How Important Is A Good Resume?

The first thing that an individual forwards to a company for a job is his/her curriculum vitae or resume. A resume is a summary of all the achievements of a person on a certain career track. It includes details of schooling, college, professional degrees earned, internships completed and past jobs along with personal details. A resume is supposed to give an employer basic idea about an applicant’s work and personal profile.

Before looking at graduation mark sheets and certificates, a recruiter looks at the resume of an individual to judge whether s/he fits the bill. Once the resume passes the scrutiny test, his/her certificates are looked into. Hence, forwarding a good resume is of utmost importance.

There are certain things that one should bear in mind about writing a resume:

• Keep a resume as short as possible- Given the condition of the job market in the country, a recruiter has to sift through hundreds of resumes before drawing up a list of potential candidates for an interview. Hence, the recruiter does not have much time to read through a resume. It has been opined that recruiters do not spend more than 12 seconds on a single resume.
• Abstract data as much as possible- The information in a resume needs to be presented in a way that gives a recruiter the largest amount of information about you in the shortest space possible. You can achieve such a feat if you follow this format:

Resume Tips

1. Use tables to represent your academic qualification. Make a few columns in the table and write in your school’s name, college’s name, university’s name etc. It would be best to start with the highest degree you have earned.
2. Use bullet points to highlight special features about your academic life like holding offices in school or college etc.
3. When you are mentioning your work experience, mention the name of the organization, the location, the period of work and the post that you held in the organization. Do not go into many details.
4. Do not mention unnecessary personal information about yourself. For e.g. if you are applying for a position of a data analyst, there is hardly much point in mentioning your height, weight, blood group etc.
5. If you have participated in a lot of extra-curricular activities and have won a lot of accolades, then mention only those which are important in your field.

• As the time given to your resume by a recruiter is very limited, it would be best to limit your resume to a single page.

Many people find it difficult to write such a resume. They can always seek help from site for employment for tips on writing a crisp resume. Once the resume is written, a person can upload it on their profile on a job hunting site or online classifieds and see offers pour in. A well written resume can go a long way to get you noticed by a potential recruiter.