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Message from discussion How to write your resume or curriculum vitae Home
Arvind kumar View profile More options Oct 24, 11:31 am
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“*Sixty-three percent of all jobs are found through networking. A good **resume + new post
**with*
Members
*networking is a winning combination.”*
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*Robin Ryan* Files
The first thing you require when you enter into final stages of your
biotechnology education is a good resume or *Curriculum Vitae **(*CV) or About this group
biodata. This document is most important in your search trials either it is
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a summer training/project work/PhD position or a job as it is a mirror which
provides an overview of a person's life and qualifications. Due to Invite members
globalisation and wide spread of internet, it has become important that you
have a well constructed CV or resume in your arsenal. It is typically the Sponsored links
first item that a potential employer/supervisor/ lab manager encounters Correct CV Format
regarding the job seeker and is typically used to screen applicants, often MNCs require CV in this Format.
followed by an interview, when seeking employment or position. In general, Submit & Apply for Jobs.
it is your mouth in paper form which speaks for you and earns a personnel MonsterIndia.com
interview. Technically speaking biodata is similar to resume (especially in
south east asia), but in western sphere, biodata is technical document See your message here...
with objective,
work history, salary information, educational background, ethnicity, family
background physical attributes, such has height, weight, hair/skin/eye
color, photo.

Resume: Resume is a document highlighting experiences and credentials that

are most relevant to the desired position. It typically directs a reader's
attention to the aspects of a person's background that are directly relevant
to a particular position. Resume formats, order, complexity and simplicity
of various form occupation to occupation, experience and level of person.

A Curriculum Vitae, commonly referred to as CV, is a longer (two or more

pages), more detailed synopsis resume. The fundamental difference between
the resume and CV is the content, length, and purpose. CV includes a summary
of your educational and academic backgrounds as well as teaching and
research experience, publications, presentations, awards, honors,
affiliations and other details. The primary aim of CV is not only just to
give your information for the employer to decide for a job. In short, it is
your autobiography with much emphasis on your educational, technical skills.
It is a mirror image of you, as it represents the best you have to offer to
your employer. Your hopes and dreams for the future largely depend upon your
resume. If you do not want to miss out any job then your CV should be near
to perfection. Not only that your CV should be little bit different and
should create interest and enthusiasm in the mind of the employer to read
from first to last line in the CV.

Remember a bad CV could be very harm to your chances of employment and can
suggest bad things about you (lazy, muddled, Mr. Average); whilst a good CV
creates a positive image and could show that you are organised, flexible and
conscientious. Thus it can help significantly in earning you an interview.
Fortunately, the impact of your CV continues to even after it has obtained
an interview for you. It can help you at an interview by carefully focusing
the interviewer's mind on your good points and on your achievements.

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Once you have left the interview it will continue to work in your favour as
the interviewer will probably reread it before making a decision, either on
who should be invited to the second interview stage or whom the job should
be offered to. Not only that even when it comes to salary negotiations, a
well-written CV can help. If your CV conveys your full worth you are likely
to get a higher salary offer than you might have done with a poorer CV.

One important mistake that is usually done by most of the applicants is

submitting a CV spanning more that 4 page. You are asked to submit CV not
your autobiography. It is usually best to try and keep your CV to three
pages of A4, unless someone specifically asks you for a longer CV. If you
cannot keep your CV to this length then you probably have not understood an
employer's requirements. Employers do not want to know your whole life
history - just enough to decide whether they should hire you or not. There
exists a delicate line between the information to be written in the CV and
not. In pursuit to keep the C.V less than 3 pages a lot of people do not
include enough details about their previous jobs and experience and an
employer therefore does not have enough information - they will therefore
have to reject your application.

Given this situation, now the question is what should be included and what
should not include in your CV. For sure, the best accepted format is not to
include the following items in your CV , age, Photos, Salary information ,
weight, height, health, or any other personal information that is irrelevant
to your application,

Most people just ask commercial companies to write a CV for them by paying
some money. I personally dislike it, as it is you who know better about you.
If you can’t tell others about yourself in an appeasing manner, then how can
you tell about research and write scientific articles in future. Hence
spending time on writing your CV is worth full. If using a computer is one
of your worst nightmares, then you will have to pay someone to do this for
you. If you get someone else to prepare your CV make sure they are using
advanced word-processing package, such as Microsoft Word, WordPerfect or
adobe page maker and printed on a high quality laser printer. Dot matrix or
inkjet printers are not really good enough and the ink from an inkjet tends
to smudge fairly easily.

