EFFECTIVE RESUME WRITING

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A resume is a medium for advert ising yourself, it s t he first most means which you use t o present
yourself and t ry t o claim t hat you are t he best choice t o your prospect s employer. Through your
resume you have t o showcase your major asset s like:
Qualificat ions
Experience
Achievement s
Capabilit ies, and
Qualit ies
You have t o prepare your resume in such a way t hat it gives impression in first look t hat you are a
perfect fit for t he job you have applied. An employer hardly t akes 10-15 seconds t o make a
decision about your int erview call aft er looking at your resume. If your resume is well writ t en t hen
definit ely you will be in t he short list ed candidat es does not mat t er you have required pot ent ial or
not but you will get a call ot herwise your resume will become a part of eit her recycle bin or
dust bin, again it does not mat t er if you are Einst ein or Newt on.
The first draft of your resume may not be so impressive because a resume is
always an evolving document which improves over the period of time, so keep
modifying and improving it after its first draft and keep its different versions with
you.
Now wit hout complicat ing t he t hings, I will t ake you t hrough st ep by st ep t o creat e a great
resume for you. I'm assuming you have Micorsoft Word t o writ e your resume, so now just follow
t he following st eps:

St ep 1: Address Sect ion

This sect ion will be on t op of your resume giving a det ail about your name, address, phone number
and e-mail address. Keep t his sect ion left aligned and put a bold line below t o t he sect ion t o
separat e it from rest of t he document as follows:

JOHN WILLIAMS
Kondapur, Hyderabad - INDIA
Contact No: +91 2295103049
Email Id: john.william@gmail.com

If you are current ly working t hen you can specify your company name just below t o your name as
follows:

JOHN WILLIAMS
IT Tools India Pvt Ltd
Kondapur, Hyderabad - INDIA
Contact No: +91 2295103049

Email Id: john.william@gmail.com

St ep 2: Summary Sect ion

This sect ion will st art wit h a heading called Summary and followed by list ing down your over-all
experience, achievement s, cert ificat ions and posit ive at t ribut es et c. It is very similar t o a movie
t railer where edit or keeps all great scenes from t he movie and aft er wat ching t hat t railer you get
excit ed t o wat ch complet e movie. You will have t o choose at t ract ive & heavy words while
document ing t his sect ion.
To draft summary sect ion you will have t o t hink a while wit h peaceful mind, jot down great point s
about yourself on a plain paper and check t o make t hem more impressive and effect ive. If t hey
are not leaving any impact on t he reader t hen t here is no point in including t hose point s in t he
summary sect ion.
If you are a fresh graduat e t hen you should specify about your small but impressive project s you
have done at universit y, highlight your achievement s and project capabilit ies et c.
Let 's look at one example which list s down few point s about a t elecom Syst em Soft ware
Engineer, in your case t his list can go from 2-3 bullet ed point s t o 8-10 point s.

SUMMARY
A System Software Engineer graduated from Delhi University and having
overall 4 years of extensive experience in developing state-of-the-art
software modules for telecom industry specializing with BSS & OSS.
Core expertise in rating and billing services related to 2G and 3G, 3G+
technologies including GSM, GPRS, VOIP, WiMax, V-SAT, VAS Services,
and Leased Lines with various access technologies.
A Software Assocaite Analyst grown System Software Engineer having
great experience with all the stages of SDLC including designing,
developing, testing and rolling out complex telecom software' s.
Exposure in drafting and implementing different processes and have been
actively involved in ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 certifications.
Result oriented, selft driven, highly motivated, smart and hungry to learn
new technologies, methodologies, strategies and processes.

St ep 3: Educat ion Det ail

Because you already have given summary of your experience and achievement s, so now let 's st art
t elling about our educat ional background. There are many organizat ions who give lot of preference
t o your educat ional background. So it is import ant t o t ell about your academic records. You should
put your highest degree on t op and t hen lower qualificat ions at lower levels.
This is ext remely import ant t o give informat ion about your posit ion, rank, percent age or CPI along
wit h degree or cert ificat ion ot herwise many employers would t hrow your resume in dust bin if you
don't give clear pict ure of your educat ional background. Now let s see one example on how t o put
educat ional records in a resume.

Education Detail
B.Tech in Computer Science (2005) from Ambehta University with 8.8 CPI.
B.Sc in Mathematics (2002) from Meerut University with 57.20% marks
10+2 with Maths, Stats (1999) from U.P. board with 67.20% marks
High School (1997) from U.P. board with 77.20% marks
Secured first position in statistics during B.Sc.
Gold medalist at 10+2 level due to highest rank in mathematics.

If you have done various certifications and trainings then I would recommend to
add a separate section for Trainings & Certifications just below to Educational
Section.

