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Preparing a Resume—Explain Your Abilities
Preparing a resume is very important when you are a technical person or an educated person not only for job but for career development too.
A resume is a brief summary of your abilities, education, experience, and skills. Its main task is to convince prospective employers to contact you. Basically a resume has one purpose i.e. to get you a job interview. Resumes must do their work quickly. Employers or personnel officers may look through hundreds of applications and may spend only a few seconds reviewing your resume.
To get someone to look at it longer, your resume must quickly convey that you are capable and competent enough to be worth interviewing. The more thoroughly you prepare your resume now, the more likely someone is to read it later. So you must be extra conscious while preparing a Resume for any purpose.
Firstly, when you start preparing a resume, write down headings such as education, experience, honors, skills, and activities. While preparing a resume, beneath each heading, write down the following information:
Education usually means post-secondary and can include special seminars, summer school, or night school as well as college and university. If you are just starting college, you can include high school as well. List degrees and month/year obtained or expected; names and locations of schools; major and minor, if any; grade point average. A brief summary of important courses you've taken might also be helpful.
Experience includes full-time paid jobs, academic research projects, internships or co-op positions, part-time jobs, or volunteer work. List the month/years you worked, position, name and location of employer or place, and responsibilities you had. As you describe your experiences, ask yourself questions like these while preparing a resume:
- Have I invented, discovered, coordinated, organized, or directed anything professionally or for my community?
- Do I meet deadlines consistently?
- Am I a good communicator?
- Do I enjoy teamwork?
A potential employer has no legal right to request information about age, sex, race, religion, marital status, health, physical appearance, or personal habits. Don't include such information on your resume.
While preparing a resume, there are few important tips, which should be considered wherever appropriate:
- Don’t be reserved: While preparing a resume, many of us are hesitant to put down just how much we have done, or how good we are. Please bear in your mind: your employer will know what you have mentioned in your resume, so be strong to mention every useful detail about you and your capabilities.
- Keep it direct and be honest: You must say as much as you can that’s positive about yourself but never try to exaggerate the things, be straight and honest.
- Presentation the KEY: While the content of your resume is the most important thing, the visual appearance can make a big difference. So, while preparing a resume try to enhance the visual appearance but within limits because you are not going to become a visual artist.
- Use the appropriate amount of space: If you’ve been in the work force for ten years, and are applying for your fourth job, using a two-page resume would not be helpful. Although short is supposed to be sweet, but never compromise with the right space to explain your abilities.
- Functional versus Chronological: If you’re on a simple career path, and your last job is the most relevant experience to your next, a standard chronological resume is generally best.
- Lastly, make sure it's right! As the old saying goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. This is very true in today’s highly competitive world around us. If your prospective employer is getting dozens (or even hundreds) of resumes, unless you can get their attention, it doesn't matter if you are the most qualified applicant, they'll never know it.
This article courtesy of http://www.onlinelearningmarketplace.com. You may freely reprint this article on your website or in your newsletter provided this courtesy notice and the author name and URL remain intact.