*Preparing the CV:*

Before you write your CV try to look at CV of the other persons. Try to
analyze why some CV are rejected even though the candidate is well worth in
education and knowledge required for the position. A major misconception
among the Indian students think that content of the CV is important and not
the appearance. Of course the contents are important, even the appearance
make an impact on your future employer. First impression really matters; if
your CV does not attract the reader's attention in the first 20- 30 seconds
then your chances of obtaining an interview are greatly reduced. If a CV is
not well organized then the reader will get distracted, thus it hard to
follow and will not be able to build up a picture of you quickly. Remember
the reader will not spend very long time looking at your CV - so if they
cannot find what they want they will not bother to read any further.
Employers expect to find the required information with a very minimum effort
on their side. Hence the visual layout and wording you use in CV is very
important. I really don’t what to say that you should design a colourful CV,
with fancy patterns/borders - which looks like a movie poster or an
advertisement on the roadside. I want to say that use appropriate format,
order with headings and section breaks with lot of (around 20%) 'white'
space in your CV.

Writing a CV is not a simple job it requires a lot of dedication,

presentation skills, tactics of convening the rightful message to a large
group of people with minimum words. Hence before you write, take time to do
a self-assessment on paper. Outline your skills and abilities as well as
your work experience and extracurricular activities. You will probably not
use all this information in your CV but it will provide you with useful
reference material and frame work, when it comes to preparing for
interviews. Once you have collected the information about various aspects,

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start to write the rough draft. The first information you provide is “what
is the document they are going to read” in the form of title, as there are
lot of papers that are lying around them”. They should instantly know so
that they can have a preformed idea about what to look for in the document.
The words Curriculum Vitae are usually abbreviated to CV or C.V. and you
will sometimes see it incorrectly written in lower case as c.v. or cv. The
plural form of Curriculum Vitae / CV should be written as Curriculum Vitae's
or C.V.'s or CVs, but not as c.v.'s or cv's. Of course it looks strange for
some readers, but I have seen a lot of CV with this basic error, especially
just passed out post graduates. Remember, your first impression should be
memorable and stand out from the competition as a winner. Your CV should be
first in the file for your meticulously well written CV rather than last for
your sloppiness.

The first personnel information you provide is your full name, address,
home and mobile phone number etc., it looks strange for you to read this
sentence. But it is true that you should be careful to these items as they
are going to be included in the database of employers and all the
communication stating from the interview call to the offer letter comes.
Hence a small mistake can lead to catastrophic effect to your life. Add your
e-mail address as many employers will find it useful. Try to choose an
e-mail address that sounds professional, not like some fancy thing e.g
myfunl...@xx.com, lifeonr...@xx.com etc. If you have created web pages for
yourself try to place the link if the web page reflects your professional
ambitions. It shows to the employer that you are using the modern
technological innovations and moving along with the time instead of being
out modeled.

If you are applying for a position in aboard, then you should include the
nationality and marital status to be on safe side. However, no matter how
much you are tempted you should abstain from telling lies. Keep in mind that
it takes years to earn the respect faith, but in seconds you will loose it.
Hence it is better to be sure and truth in your information, rather than
sorry. This rule is not applicable to any sort of failure - exams,
marriages, businesses, etc , negative points –lets keep them for the
interview , where you have a choice to explain them as positive point. But
be prepared to answer any such question without getting apprehended .

The next information you provide should answer your employer question “why
should I invite this person for an interview”. For this reason a short
summary of your capabilities and/or a list of your major achievements can
often be a good idea. E.g “An enthusiastic, recent graduate with excellent
communication and interpersonal skills gained from a degree in biotechnology
and chemistry looking for a position in research group. Willing to undertake
any training and development need to meet the requirements of the post”.
This should make an employer want to invite you for an interview - but
please be careful that you do not oversell yourself.

After your personal information then present your educational

qualification, try to organize your qualification into 2 groups, first the
degree you earn in chronological order e.g. M.Sc, B.Sc, 10 + 2, and second
group are degree you earn on the side track or by part time study along with
your routine education e.g diploma degrees. If you have foreign language
skills, which may be relevant for any jobs, please list them and indicate
whether your skills are spoken, written, business or technical. Please also
indicate your level of fluency: fluent, good working knowledge, etc. You
should only list these skills if they are relevant to the jobs you are
applying. The order and emphasis depends upon the position for which you
apply. If you are applying for position, based upon your qualification
obtained by your part time study then add it in the first, so that the
reviewers don’t put your C.V in side by assuming you as a candidate not
fitting in basic eligibility criteria. Then list out your qualifications,
membership of professional associations and professional ID numbers. List
any work related training courses, which you attended, including company
courses and any you attended on your own initiative

The next important section is work experience, as an employer will only

invite you for an interview only after going through it and if he/she see a

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benefit in doing so. For this reason it is vital that you think carefully
about your work experience and achievements. Your achievements may sell you
to an employer and make them choose you for an interview rather than someone
else. Always try to include your work experience in the reverse
chornological order i.e, last job first then the job before that. Usually it
is wise to include the two most recent jobs (unless you were only there for
a short time), because employers are usually most interested in these. If
you have been working for a number of years you probably do not need to
include any part-time jobs, vacation jobs, voluntary work or unpaid work
experience. But other wise it is wise to include them if you are fresher as
it shows your dedication to your job and the society. In writing your job
experience, you should first list your job title (e.g. Research assistant,
Ph.d student) then the address where you have worked. It is wise to include
a short description of main responsibilities,

achievements, duties, and skills that achieved and that you could transfer
to another employer.

