Draft

Introduction –
Hello everyone and welcome.
Today we're going to talk about how to create an effective resume.
This session is for you if you are somebody who's looking out for a job. You need to make sure
that your resume stands out from the crowd and how you would do that is what we're going to teach
you in this particular module.
Resume a very important document of yours which is required at the time of interview. A
resume is a medium for advertising yourself. Now resume it sounds very easy right but resume itself is a
very complicated thing. Why? Because it’s the first most means which you use to present yourself and
try to claim that you are the best choice to your prospects employer.
So many of us it's like have difficulty in making or preparing our resume because we feel we
don't know the right content to be added to a resume and what should be included what should be
avoided so there's always confusion in our mind. So here today I'm going to clear that confusion of yours
because today we are going to talk about resume writing for fresher’s.
The first draft of your resume may not be so impressive because a resume is always an evolving
document which improves over the period of time, so keep modifying and improving it after its first
draft and keep its different versions with you.
Now without complicating the things, I will take you through today’s agenda.
Agenda:-
- Definition of resume
- significance of structure of a resume
- structure of a resume
- tips for effective resume
- do's and don'ts for an effective resume
Definition of resume
So exactly what do we mean by the word or the term CV or a resume?
A resume is a one to two-page formal document which is submitted to a job recruiter, which
highlights or showcases an applicant's work experience, education as well as skills. Through your resume
you can showcase your major assets like –

- Qualifications

- Experience
- Achievements
- Capabilities, and
- Qualities

What a resume isn’t?

- Isn’t a log of your job history
- Isn’t a summary of skills
- Isn’t going to get you job automatically
Now what a resume isn't we all think like what a resume should include is a log of your job history,
like entire details of what you did, how you did in everything that's something not expected in a resume
because here you just have to summarize things and not get it into elaborate details.
Next is a resume isn't a summary of skills. Now what happens is you write every skill that you
possess which is not right thing to do because here the skills that you talk about are going to be related
to the job that you are applying for. Because some skills of yours may not be applicable to that job so no
point in mentioning those or even highlighting those.
Last but not the least is everybody thinks like if my resume is appropriate or it's in award winning
resume then I'm definitely getting the job. No it's not like that. Now here never ever think like if your
resume is very good and very impressive then you're going to get a job. No it all depends on how you
face the interview that gets you a job but yes a good resume creates a positive impact on the
interviewer.
Significance of structure of a resume

The significance of structure in a resume is very important. Your resume should not be very
wordy or very lengthy. You need to ensure that a particular structure is followed. So a good resume
structure helps the HR professionals find the relevant information that they need as quickly as possible.
You have to prepare your resume in such a way that it gives impression in first look that you are
a perfect fit for the job you have applied. An employer hardly takes 10-15 seconds to make a decision
about your interview call after looking at your resume.
An attractive information and informative resume shows that you are somebody who is a well-
organized person in his day-to-day life as well. So make sure that your resume is well structured and
keywords are highlighted on that.
If your resume is well written then definitely you will be in the shortlisted candidates does not
matter you have required potential or not but you will get a call otherwise your resume will become a
part of either recycle bin or dustbin, again it does not matter if you are Einstein or Newton.

Structure of a resume
As we know the importance of well structured resume, now lets see what is the structure of
resume and how should it be formatted.
So here we are going to see stepwise in details on how can you write a good resume.

Step 1 – Chose from 3 formats

Steps 1 – Chose correct format
- reverse chronological order
- functional format
- Combination
The first step is choosing the right format. We have a 3 formats, reverse chronological order,
functional format and combination. Let’s have brief information about this formats and let’s see which
one we should use as fresher.
Now we will just go into a little detail about reverse chronological order. What do we mean by that?
When we say reverse chronological order so we are talking about from last to first. So what you
achieved in the nearest past to what you've achieved last in your life. So when you are talking about
your educational details so it will be like from the highest qualification that you've achieved through the
last one or the lowest one that is what we mean by reverse chronological order. Same goes for your
work experience so it's not be from the time that you started working but it will be from your last
employment to your first employment.
Reverse chronological order is used by applicants who do not have much experience. So this method
can be used by freshers. One should not use this format if he/she has major gaps in employment. When
you're changing jobs every few months , if you have the habit of changing your jobs from time to time
and very often so please do not use this form of resume.
Functional format is for applicants have vast experience, combination is again as name suggest is
combination of both reverse chronological order and functional.

