Resume : Dos and Don'ts

 

Do you know that before the manual screening of the resumes by the recruiters, your resume goes through ATS (Applicant Tracking System) and then if shortlisted it goes to the recruiters who give not more that a couple of seconds to go through your resume? So even if you have all the skills in the world which make you a perfect fit for the job, you might still be rejected if you don’t know how to showcase them.

I've listed down a few points which you might want to use as a checklist before uploading your next resume:

•         Do not send a single resume for every opportunity. Modify your resume according to the company’s job description to which you are applying to. Put keywords accordingly.
•        There are two major templates: single column and double column. Choose according to the amount of data you have to put.
•         Always export the resume as a PDF file.
•         Don't give weird names to the PDF like rockstarrahul.pdf. It doesn't sound professional.
•         Make sure that the resume is a single Page one unless you have an experience of more than five or six years and have a lot of data to put in the resume.
•         Date of birth, address, marital status, a picture of yours, etc. are not required to be put in your resume. It could create a bias in the recruiter’s mind.
•         Use bullet points instead of long paragraphs. It will make your resume more readable.
•         There should be uniformity in the formatting. It is better to use a single font throughout and a maximum of only two font sizes.
•         Use readable/dark colours (black, blue).
•         Highlight the facts and data by bolding the text so that it catches the eyes of the recruiters.
•         Quantify your achievements. for example, instead of saying that I got 2nd rank in a contest say that you got 2nd rank out of 600 people who participated in the contest.
•         Put your experiences in chronological order. The recent being at the top. You could also put the most worthwhile ones on the top.
•         Add your contact details like phone number, email id and Linkedin profile so that the recruiter can reach you easily.
•         Provide hyperlinks to your Github, Leetcode etc.profiles that you maintain. Also add relevant links wherever possible in your resume that could show credibility of the achievements you are mentioning.
•         In the end check if your resume is ATS friendly. There are many tools available on the Internet to do the same.

Thank you for reading. I hope that it was helpful.

All the very best!