Resume, Cover Letter & LinkedIn: The Basics
Resume
There is a lot of material on the internet that can help you create a good convincing resume. Important think to keep in mind is to tweak your resume according to the job you are applying for. Having just one resume is NOT enough for all jobs you apply for. Remember, for every position, a company probably receives over hundreds of resumes if not thousands. To make sure your resume is the one getting filtered, you HAVE TO be smart about some of the key terms you use in the resume. Reading the job description carefully and including the key terms in your resume is a MUST. Relevant resumes are probably filtered by keyword searches in most companies.
All of it might seem like a known fact, but many candidates hardly put an effort there. Focus more on the resume content for each job type, rather than focusing on applying to as many jobs/companies as possible. The mantra here is Quality over Quantity. Don’t rush yourself in applying for a job as soon as you see one. Take your time, at least 3-4 days before you are actually ready to apply. I highly doubt if any company operates on first come first serve basis, at least in US. But do remember to wait. I have spoken about the THINGS TO DO before applying in a bit of detail in the google hangout session that happened earlier today. I will repeat those things in the next session.
Some of the important things according to me in a resume are below. There could be other stuff in your resume that is relevant. These are just some of the key points. You must do your own research as well.
1. Summary & Accomplishments: Bullet points of your goals, objectives and big things you have achieved. Examples could be any MAJOR – projects, recognitions, certifications, trainings, courses; all related to your professional career.
2. Technical Skills: Bullet points again. Apart from the things you already know, also google the key tools in your area of expertise, and see if you can include any of those.
3. Work Experience: Mention position and duration by each company with the most recent company first. In the absence of full time experience make sure you treat Internships, technical part time jobs with equal importance. All of that matters. Try to highlight each job/role into two sections:
Core Responsibilities
Key Achievements
4. Education: Include Masters and Bachelors with GPA, University name etc.. If you have some full time experience related to the job you are applying for, you might not need to put in too many details around courses etc., but in the absence of full time experience, do mention some of the key courses that are in line with the job requirement.
5. Certifications & Activities: This is the place for all the other relatively smaller certifications, tools etc. Also the stuff that may be related to some of the extracurricular involvement.
Cover Letter
Many students don’t think it is important. In my experience, it may not be so important at the start of your career, but definitely something one should not ignore. Remember, we are increasing the probability of you getting an interview call, so anything that could have a positive impact, must be done. Search for some formats on google and prepare a few for each company you apply to. The generic flow of the cover letter in my opinion should be as follows:
Why you are writing, position details, references if any, your background, qualifications, why a particular position is a good fit, thank them in advance for considering.
LinkedIn is something that has helped people a lot in making connections within different companies they apply to. First of – Create a resume-like profile on LinkedIn, visit some profiles to get an idea of a good LinkedIn profile. A professional picture is a must (trees, flowers, all the random background stuff is a BIG NO NO), dress up and ask your friends to take several pictures, use your smartphones, use photo enhancement stuff and do the magic. Since you usually email recruiters or anyone through your personal email, MAKE SURE you change your picture there as well, as that is the first time they would see you, and form opinions. A professional look never fails to impress. Your LinkedIn profile should make someone say – Bh****od, yeh huyi na baat..(That’s how you do it). I also strongly recommend buying the basic 30 bucks per month premium account, which means only a few beers less per month :-). It allows you to search for more contacts, allows you to send limited inmail messages to people, and some other benefits. I’ll write what to do after that in the next post.
Remember we are trying to increase the probability of success in this whole game of Job hunting. It can never reach 1, but you must try everything to increase it.
Good luck with your Job hunt!