The basic point in CV writing is that it should not lose enthusiasm of the
reader to read. When you write your achievements, be specific and positive
about your skills; write only 1-3 of your most important work achievements,
not a long list. Try and keep your sentences short and punchy and use bullet
points to break up the text under section headings. You need to shout about
your achievements. If it does not tell an employer why they should employ
you have failed. Your CV should be carefully checked for such spelling and
grammatical errors before you send it out to employers. Tiny errors in your
CV can distract and show a quality that you are lazy or careless, which you
are not in real sense. Don’t try to depend upon the spelling check software
to do your job. Because some words can be misspelled, but the software
doesn’t recognize it e.g filed and field. As you will probably be 'blind' to
these errors you should get someone else to check your CV for grammar and
spelling errors.

The next most important section is the reference. Here you should include
the names of your teachers who are well versatile with your educational and
scientific skills. The most important is to include the names of the persons
who can promptly reply in your favour when asked for by your future
employer. It is not wise to ask a person who is very busy and keep you
recommendation letter on his table for days and months. Hence be wise in
choosing you referrer.

*Editing the CV:*

Always ask for a proof copy of your CV so that you can check that it meets
your needs. When you are happy with it you should get at least one other
person to check it over and give you some feedback. You should then re-draft
it and show it to them again. You may need to do this several times before
you are completely satisfied with the final version.

In some instances, few companies prefer not to receive a CV at all in

application, but rather ask to upload the information in application form
which is either online or given of document. The reason behind this step is
to standardize the information they receive, as there will be many variables
within a CV which are unnecessary for the company or confusing due to use of
different terms or often critical information needed is missing. If a
company prescribes a set format, stick to it, irrespective you like or not.
If you feel that they is no columns to give the information which you feel
might be important for the job, you can add that in the section “extra
information or attachments”

*Sending your CV*

Online mode:

With the wide spread of internet, everyone is having access to emails and
other mode of data transfer. I presonnelly like to use this mode in first
hand than regular mail as is fast, cheap and does not require you excessive
effort in the sense of time and money. By sitting on Internet for an hour
you can apply to as many jobs as possible. Not worthy advantage is that your

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employer thinks that you are inclined to learn new techniques and you are
not old fashioned and out of date.

However to the high technology involved and variation in the operating

system or version used by the sender and receiver, one should not be careful
during preparing the CV, but also while sending your application online.
When you send your CV through email, always try to send you application as
attachments with cover letter in the message area of mail, unless they ask
you send my regular post, as it is easy for the employers to keep your
records in their database. One more most important things is when you make
your CV try to use font such as Arial or times new roman, as they are widely
inbuilt with operating system and most likely to work. If you use a font
which you like might not be in the computer of other person. In such as
case, your mail is shown as corrupted or virus infection. Ideally your files
should open in any type of computer working with any operating system such
as windows, MAC or linux. Usually the look of the CV change when opened in
different system, it is difficult to keep the arrangement when you send your
files in word document format. Hence i would recommend to send your CV as
PDF format, as this format remains same universally. There are some free
software’s available to convert your doc into PDF document.

*By regular postal mail*

In some cases especially in the government sector, they usually ask you to
send the application by regular mail along with some fee. When you are
sending your covering letter and CV printed on good quality brilliant white
paper and send it in an A4 envelope rather than folding it. In such a case
you should show an extra care about what you are sending, do not use poor
quality photocopies/Xerox of your CV - they make it look as though you are
sending off your CV to lots of companies and that you may not be too
bothered whom you work for. Usually student due to their strict economical
restrictions try to make copies of the covering letter with an empty space
in the “to” address. They fill in by hand the area of “to” address for each
company they send. Of course this can save you some money, but it directly
sends information that you are trying for a lot of companies. To be frank,
it is an open secret that you will apply for hundreds of jobs before you
land in job with satisfaction. But let this be in your mind but don’t show
it to your future employers by your sloppiness. Now a day the cost of laser
printing has come down drastically, so you can print a new covering letter
for each company you apply. Of course you will change only the “to” address
and few corrections such as the title of the position, but the rest of the
matter will be same. Just don’t concentrate your interest in this area, give
a critical look at the whole matter. As if there are some left over words in
the letter, which can send a wrong message.

*Conclusions *

Resume or C.V. is a document, which describes your technical and personal

qualities for your future employer. Your success on the job highly depends
upon your presentation skills and approaches you use to guide your reader to
show you’re worth full.

--
ARVIND KUMAR
SRI SATHYA SAI INSTITUTE OF HIGHER LEARNING
PRASANTHINILAYAM
*
ROOM NO B18
SRI SATHYA SAI SENIOR BOYS HOSTEL
PUTTAPARTHI
ANANTPUR
ANDHRA PRADESH
*

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