Step 2 :- Order of information

The next is how to order your information. It's about how to present your information in what
particular order so here we will talk about the contact information, the resume introduction, the
education details and the additional sections.
- Contact Information
- Resume Introduction
- Education
- Additional Sections
Lets start with contact information.
- Contact Information
o Name
o Mailing Address
o Telephone number
o Email Id
o Linkedin profile

Your contact information should be heading of the resume. So now when coming to your name, now
what you can do for your name is you can write in capitals. For example if I say take this name Ashwini
Babar. I can write in two different ways I can either write in sentence case where I am capitalizing the
first letter or I can capitalize the entire name. It is possible to capitalize if you’re writing for names but
otherwise you should not write information in caps.
 Next is writing your mailing address. So mailing address preferably we use the address that is our
permanent address. So if you're staying at one particular address but your permanent address is
different it's always better to prefer your permanent mailing address
The next is your telephone number now when you are adding numbers make sure they are correct
and you are not missing out on any numbers or giving the wrong numbers because otherwise you are
never going to be contacted that way.
Your email address again when you're writing your email address be clear that you are using a
professional email id and not something like where people will not take you seriously for example like
cool.nil@gmail.com. The interviewer or the recruiter will not take you as a serious applicant.
Many of us know about LinkedIn which is a professional networking site which is for job oriented
people. So it's always better you add your LinkedIn profile because that's how the people will actually
get to know what you actually do and what are your specializations and what you're good at or what
have you been doing. So it's always better it's not necessary to have this on your contact information.
Now please understand your name should come in the left and then the next line your email and the
next line your phone number. Towards your right side should be your photograph. The photograph
should be formal. Instead of attaching hard copy of photograph you can add scan copy of photo on the
resume.

Chose a resume introduction

The next step in order of information is how you choose a resume introduction. So why your
objective or resume introduction is important ?. Why it is complicated? Because this is the first thing
that an interviewer or a person who is going through your resume will see that what is your objective?
What is your objective regarding your career? What is your objective regarding coming to that particular
company? Or what is our objective regarding choosing a particular field?
So before we start on how to write your resume introduction lets see three formats for actually
choosing how should be your resume introduction.
1. Qualification Summary
2. Career Objective
3. Professional Profile
So the first one is qualification summary, second is career objective and the third one is professional
profile.
The qualification summary –
A qualification summary can be in bullet point list - anywhere between four to six points that you
mentioned. In those four to six bullets bullet points you can include your carrier achievements whatever
you have achieved so far in your career/academics.
The next is when should we use this resume introduction?
a. Your job requires a rigid set of abilities
b. If you possess multiple skills that is you have different skill set which will adhere to the job that
you're applying for then you should use qualification summary.
c. You do if you have vast experience in a particular field and at a particular position so it's always
better to go for qualification summary.
When you shouldn't be using qualification summary?
a. When you're lacking experience - you don't have any experience whatsoever. You've started
working but no experience
b. Fresher - You are a fresher. You've just come out of college and then you do not have specific
skillets because you're lacking experience. You're new; you're afresh here so. So you should not
be using qualification summary
c. Lack of skill sets – So when you are applying for a job having a skill set which do not match with
you expertise but basics of them that means you will not have completely groomed skill sets
within you, then you should not use qualification summary as introduction in your resume.

