How to write a resume that will get you a Job

According to Glassdoor, a corporate job opening attract approx. 250 resume, out of which 4-6 candidates are called for interview and finally one get a job.

Probability of clearing resume round: 2%

Probability of getting offer once you clear resume round: 20%

As you can see, your chances for getting selected improve if you clear the resume hurdle. Unfortunately for many of the candidates, they couldn’t clear this round due to poorly formatted CV or unmatched criteria with respect to job.

Top mistakes that candidates do in their CV/resume

CV Rejection Reason #1: Ridiculous Email Address

Lot of candidates creates funny/strange email addresses during the college/university. These email address will spoil chances of candidates during CV screening process.

Email addresses which are not allowed:

• hotmale@hotmail.com
• daddyprincess@yahoo.com
• mammaboy@ymail.com

Email which should be there:

• lastname@gmail.com (or likewise popular Email service providers)
• lastname@collegedomain.com

CV Rejection Reason #2: Spelling and Grammar mistakes

Language related mistakes are big turning points for recruiters, no matter how exceptional you are in your education and career. Spell errors and grammar mistakes represents unprofessionalism, carelessness, untrustworthy person.

How to avoid language related errors in CV

Step 1: Write your CV on popular text editor like Microsoft Words which has AutoCorrect option automatically enabled. In case you are creating CV using online editor, make sure you have Grammarly plugin enabled in your browser

Step 2: Once you finished your CV, go through your CV atleast 2 times in gap of 30 minutes

Step 3: Get your CV reviewed by your friend/relative

Step 4: Take professional help if in case you feel it’s not perfect. A professional help during CV building phase is important instead of missing out of important companies’ jobs.

Learn more: Do you need CV building help. Connect with us and we will help in creating job worthy CV. Click CV building help section to know more

CV Rejection Reason #3: Formatting issues

Imagine reading a book, where content is not aligned properly, there are multiple font families used, multiple text size used. You must be thinking whether this is a book or a piece of art. You mental energy consumption in reading such book will be far more than a normal book.

Same dilemma goes in hiring manager mind when he/she sees a poorly formatted resume. Inspite of however strong your profile is, your chances of getting shortlisted goes to zero, if you send unformatted resume.

How to correctly format your resume

• Be concise: Use brief statements in the form of bullet points or sentences
• Checking the font size- Use font size of 10-12 points and set margin of about 0.5 inch all around
• Do not use fancy font family- Avoid font family like Comic Sans. Try to use Google fonts or even standard word fonts.
• No “I” – Avoid using first person pronouns
• Correct use of tenses– Use past and present tenses correctly when describing education or employment history.
• Correct use of punctuation– Be consistent in use of punctuation. Use periods at the end or all your bullets or not
• Wise use of highlighters– Do not overuse bold, italics and underline. Overusing will simply negate their importance. Use them in most important achievements only.

Best font families for resume

• Avenir
• Calibri
• Cambria
• Constantia
• Corbel
• Franklin Gothic
• Garamond
• Georgia
• Gill Sans
• Helvetica

Example of ordered and formatted resume

Source: Zety website

CV Rejection Reason #4: Not following proper order

Imagine you are working in a company and hiring for software developer in Java. What do you think will be most important things which you will look into someone resume.

Simple, it is relevant experience in that technology. Your cv will not be considered if you don’t have relevant experience or employer is not convinced that you can do well in job.

Since hiring manager has less than 1 minute in screening a resume, they follow a standard order.

1. Education
2. Work experience
3. Skill sets
4. Accomplishments

If you fit in these criteria, your probability of getting called for an interview increased to maximum. Hiring manager will not be reading on your interests, hobbies or extra-curricular in that 1 minute. But of course, that will matter during your face to face interview.

Correct order in resume

Leading career website Indeed suggest following order in your resume

• Contact information
• Objective or summary statement
• Professional experience
• Relevant skills
• Education
• Additional information (i.e. volunteer work and special interests—optional)

For entry level position, you need to place Education in top, since your work experience is almost zero, and hence your skills are low.

CV Rejection Reason #5: Too much or too little information

Lots of candidates (especially fresh graduates) put too much information into their project and internship, which make hiring manager skip that information altogether.

Correct order of writing work experience/project/internship should be as follow:

1. Company name
2. Title of project
3. Tenure of work
4. Add description in 2 sentences

• Problem statement that you faced
• Solutions you provide and result it generate. For technical project, you can write on use of software and programming languages.
• Additional- Add special recognition if available. Otherwise leave this.

CV Rejection Reason #6: Too long CV

Too long CV only suggests that you have not worked upon your CV to prioritize things. Ideal suggested length of CV can be as follow.

For exceptional performer, you can relax this rule. But remember, fresher resume should not be more than 1 page.

Also note that make complete use of page in CV. A CV page with 75% content and 25% white spaces won’t look impressive to hiring manager.

CV Rejection Reason #7: No contact information

Remember, hiring manager will not going to ask you for mobile number if you have missed or wrongly typed that in your resume. He/she will simply reject your resume.

So make sure that contact information is correct and are properly visible.

CV Rejection Reason #8: Skill set are not clear

Most important skill set of a person being hired is relevant experience in that field.

For Java developer, skill sets that matters are Java language and related frameworks/software/tools.

For marketing manager, skill sets that matters are knowledge in running marketing campaigns, tools, soft skills etc.

Avoid skill sets, which won’t make much difference in your profile. Think from point of employer perspective.

Sample CV

Conclusion

Your resume has less than 30 seconds to grab recruiter’ attention. You need to make every second count by avoiding mistakes which will reject your CV.

If you are facing trouble in creating your resume, you can check our resume writing course. Our experts will help you in writing a perfect cv. Write to info@xamnation.com to know more.