The Dont's of "Resume Writing"..

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Posted by Radhika

Further to being asked several times to scrutinize and correct resumes, I thought I'll publish a simple blog post with the basic factors in place. I am no expert or consultant in this area but my words are merely a reflection of few months of recruitment experience, and the added frustration, that I have had. I have seen resumes of varied positions, industries and management levels of different formats, lengths and colours. The new age online services has thankfully saved me from different shapes though! I don't know what the do's of a resume are, but I know the dont's. Here are a few:

a) Fonts - Normal (Arial, Times New Roman, Calibri, Verdana) fonts work while ensuring professionalism. Please remember this is NOT your wedding card.

b) Spacing - Use proper spacing and do NOT increase the eyesight number of your recruiter. While screening more than 50 resumes a day s/he may just ignore the scrawl; more so when he knows that you will not contribute to his medical bills.

c) Borders - Avoid borders in your resume as recruiters may sometimes mistake it for a closed and non-flexible personality. I know of such an incident personally, did not make sense, but who is the king here?

d) Length - For God Sake, do NOT exceed more than 2 pages. Aaarrgghh.. a maximum of 2 and a half if u must. I know you have 1.13 years of experience but haven't you heard the saying that "wiser men speak fewer words." Kindly comply!

e) Content - The recruiter does not want to know if you won a "hide-and-seek" competition when you were in class II. Please maintain relevant and precise content.

f) Experience - We do not want to know if you can operate a stapler or push the light-switch. Please don't be a kid! Also, we know you are working in the biggest MNC ever heard about and if we want to know more about their antics Google is a good tool. I need no history. If you must, mention the industry but stop right there.

Guys, keep it simple and precise. We are NOT fools to be given scripts of elaborate material to get the point. And if you think we are, then you should not be sending us your resumes! Make our lives easy so that we can help make yours easier... Good luck!