How To Build The Perfect Resume

“The challenge of life, I have found, is to build a resume that doesn’t simply tell a story about what you want to be, but it’s a story about who you want to be.”

The above words are spoken by none other than the person who was voted as “arguably the world’s most powerful woman” by CNN and Time.com- Oprah Winfrey. Resumes have become a very integral, crucial and perhaps the most important piece of paper in the hands of a job seeker. A perfect resume is simply an icing on the cake of your future career. Employers all over the world look out for the job seeker’s resume in order to decide their position in the respective organisation. This makes one’s resume all the more important.

Did you know? According to The Ladders, an online job-searching service company, the employers or the recruiters spend on an average ONLY SIX SECONDS to go through your entire resume? Do you think that your resume worth of 6 seconds glance will be enough for the job selection?

If not, we at Global Knowledge Works, are here to provide you with the golden key steps to THE PERFECT RESUME.

CLEAR YOUR CONCEPTS

A Resume is a formal document which hands out all personal and professional details about yourself. It is an integral part of job applications. In a resume, you include your educational qualifications, skills, your work experience, your accomplishments, the responsibilities you have taken on, and the qualities you bring to your employer as a potential employee.

The key to a perfect resume accepted and appreciated by all recruiters is to stick to the details, that is, to provide to the point information. Please remember, an employer does not have all day to look through resumes and as stated earlier, it is only a matter of seconds that decide your selection or your rejection. The more direct and to the point details and information provided by you, keeping in mind your qualifications and experience, the higher the chances are of you being selected.

ORGANISING DETAILS

The biggest mistake made by job seekers is submitting their resume details without any order or organization. The ideal resume should follow a serial, a sequence and a chronological order.

• The contact details and your personal information should come first.

1. Your full name
2. Your phone number
3. Your personal email address
4. Other details- LinkedIn profile, website URL, social media profile, if relevant, etc.

• This should be followed by your educational qualifications, followed by your work experience, if any.

Your educational qualifications must include your academic details (Board, Marks or Grade, Name of the School and University) in chronological order. This helps the employer to easily go through your resume, without facing any difficulties.

For Work Experience, please include the full name of the company you worked for, the job title and the number of work years.

FOCUS on the responsibilities you were give, how you handled them, what were the skills needed in your job, etc.

(quantitative and qualitative achievements)

• Next comes Skills and Interests and Languages Known

Include all the important skills you possess, keeping in mind the skills that will be necessary for the job you are currently applying for. Interests may include what you do in your pastime, your hobbies, things that catch your highest span of attention etc. Languages hold a lot of importance since this shows that you will be able to interact with employees from different language and culture backgrounds. This portion should be kept short and crisp.

Please note- All the above three mentioned categories need to be under different headings, making it neat and clear to the employer.

[Our end motive is to make it easier and interesting for the manager to understand]

• Accomplishments and Achievements

This area must include all the awards, honours, special high recommendations, office positions you have received in the past. A good thing will be to back your achievements with proof, so that the recruiters know that you are the ‘real deal’.

• References to your resume follows next. This portion needs to include the office position and contact details of three or four personnel who know you, and with whom you have worked in the past.

They will be acting as a guarantor to your ability, skills and dedication towards your work.

• Cover Letter – This is perhaps the most important yet the most underrated portion of a resume. This is where the employer gets to know that you have done your research well about their company and are keen and willing to work in their organisation.

Do not forget to express appreciation and gratitude over the reader’s consideration of going through your resume.

CHANGE AND EDIT ACCORDINGLY

Please note that one standard resume might not be fit for all the job positions you will be applying for. A smart move will be to change, edit and revise your resume as and when required, making it personal only to the concerned company.

ONLINE PRESENCE AND ACTIVITY

This century demands interaction, activity and your presence to be felt by others, impacting them positively. This is the world of LinkedIn and it has been found that almost 94% of recruiters use LinkedIn to hire employees and expand their company base. If you don’t have an account, do build one. It adds a significant amount to your profile, believe it or not, as most managers check your social media presence before employing you.

VOLUNTEER FOR CREDITS

It has been duly noted that job seekers, students and graduates with a good background of volunteering work get preference. Skill-based Volunteering is an excellent way of supplementing or filling up a gap during your employment history. The only detail to be kept in mind and to be repeated over and over again, is to make sure the volunteering work is relevant to your current job goals. [Do include the organisation’s name, address, contact info, URL and a proof of your work there]

WHAT TO AVOID

1. Family details
2. Home town details
3. Sharing interest such as web surfing!

KEEP IT SIMPLE AND CONCISE

A good resume is simple and concrete with proof and information. Too much of detailed information might make the employer lose focus from your document. The art of writing lies in concising yet mentioning all the details necessary and required. Ideally, a resume should not extend beyond 2 pages.

THE MORE YOU UPDATE, THE BETTER IT WILL BE

There is, and can never be an end to learning. The more you learn and update yourself, the better your resume will be. Today’s world is demanding and hence an individual should be able to cater to almost all the needs an employer has in his/her mind.  Applying to professional certified courses (Coursera, Udemy, Oxford Summer Courses are a few of them) related to your future job goals can boost up your resume significantly.

Following all the above-mentioned steps clearly, benefits of having such a concrete, precise, to the point document will be seen in the individual’s future. Perfection, could never have been so easy to achieve!

For more information, You can contact us at info@gkworks.in or call 9643362320 to Schedule an appointment or Contact your nearest branch now

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