Six tips to make a good resume

So what does it take to compose a perfect resume? A resume that could compel your potential recruiter to do an interview with you for that dream job? Remember your resume it is that positions the human resource person to form an idea about the kind of employee you can prove for the company.

A slip at this first correspondence and your chances for getting on that job are hacked. “This guy is not serious for the job,” the resume reviewer might declare. A cliché would be worth mentioning here: first impression is the last.

So a few tips to help you choreograph a good resume.

1. Write precise headings: Precise headings such as “Editing of sport section” remove ambiguity about the task you have undertaken. If you write “Editing” it will oblige the HR to read further which is highly improbable – given the workload of browsing numberless resumes to select a few. Resumes with specific headings are read in detail, not those with unclear headings. Let not the busy HR trash your resume because of imprecise, ambiguous headings.
2. Use rich keywords: Recruiters use ATS (Automated Tracking System) to skim over the resumes of potential employees. Resumes that are not keyword-rich don’t come in the radar of ATS, consequently filtering off loads of resumes. Ads and descriptions of the jobs you are applying for contain strong keywords, so write them in your resume in a manner that it does not amount to wordiness. Keyword stuffing will trim your chances of getting the interview call. And keyword weakness might throw your resume off the sight – so strike the right balance.
3. Support your claims: If you enlist the talents or skills you possess (i.e. leadership, creativity, practicality), supply some examples to support them – such as “Lead a team to take signatures of industrialists for manufacturing environmental-friendly products” or “Created an ap for farmers to know about the specific climate conditions” etc. merely writing your qualities will prompt the HR to search for evidence so that she can be convinced by your claims. Absence of evidence here will imply negativity.
4. Hobbies: If you do decide to mention hobbies, they must match the job profile in some way. Mention them only if you feel their mention is giving a hint to the HR that it will be a complement to the job profile. For example, you can write “Travelling,” “Meeting people,” etc., for an opening in journalism. Don’t write “Playing with children” as I did or “Chatting with friends” as others might do. The thirst for expressing hobbies should be quenched in a different company, not with prospective employers.
5. Pronouns: Your resume is a document about yourself, so it is a given that you will talk about yourself in it. Therefore, there is no need of using pronouns such as “I” and “me”.
6. Proofreading: Proofreading is an extremely crucial part of resume composing. To err is human, and it is very likely that you might make mistakes in writing lower case or upper case, in mentioning the names, phone numbers or addresses, so proofread your resume as many times as sufficient. You can also get a friend or any professional to review your resume before sending it out to your potential recruiter.

There are a host of other tips to making a resume as well, but I mentioned only a few. Were these tips helpful for you? Can you put any suggestions across? Want to share your views or any learning experience with the readers of this blog? Please do write your comments.