RÉSUMÉ writing made easy

Every student goes to college regularly, attends his/her classes with certain convictions, does his work (studies) with utmost sincerity. These are the normal phenomena of today’s students. One more new point that has appended itself in the above LIST OF ACTIVITIES of our students is résumé writing. No graduate is exempted from preparing a résumé as they leave their college and enter the gates of career and growth.

A résumé is an essential or a basic requirement of every student, especially the engineering graduates, when they expel themselves out of the college.

Once writing a résumé was considered an art. People had different, individual résumés and that negotiated for them with the interviewer or with the company. Nowadays résumé writing is no more considered an art. It has become much mechanical and every person, who prepares a résumé for him/her, just cuts/copies and pastes the previous students/seniors résumés with a variation in their name, address and the percentage of marks in education column. Is this the innovative or the creative skills the company expects from the candidates?

Here is an attempt, a different attempt (I like to call), about résumé preparation. I have planned not to give instructions or guidelines to the readers about the winning tone of a résumé or about how to make your résumé have a stay in the interviewer’s card, instead let me try a practical approach that would make you work on your own résumé. (The success of this short attempt depends completely with you).

First, I would like you to note that the word “résumé” has a different pronunciation when people use it during their job search. The reason for this change in the pronunciation could be analysed etymologically. The word résumé is of French origin meaning “summary”. The root meaning in itself says the function of a résumé, that it is a summary or a short autobiography of a person that would highlight some personal dexterity of a person in acquiring a job.

A résumé has so many sub – divisions within it. I have divided them into two different heads – compulsory elements and optional elements.

Compulsory elements:
Under compulsory elements, we have titles like:
1. Objective statement
2. Educational qualifications
3. Experience

Objective statement is a line or two much resembling to that of our sentence under the heading AIM in the science or any other record that we maintain when doing some practical experiments. I would like to give a few qualities of an Objective Statement:

* It need not be a complete sentence, i.e., it need not fulfill the grammatical sense of a sentence. It could be left as a fragment also.

* It should give an at – a – glance picture of you, by exhibiting your relevant skills, aim and professional identity (all these must be related with the job to which you are applying for).

* It must be specific, i.e., you must not beat around the bush in establishing your career goals. Please come to the point without wasting many words.

* Be simple in your diction.

* Last but not the least; know the words and their meanings very well before going for interviews (most HR questions are posed to candidates from their objective statements).

Educational Qualifications column is very essential for a fresher. It is based on the educational or the academic performance the interviewer would evaluate a fresher, when he/she is applying for a job. Educational qualification, for a fresher, would be the only asset and support to grab the opportunity in the job market. A few qualities of educational qualification column in a résumé are:

* Highlight the latest qualification first and then go in the descending order.

* Highlight achievements, like standing first in the class, acquiring university rank, district rank, school first, etc., if you had any during your course of study.

* Tell the period of study and the name of the institution where you took the course and completed it successfully. If you are still pursuing a course then do not indicate the end year instead say the beginning year and end it with the phrase till date.

Experience column must be next to the career objective column, when you have work experience. Here again follow the same rule as indicated in the education column. List your work experience in the descending order – the reverse order. Say the designation under which you worked in the previous organization and you have the freedom to say something about the nature of work that you performed in the organization.

Other elements of a résumé:
1. Co – curricular Activities
2. Extra - curricular Activities
3. Hobbies
4. Project/research work
5. Computer proficiency
6. Area of interest (subject related)
7. Value Added Courses

All the elements mentioned above could be included in a résumé according to the individual need and according to the job you are seeking for. The hierarchy of these topics should vary according to the company that you are applying for. This process of altering these topics in accordance with the job is said to be TAILORING. Tailoring your résumé is very essential when you apply for different companies. A single résumé won’t answer all kind of people.

Given below is a résumé template that you could use, as a sample, for building your own résumé.
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RÉSUMÉ

NAME

Address Line 1
Address Line 2 ................................email: formal name@email.com
City ...................................................Phone No.: STD code - number

________________________________________________
Career Objective:

To utilize my [qualifications, strengths, or skills] as a [position title]
Or
A position as a [position title] for [company name] allowing me to develop my [qualifications, strengths, or skills]
Or
An opportunity to [professional goal] in a [type of organization, work environment, or field]
Or
[Position title] with emphasis in [areas of expertise]

Educational Background:

• 2004 – Till Date B.E. (Mech. Engg.) at KM college of Engg, Chennai with 75.12%
• 2002 – 2004 DME at KM Polytechnic College, Madurai with 84.23%
• 2001 – 2002 HSC at KM Higher Secondary School, Coimbatore with 78.89%
• 1999 – 2000 SSLC at KM Higher Secondary School, Coimbatore with 82.18%

Value Added Course:

• DCBT – Multimedia Technology at NIIT, Madurai, June 2007.
• CAD at CADD/CAM Centre, Madurai, January 2006.

Co – curricular Activities:

• Presented a paper on “Nanotechnology” at the international symposium held at TH College, Madurai.
• Worked on a mini-project entitled “Modern Mechatronics” during March 2004.

Extra - curricular Activities:

• Participated in National Level dance competition and bagged first prize
• University South Zone Volley ball player

Area of Interest:

• Production and Designing

Computer Proficiency:

• Basics of C
• Photoshop

Hobbies:

• Reading Books
• Gardening

If you have furthur doubts please feel free to forward your resumes to claspmadd@gmail.com. You are most welcome to lodge your valuable comments about this article by clicking the comments, and your questions could also be asked there.