Professional Profile
The third one for your resume introduction is professional profile. This is a combination of both
and we can say this is the most flexible of three formats.
When do you use this profile?
So when you have major achievement in the past, you've been working for sometime and you have
a lot of experience and you have achieved a lot in your career path then you're going to use your
professional profile.
The next is you are applying to the position in the same industry
When you are an entry-level applicant you are not going to use professional profile because here
when we see professional profile that means we assume you have some kind of experience behind you
or we can see a lot of experience behind you, so definitely not suitable for entry-level applicants and
then again if you are a recent college graduate you will not have much to speak about your
professional experience or your career growth so this is not right for you.
Career Objective:-
What is the career objective?
This is the most common type of resume introduction used by freshers. Career objective
introduction style is basically 2 -3 sentence paragraph where we are provide an overview of our skills in
experience so they know what the skill is set that we have as a fresher and how can we apply those
within an organization. Now these kinds of introductions are best for entry-level or you can say freshers.
Now when should you actually use this format or this particular introduction when you don't have in-
depth experience, you don't have much to talk about because you haven't been working. You are still
fresh out of college, same fresher in recent graduate so if you are one of these please use career
objective as your resume introduction.
When question is when you shouldn't be using career objective?
People who are experienced they also write career objective and those who are inexperienced same
way. So how can you be differentiated? The best thing is when you have a wealth of industry specific
skill sets , you've been working for quite some time ,you have vast experience and knowledge and you
have really developed or groomed your skill set then please do not use career objective.
Next is you are changing your career paths. If you are moving from one field to another then it's
advisable not to use career objective.
Next when you are writing a cover a covering letter - the covering letter is which gives you a brief
information about what is included in your resume because that is where you're going to write
everything in your cover letter. So please do not write carrier objective if you are planning to give a
cover letter with your resume.
Now we know that as prsher we should choose ‘Carrier objective’ format. Now your objective
should not start with ‘I want to’ or ‘I would like to have a career’ or ‘I am very good at’. I, we, them,
they're, us these kinds of words should not be included in the objective. So what should come in an
objective a very simple? Please use articles, use preposition. Now what are these? Now to start with the
objective could be ‘seeking a position in’ or ‘to seek a position in’. So these are certain standardized
format that you can use during an objective. Please do not use again ‘I ‘,’my’, ’my skills’, ‘my career’. ‘To
seek an opportunity in organization which provides an ample opportunity to exhibit the skills right. So
it's very standardized format and please do not use the same thing that what I said because the
objective could be different for different people. So what is your objective? My suggestion is please
formulate around three to four objective and then formulate a one out of all these, so that you can get
an idea that what exactly do you want. Please try to objective which would impress an interviewer.
Now the formulation of objective should be such that that it should have a backup. Now what is
a backup? For freshers the backup would be the project that they have handled, the kind of exposure
that they have got during the college days or during the internship. So these are the backups for then.
Now what they have learnt out of those internship or the projects should come in the objective. that
they were interested in for E.g say they were interested in marketing to seek a position in marketing
field right could be an objective, now if you have done something in an HR field then you can say to seek
a position in HR field and so on and so forth you can formulate your objective.

Educational details:-
Academic qualifications
- Name of college
- Course
- Year of passing
- GPA/CGPA/Percentage

Next information that you provide in the order of information is educational details. So yeah they're
two ways to provide your educational details, so it can be either in tabular form or you can use the
bullet form where you want to give each and every information in a line.
Tabular form is more appropriate because it's easy to understand the information that you're
providing but that doesn't mean if you use a bullet form. You don't have any hard and fast rule for
writing the resume you can choose any one which is convenient.
In educational details you will include the name of your college and even if you want to extend then
you can even write the name of your University or from the board where you completed. Your
education course details would be in reverse chronological order. It is from e.g your honors to your post
graduation and then your graduation and then your ten plus two and then last tenth.
Then mention your passing year e.g you passed 10 th in 2010, do not mention from 2009 to 2010. If
you haven't completed your education then you can write pursuing beside it. Beside your year of
passing mention your score in GPA or CGPA or percentage.
Now what happens here is many people do not include scores in their educational details the reason
is either you don’t have a good percentage. Now usually if you have a high-scoring CGPA it's always
better to mention it but if you feel like you don’t have good percentage and you don’t mention it then
definitely the question is going to come up during your interviews. They're going to ask you what is your
percentage and that time you will definitely have to open up. So I would suggest it's you give you a
percentage and face the question because sooner or later you're going to tell what your score is so
there's no point in hiding in that information.
For our freshers , first the course which will be a bachelor's degree or a master's degree then
your a PUC second level and then SSC that is tenth standard so if you have done an MBA that should be
coming the first one so it has to be in a decreasing order the highest qualification to your lowest
qualification for example if you have done MBA please write MBA then what institution have you done
from XYZ and after that which board was is and then what percentage did you achieved and if you are
still pursuing and still want to aspire for job then in percentage column you can write still pursuing right
after that comes your bachelor degree then your 12th and your tenth.

Additional sections-

Project:-
Right moving forward from academics comes your project, whatever projects you have done.
Now for the people who are already working to not require your projects because they are already
including their work experiences.
Please ensure that you have a backup, again backup means that you have a proof for it. If some
day or the other person who's interviewing you could ask you about the same thing you are able to
answer it. Please do not fake in your resume. First write down the project name, after that there will be
the project outline, under project the first is project title or the name of the company then comes your
project outline project outline need not to be more than three sentences in project outline you are just
supposed to enter what was the project all about and what did you do only three sentences are more
than enough. Please try to be very crisp and precise when you write a resume because the person who's
interviewing you has so many other candidates followed by you to look upon so he doesn't have that
much of time to go through it so it should be very precise right after the project outline that you have
given four three lines just use two or three bullet points stating emphasizing that what you have done.

