It goes without saying that a resume is a reflection of one’s personality, skill sets, and credibility. To land on fresh graduate jobs, it is very important to have the right resume crafted so as to create a lasting impression on recruiters. The saying, “First impression is always the best impression,” is appropriate in the corporate world where impressions assume utmost importance. In this regard, developing a Resume and profile building may seem to be an easy task, but both of these require creativity. The process of drafting a Resume has been witnessing modern advances, with the concept still being traditional at heart.
With drafting of Resume being the focal point, here’s a checklist of what freshly graduated candidates should not do while you:
Fancy email ids
The first thing you should not do in your Resume is having a fancy email id. Examples of these are aajkikabali@gmail.com, boss123@gmail.com; though there is nothing technically wrong with these email ids, recruiters prefer to communicate through professional sounding email ids. Craft your email id as a professional one; even though you are still job hunting.
After you have created a professional sounding email address, ensure that it is functional. Dormant email addresses/ids do not do you any favours. It is always desirable, from recruiters point of view, to have email ids that are a combination of your first and last names followed by the email domain. Keep email ids simple, straight, and jargon-free.
Proofing errors
Another category of Resume errors that you should avoid is proofing mistakes. After you have composed your Resume, do proofread at multiple levels. Spelling mistakes, language errors, and incorrect sentence formations tend to irk recruiters. Hence, pay careful attention to details on your Resume.
Lifting Resumes from the web
While the internet offers good reference for Resumes, ensure that you do not directly lift any resume templates and pass them off as your own. Recruiters, today, believe that while the internet is a good reference point for Resume formats, conceptualization and profile building must strictly be done by candidates themselves.
Hence, always create a conceptual Resume in your mind and then put that onto paper. You could use contemporary Resume formats to develop your first Resume. In no case, not even an urgent requirement, should you edit profiles of your friends/relatives/from the web and send them across to the recruiter.
Overrating yourself
A Resume is an effective way to showcase your potential to the world. However, you should be careful to not over rate yourself in your Resume. While applying to jobs, read up the job description carefully and then align your aims/professional objectives with the job description. While applying to your first job, ensure to indicate that you are open to learning opportunities of varying magnitudes.
Ensure that you have listed out all your qualifications in proper order and exercise caution to not put out false information even with respect to grades/percentage obtained at various academic levels.
Then, your skill sets should also be in sync with your execution abilities. Do not exaggerate your skill sets. Recruiters tend to detect these during personal interviews by posing tricky questions that could be difficult to answer thereby making you seem incompetent to the job you have applied for.
Size matters
Finally, after you have considered the above aspects, ensure that you precisely maintain the length of your Resume. Do not pour out all your thoughts in the document. As this is a professional representation, take adequate care to keep your resume document concise. Recruiters believe that for fresh graduates, a two page resume with all information precisely documented does a world of good. You can take a look at any well drafted two page resume template and see what are the important information you can put on your CV. Unnecessary information will only make your resume look stretched and will add no real value.
In summary, remember that a perfect Resume does not exist; it is all about smartly representing yourself and backing the facts up with answers at the interviews. With job application processes today having gone digital, algorithms have only less than a minute to scan your Resume, match it with job requirements, and notify the recruiter. Landing your first job becomes easier when you have a smartly crafted Resume.
