Most jobs still need resume. People are trying to disrupt it but Resume is STILL (as of today - June'16) very important. Writing the resume is serious exercise. Please spend some quality time on it.
Here are a few tips to get it right:
1. Reduce the number of pages to single page. At maximum you can make it 2 pages. Yes, it works. yes, it works in India. Make sure it is either 1 page or 2 full pages. Half a page looks silly. When you do it you'd get rid of all unnecessary sections, redundant words and focus on extremely significant words and achievements. This itself makes your resume more powerful.
2. Spell Check, Grammar check, Review. And get it reviewed from others whose resume may have worked. No points for guessing this is so critical. Ask friends in HR/Recruitment about how likely is your resume to get shortlisted - no one can tell you better than them.
3. Focus on quantitative aspects - How significant has been your role in past. Writing "Played a significant role..." is subjective. You need to objectify it using numbers. E.g. "Improved conversions by 5.4%". Throw as many numbers as you can. Or try to quantify the impact of your work in some other way. E.g. Saved a big account by reducing their costs.
4. Begin each sentence with an Action Verb. E.g. Managed a team of..., Created documentation for..., Improved signups by..., Increased lead pipeline by...
5. Format it for clarity. Don't make your resume look dull and monotonous. Make it scan friendly so that it highlights things that you want to talk about. If a person looks at it for 5 seconds, he should be able to remember 3 to 4 words that you'd want her to ask questions around.
6. Feel free to use colours, picture etc. But do not even think about it until all previous checkpoints are cleared.
7. Please make sure your LinkedIn profile is up-to-date and provide a link on your Resume.
8. Please top up your resume with a personalized kickass cover letter that tells an organization/founder why you want to join them and why they should even look at your resume. Cover letters work. They are like the subject line of an email. Make it about them and not about you. Count how many I/Me have you used in your cover letter. Try to convert most of them to YOU/Your Organisation. Tell them how you can help them.
Comment here if you have any specific questions.
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