention. In this article, you will be explained the various nuances of resume writing and you would do well to incorporate these in your resume.
The resume must be formatted in a specific manner describing different points of excellence under separate heads. For example: you must have a separate sub-head for academics, workshops, internships, extra-curricular activities etc.
While deciding the layout of the page, pay consideration to the purpose of your application, and your main point of focus may differ on a case to case basis.
Under every sub-head, reverse chronological order must be adopted, that is you must begin with the most recent activity under that head. For example: under the head ‘Projects and Internships’, you must first provide details of your last completed project.
Education Qualification must include your highest qualification first, describing the university or college details and should include your average score.
Prepare a separate section for mentioning your Awards and Achievements. Keep in mind the importance of the awards won and mention the most important ones first. Again, it is advisable to maintain the reverse chronological order.
As far as possible, include only the necessary details in the resume, and one page resume can be pretty effective as well, as long as it is prepared well.
Highlighting the main heads and sub-heads make them eye-catching.
Use bullets pointers as they improve the presentation of your resume.
The content generation is the most important part in the preparation of a resume. A good resume needs to balance detail with effective presentations. Always keep in mind the purpose of the resume to decide the content.
It has been seen often that little points are skipped by students while making their resume. You would do well to keep the following in mind:
Start the resume by including your personal details like your email and residential address. Kindly provide your current mobile number on your resume, so that you are easily accessible.
Make sure the email address does not give a bad impression and is not childish in nature.
Make sure you follow a defined order in your resume. Do not mention your interests at the top and your academic achievements at the top.
Always mention your awards and achievements. These provide a positive impression of your personality.
After you are finally done with the writing work, never forget to check for spelling errors and grammatical errors. They tend to put a negative impact on the interviewer. In case you struggle with language skills, kindly get your resume checked by someone who possess a good command over the English language.
Always use a standardized font for writing your resume, and the font size should be consistent throughout the resume. The headings and the text should have a particular size.
Do not over-format your resume by adding too many boxes, highlights or shading. These destroy the appearance of your resume. A short, brief and elegant resume is the best.
