Creating a Nice Resume — What to do, what not to do?
By: Clerin Clery
Tags: Resume Writing, Job Hunting, Job Search, Resume, Resume Writing Tips

Resume is quite an important document when it comes to the process of hiring. It has all the basic information about you, your qualifications, experience, skills, etc. and it should communicate the relevant information about you in a way that is easy to comprehend with clarity.

Why do we need a resume? Answer is quite simple. To communicate clearly to the recruiter or employer why you are qualified for the job on the basis of your experiences, qualifications and skills. Know that, in the recruitment process, the recruiter gets thousands of resumes from applicants and if your resume looks unprofessional it makes you unprofessional as a job seeker and can negatively affect your chances.

Here are some tips for creating a nice resume:

Select the resume type that is best for you — there are different types of resumes and depending on your situation, select either functional or chronological or a combination resume. A chronological resume focuses on the work experience, and is a reverse chronological order which means most recent and relevant experience are written first. This type of resume is best suited for people with a consistent history of work. A functional type of resume focuses on the skills rather than experiences. The purpose of this resume is to shed light on the abilities as a candidate you have, and is best suited for the freshers. The combination type of resume merges the chronological and functional resume types. It focuses on the skills, experience and qualifications and is also called a professional profile. This is the most common type of resume type used by the job seekers. Information about you — there are certain details about you that must be included, while some personal information is recommended, there are information about you that you should not include. Your name especially first and last name, phone number, email address and LinkedIn URL must be included. Your home address, personal websites, date of birth, etc. is optional. Add only if it is required. Your second email or phone number and photo of you, should not be added in the resume. Resume Summary — otherwise known as resume objective, comes right after the contact information. This can be a resume summary or objective statement. Now, what’s the difference? A resume summary is a brief and precise statement that describes the work experiences, achievements and skills that are relevant to the job using active language. An objective statement explains what your career goals are. This is used and is best suited for freshers and candidates with less or no work experience. Adding work experience — while writing the resume, start in reverse chronological order i.e., the most recent job that you did should be the first one. The job title should be clearly mentioned with bold letters or slightly larger in size. The company where you worked, the location of the company should also be mentioned. The time of your employment should be mentioned after that. Keep in mind, you really don’t need to write exact days of your employment, the years will do. Next is to write the main tasks that you did in the past job which is relevant to the job you applied for. This can come under the title key responsibilities. Mention some of the achievements that you were awarded with in your past job. The key to writing work experience is to form it in a way that helps to land your new job. So mention tasks, achievements or awards that will be relevant to the job you have applied for. Writing education — if you don’t have enough work experience or a fresher, then this is the section you have to focus more. Again same as work experience, write in reverse chronological order. Mention the degree, name of the institution, years of study, relevant coursework, projects or fieldwork you have done as part of the study, participation in different programs related to your academics, leadership positions that you held and the recognitions, certifications, etc. you have received. Writing the educational qualification depends on the job you applied for. If it is a mid or higher level position, then you can not elaborate in the education section because the importance will be given for work experience. Listing skills — review the job description and understand the skills required for the job. There are soft and hard skills. Soft skills are abstract and interpersonal in nature like communication skills, team work, reasoning, problem solving, etc. Hard skills are more technical like knowledge of a specific software or program, like Microsoft Office or Adobe Photoshop, etc. If you have received training for skills, then mention them. Some of the skills to add in the resume are communication skills, technical skills, leadership or management skills, job specific skills, critical thinking, organizational skills, etc.

Tips to make the resume look nicer: