Curriculam Vitae.
It’s very interesting how a piece of papyrus turns into such an important document when something is written on it. However, the Curriculum Vitae, or Resume as it is sometimes known is something that should be written after much thought and delibration - it is after all - you in the mirror.
Coming from someone who almost never prepared a CV before he suddenly realised ’Oh God! I have a interview today!’, this can be considered as a ’Quick and Effective Way to Impress the B’.
However, there are a few points - like there are in anything related to a career - that should be kept in mind before making up a Resume.
1) The resume is you. Be very careful about how you write the resume. The words, the language, even the terms (browze, browse, 12/31/05, 31/12/05), that stuff. The least I can suggest to people is to write their own resume, dont go to your friendly friend or neighborly uncle.
2) Keep it simple. Remember that it is the interviewer’s job to handle millions of resumes in his profession. Words like ’professional’, ’ambitious’, ’go-getter’, are dead giveaways of a text book resume. Even if you are the above, it is their work to gauge it.
3) Don’t use a fancy font. I agree that fancy fonts stand out, but puhhhleeze, we aren’t going out for a comic convention here, we are going to work, a professional action. that doesn’t mean you should use ’Comic Sans’ (uugghh), there are a couple of professional fonts, Arial, Arial Narrow, the works. Best bet would be something straight and without frills. And PLEASE dont make the resume a maze of italics and bolds and normals.
4) Time is of the essence. The interviewee will have at the most five minutes of interaction with the interviewer. The more time the interviewer takes poring over the resume, you lose that much time in ’interacting’ with the said person. We both know you have a lot to talk, and yes, the interviewer do want to listen to what you say, it’s just father Time in the middle.
So, here goes:
Start out with your personal details. I’d suggest you make tables with two columns. You can add rows at any time (press the tab button). The personal details should have only Name, Date of Birth (Do Not Write DOB.) Address, telephone and email ID. (Try to get a proper ID, yahoo and hotmail.. uhmm.. you decide.)
Then, go onto your educational qualifications, three colums, add rows later. The columns would be Class, University/School/College and finally percentage. (If you do not remember the percentage, do not fib. Scrape out your certificates and write down the exact percentages. Call your mom for once, she knows best :)
DO NOT WRITE ANYTHING ABOUT YOUR QUALITIES. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUALITIES, THE INTERVIEWER WILL FIND OUT.
Last, write your previous work experience. If you don’t have any, write any alternate qualifications you have had. Computer courses, etc etc.
If you think that the table format looks very vulgar, just select the table and then Table -> Table Properties -> Borders and Shading-> and select No Border.
IF you dont want to read the whole thing, in a nutshell:
Cut and Dry, Simple and Precise.