Viju Swaminathan

Most organisations have

re-termed their recruitment

process as `talent

acquisition’. Hiring skilled workers

is precisely this acquiring

talent to grow business.

Writing a resume is the first

step towards job hunting.

Knowing that companies look

for relevant skills and competencies,

broadly classified as talent,

the job seeker’s objective

would be to showcase his professional

competencies in his

resume.

Since the primary aim is establishing

credibility to attract

the recruiter’s interest, the resume

should be succint and effective

with apt vocabulary.

The resume should match

the description of the job sought

for. This does not imply that the

document has to be doctored to

cater to the interests of the recruiter.

Presence of the pertinent

skills being genuine, the

way in which it is conveyed in

the resume is critical. Each

page should have not more than

400 words and there should be

white spaces in between points,

paragraphs etc for easy readability.

The human mind trains the

eye to spot critical information

while scanning a document.

Hence choice of vocabulary, the

style of writing, type of font -all

play a significant role in attracting

or putting of the reader of

the resume. The first aspect

that creates interest in the recruiter

is the educational background

and secondly, if there is

work experience, the name of

the previous employers.

The experience listed needs

to be supported with specific

data. For instance, the sentence

‘played a crucial role in getting

the largest contract for the organization’does

not hold water

unless it is supported with information

on role specifics, size of

the contract, name of the client

and most importantly the time

that it took to obtain the contract.

For freshers the same aspect

translates to describing

project experience with the output,

team size and the role

played in particular by the job

seeker.

Recruiting trend is now to

also look for softskills like team

play,communication, interpersonal

skills and so on. These

can be presented through the

work or project experience, because

the interest would be

more if there is a demonstration

of the skills while at work.

Personal details no more

claim space in the resume, although

hobbies are looked at

with avid interest. Even here,

generic mention of hobbies

does not warrant attention. It is

more effective to say that the

candidate plays tennis and has

represented the club, State etc

and won prizes rather than just

mentioning that playing tennis

is a regular pastime.

In other words, organizations

look at some proven expertise

even in co-curricular activities.

If the candidate has

made a mark in some area of

competence, he is likely to excel

in other aspects as well. This is

the conviction of recruiters.

That a resume does not fetch

a job is apparent. But it presents

the crux of the candidate’s expertise,

motivation, purpose

and goal.

A resume is in reality the decider

for a job interview. A well

written resume which provokes

interest and hooks the reader

helps gain a foot into the recruiter’s

door, this marks the

progressive path forward in a

professional’s career.

(The writer is Principal

Consultant - Business HR,

Ma Foi Randstad)

How to write a good resume?