St ep 4: Technical Skills
Next sect ion in your resume will present your Technical Skills. This sect ion will st art wit h t elling
your major skills on which you have good command. So list down all t he skills first where you are
fully confident and t hen keep rest of t he skills at lower levels. Have a look at t he following
example where candidat e has good command over Pro*C and C but less experienced in Perl so put
Pro*C and C first and Perl lat er. This is import ant t o not e t hat all t he lines given below are not
required in all t he cases. If you know only one skill t hen just t ell about t hat skill, for example if you
don't have any experience in any prot ocol t hen don't give t hat line in your resume

T echnical Skills
Programming Languages: C, Pro*C, C++, JAVA and PERL
Operating Systems: Red Hat Linux 9.0, Windows XP and Solaris 2.0
T ools & T echnologies: Front Page-2000, CGI, J2EE, JSP, CORBA
Databases: MySQL, Sybase
Protocols: SMTP, FTP, PO3, IMAP
Others: Socket Programming, Multithreading, SDLC, OOP, UML

St ep 5: Project s Det ail

Here comes real st ory and t his is really import ant t o show your all t he project s, assignment s et c.
Reader should underst and what exact ly you have done in past . Here you will put hands on
experience wit h different t ype of project s, people and t ools and t echnologies. You have t o be
clear on what was your, organizat ions, year of t he project , roles, responsibilit ies, value add,
achievement s et c. on each and every project or posit ion. You should also ment ion about what
were t he t ools and t echnologies you have used during t hat project .
If your experience is not project based t hen you can simply name t his heading as Experience
Detail and list down all t he experiences eit her in bulet t ed form or in simple & short 2-3

paragraphs.
You will st art wit h t he most recent project and cont inue list ing down all t he project s t ill t he oldest
one. If you have done only t raining project or t hesis project t hen you can ment ion t hose project s
along wit h your Universit y project s in t he same format . Here I will give examples of t wo project s:

Projects Detail
1 - Library Informat ion Syst em [Nat ional Library, NY,USA ]

Duration: Mar 2005 - Jun 2005

T eam Size: 3
Role Played: Developer and Tester
Skills Used: Pro*C, Red Hat Linux, MySQL
This system simplifies day to day operation of a library which enables you to
maintain library catalogue on electronic media and to keep a record of all the
issued books in a particular day. Using this system, a user can generate a
report of all the available books for a particular subject or ISBN and a report
can be generated for all the issued books for a particular subject or ISBN.
2 - T iny Edit or Implement at ion [Aligarh Universit y, UP, INDIA]

Duration: Jan 2005 - Feb 2005

T eam Size: 1
Role Played: Designer, Developer and Tester
Skills Used: Java, MySQL and Red Hat Linux
This was a small but useful text file editor which enables you to edit any text
files available on Linux System. Using this editor user can open new or an
existing file in text mode and can update its content and then finally that file
can be saved on hard disk.

St ep 6: St rengt hs
Aft er giving a complet e det ail of all t he project s, now you can t ell about your major st rengt hs.
Look at t he following examples, may be you don't have all t he st rengt hs so list down only
what ever you posses:

Strengths
Good oral, written & presentation skills
A high tolerance of stress and enjoys responsibilities
Quick learner with good grasping ability
Action-oriented and result-focused
Lead & work as a team in an organized way

Great time management skill

St ep 6: Ext ra Curricular
This sect ion is opt ional because it is always not necessary t hat you would have been involved in
some ext ra curricular act ivit ies same t ime for various roles it s not required t o have any ext ra
curricular. Some t ime t his sect ion may have lot of weight age specially when your resume reader
and you have same curriculum. I'm giving you a simple example t o list down your curricular act ivit ies

Extra Curricular
Have been a member of University Technical Council
Won first prize for debate at inter state level competition
Played Cricket at inter state level
Mono acting, Singing and Reading

St ep 7: Personal Det ail

This will be t he last but mandat ory sect ion of your resume but will provide all import ant
informat ion about you. A simple and easy example is given here:

Extra Curricular
Date of Birth: 5th Aug 1983
Sex & Status: Male & Single
Nationality: INDIAN
Languages Known: English, Hindi, Urdu
Passport Number: A09384848 valid till 2018

St ep 8: Conclusion
Now you are done and you have a great resume in your hand. Let me put all t he sect ions t oget her
in a word document t o prepare a final resume. You can download Sample Resume from here and
you can modify t his resume based on your experience, skill et c. In fact resume building is an
evolut ionary process and your resume will get bet t er and bet t er over t he period of t ime.
I will recommend t o go t hrough t he following t ips t o add lot of value int o your resume.
Keep your resume file name short , simple and informat ional. A good resume file name could
be like Jo hnWilliams-Resume2013.do cx
You can keep a small passport size phot o at t he t op-right corner of t he resume but t his is
really not required.

Don't use various unnecessary format t ing in your resume. Keep simple t ext as much as
possible in your resume. Have a look at sample resume. You will find many HRs who prefer
resume only in simple t ext format . So if you will keep resume format ing simple t hen it would
be easy t o format t hat resume in any format .
Don't include t oo many phone numbers, email addresses or addresses.
Don't prepare t oo big resume. It should be as precise as possible.
Always give a summary of t he resume at t he begining.
Always give a det ail of roles and responsibilit ies you have t aken during any project .
Make sure t he resume is neat , free of t yping errors, and on plain whit e paper.
Never give a reason for leaving your previous job, your salary expect at ions, your current job
challenges et c, and bet t er t o leave such point s t o be discussed at t he t ime of int erview if
required.
Hope you enjoyed reading all t he above inst ruct ions and we at t ut orialspoint wish you very all t he
best .