Professional proficiency/Technical Skills

Professional proficiency is only to tell about yourself what you have done in your past
experience. This could be included by even experienced person. Your professional proficiency can
include computer skills or probably the MS suit or if some kind of software like AP. Please do not put
something which is not relevant to the job position that you are applying. You can mention the things
which you are good at like software proficiency MS Office, Oracle, HTML, Java, C , C++, SQL but make
sure that you have thorough knowledge of all the skill you have mentioned. If you have basic idea about
some technical subject or field you can always mention novice in front of that particular field.

Achievements
What are these the achievements? That you have done whatever achievements that you have
done in your past career or in your past academic career whatever it is but please ensure that you have
a backup for it that means proof. Something like certificate or some letter over it, something to show off
that yes you have done those things. It could be related to your hobbies as well the achievement need
not to be related to what you are applying for.

Certification –
You can add your certifications which you had during your education or after you education
because that's an added advantage.

Paper publication –
Mostly people who belong to the engineering field or IT then they'll have a lot of paper
publications. so if you want to talk about that, if you want to let the employer know about those
publications any paper published by you please care to mention it because again that is going to add
value to your resume.

Scholarships –
If you've had any scholarships then again that's a very good achievement of yours you can talk about
it. Do mention it in your resume. If you've had any grants from any university or any honorary
organization you can always mention.

Volunteer positions
If you have volunteered for any events or programs during your academics then is it necessary to
mention that in resume. Because when you go as a fresh here they're not just looking for your technical
skill set or how you are in your particular field, they want to see a person who is well groom, they want
to bring out the overall personality in you. So it's always better like if you've volunteered for anything
like for any social cause or social service as simple as like you've donated blood or something like that
you can definitely add.
Personal skills/Strengths
After giving a complete detail of all the projects, now you can tell about your major strengths. Look at
the following examples, may be you don't have all the strengths so list down only whatever you posses
−

Strengths
 Good oral, written & presentation skills
 A high tolerance of stress and enjoys responsibilities
 Quick learner with good grasping ability
 Action-oriented and result-focused
 Lead & work as a team in an organized way
 Great time management skill

Personal skills should include something like a good listener right. Please do not write something
like I am something. Sentence should be very short and precise you should have again four to five bullet
points. For an example if you are applying for a marketing position you should be able to keep up
something like managing people or managing customer relationship. Now this thing should be there
why? It gives you extra benefits. E.g managing customer relationship, quick learner,good leadership
quality something like these.

Personal dossier
Your personal dossier that is your very personal details, which will be like your date of birth, you
can put your address if required, your language proficiency/ linguistic proficiency

Footer
At the end you are going to put a footer telling that you hereby declare that all the information
in the resume is true to your knowledge and then you are supposed to put your place date and your
signature on the resume.
Apart from all these things you can also include hobbies and in resume which is not required but
if something like trekking or traveling. Hobbies and interest could be one of the option to impress your
interviewer so in hobbies you can put that something like that talking to people, convincing people.
So I think from top to bottom I have explained you about the resume there are many more
things coming on your way that how you can transit yourself from a campus boy or a girl to a corporate
man and a women.
Step 3:- How to style your resume
Now let’s discuss how to style our resume. The first thing that will come to mind is the number
of pages. How many pages should be included? Some people say it should be two pages, some say one
page and some say it should be more than two pages. Now again there's nothing hard and fast rule but
many of us follow is like if it's a resume I would still suggest stick your resume to two pages. If it's going
beyond two pages like three four pages or more than that then that comes under a CV because here we
are talking about a vast experience.
Now again in those two pages what should be font size? The font should not be either too big
or too small. Your font size of a resume is very important . If you write too small or if you write too big
it's not going to make a good impression. So always stick to at least a Arial or a Times New Roman with
the font size of not lesser than 11 you must make sure that whatever you mention on your resume it has
to be highlighted if you need it to be highlighted you can bold it and underline it. Please do not use
different colors stick to only black.
So lets talk about the do's and don'ts for the font and sizing.
Do’s
- Chose easy to read font, where it should not be very creative or very arty like italic because that
doesn't look a professional resume.
- Use the same font throughout. People think we have availability of so many phones so why not
use one for my name, another for my career objective etc. That's not a right thing to do
because you cannot be experimenting with the fonts here so here one rule that you have to
follow is one font throughout your document from the start to finish the size can vary but the
font type has to be same.
- Next is you have to change sizes in descending order to your name and bullet points. So usually
what we follow like say 14 would be for your heading and then 12 would be for your
subheadings and 10 would be for your sub points or your bullet points. Again this is not a hard
and fast rule. If you feel there's less information then you can increase the font but not
drasticlly.
- Next is choosing a font that fits with the text sizes. Sometimes particular font with perticlaer size
do fit in one line and change in that may nnot fit sentence in one line. Os you need to choose
font and size which is easy to acknowledge and read.
 Keep your resume file name short, simple and informational. A good resume file name could be like JohnWilliams-
Resume2013.docx
  You can keep a small passport size photo at the top-right corner of the resume but this is really not required.

