Building the Perfect Resume

As many of you might already know, a recruiter spends about 6 seconds on your resume before tossing it into an accept or reject pile. I always wondered if that was true, and asked several recruiters I know about it. The answer was mostly positive, they have tons of resumes to go through, and most recruiters follow the strategy of building two piles, resumes that caught their eye, and resumes that didn’t. The ones that did pass the first round get scrutinized more, later. But how do you ensure yours isn’t tossed away?

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General tips:

• Your resume must be One-sided, one page only unless you have 10+ years of experience. My first resume was 3 pages long with huge fonts, and I felt pretty dumb when I saw how professional-looking resumes my friends had. But that’s okay, it’s never too late.
• Don’t try to make it “fancy”, keep it simple and professional looking. Don’t use too many colors. I use black ink, with blue titles.
• Add the skills and experiences relevant to the job you are applying for first. If you have extra space after that, you can add other side projects/extracurriculars that have nothing to do with showcasing your job/leadership/team skills.
• State everything in bullet points, not paragraphs.
• Ensure there are no grammar errors or typos.
• Apply as soon as the job is posted. That will also increase your chances of being noticed. I generally keep email notifications on for my target companies, so I know about any new internship posting as soon as it is out.

Format:

• The top section should have your name, email address, college name, major, GPA, and the year you are graduating in. You do not need to add your high school info(I have noticed some people doing this).
• You can also add your LinkedIn/Github profile if you have maintained them.
• The second section can have your skills, abilities, relevant courses, and certifications. Programmers should also add the languages they know.
• The third section should have your work experience. Ensure that you put the company name, the time you worked with them (eg. May 2019 — April 2020), your position, and a bulleted list of the main tasks you…