 Always give a summary of the resume at the beginning.

 Always give a detail of roles and responsibilities you have taken during any project.

 Make sure the resume is neat, free of typing errors, and on plain white paper.

Don’ts
- Don't choose small sizes to fit everything on one page. So sometimes you think like lets fit all the
details in one page and you wind up reducing font size. This hampers the presentation of the
resume. It makes wrong impression and un-readable. Employer or HR wont select this kind of
resumes.
- Don’t pick wacky fonts. Its your professional document, don’t mess with the information or
style.
- Don't have one uniform text size throughout.
- Don't go below nine point’s font size.
- Another important don't is that don’t use your resume templates or tables. Resume team
temples tables are notoriously hard to change without ruining their formatting so make sure
that your formatting is alright if you do not or rather if you're not good at formatting make sure
you get your resume made from somebody who is a professional at it. Don’t lie or over
embellish it will just come back and bite you. So make sure that you are as honest as you can be,
do not lie about how to not take about things which are not true.
- Don't use various unnecessary formatting in your resume. Keep simple text as much as possible in your resume. Have a
look at sample resume. You will find many HRs who prefer resume only in simple text format. So if you will keep resume
formating simple then it would be easy to format that resume in any format.
- Don't include too many phone numbers, email addresses or addresses.
- Don't prepare too big resume. It should be as precise as possible.

- Never give a reason for leaving your previous job, your salary expectations, your current job challenges etc, and better
to leave such points to be discussed at the time of interview if required.

Now your further I'm going to talk about what are the different fonts that you can use for your hard
copy or the soft copy.
If you are going to submit hardcopy of your resume or you are taking print out of your resume then
follow the serif fonts which are Times New Roman, Georgia, Bookman old style and century gothic.
Now if you want an electronic version where you have to send your resume online and it's going to be
any PDF or any other form, here you can have a sans-serif font that will be Arial, Tahoma, Calibri.
Margines- for proper alignment – 1inch margin for fresher. Not below 0.5 inch
Year gap in your resume? Fix it now!
I would like to take you through a counter fix for the question your gap in your resume. There
are so many of us applying for a job that has a gap in the resume which shows the time when they were
unemployed which causes several problems at the end of the interview. There are various reasons for
your gap in your resume. It could be by will or due to unfavorable situations. No matter what the
reasons the employer and the interviewer want to know about your gap.
To overcome the situation when a recruiter wants to know about your gap you can follow these
techniques –
- First be honest. Always remember that honesty is the best policy. No matter how tricky the
question is when a recruiter wants to know about the gap you have to tell in your resume. So
you have to be honest with your answer.
- Second be prepared with your answer. The situation is inevitable. Your recruiter will
definitely ask you about your gap like you took a break for studies or personal reason or you got
fired. Do not make false stories.
- Third be confident. Confidence is the key to success. If you are confident enough in your ability
then there are more chances that you get the job you are applying for. Actually your gap leaves
a bad mark on your resume. But the lack of confidence is the final lane in the coffin. Be positive.
A positive attitude is what you get through the difficult time and it will surely help you in
getting through this question.

Do not be afraid of the outcome as one failure is the next step for a new opportunity. Always
remember that the recruiter wants to know the reason and the lesson you learned from the your gap so
try to deliver the answer that state these two points and you can easily overcome the situation .