Employers and recruiters don’t spend lifetime on your resume or CVs. They cannot afford that luxury, and if they can, then you don’t need to send your resume to those companies, they wouldn’t be in position to hire anyone anyway. Your resume is your first impression, and you only get once chance to create that first impression.
According to a study in the Silicon Valley, an average employer spends almost 30 seconds per resume. He glances through it, and try to get as much image as he could form from that resume in that short span of time. Now it holistically depends upon your resume, how much vivid image it renders. Resumes are meant to be short, pertinent, realistic and clear. If your resume is amorphous, then you are doomed, as recruiter doesn’t know that what you can do, and what exactly have you done. In the vague resume, there is no attraction for the recruiter.
For example, if a job applicant has written in his resume that he has worked an internee in a large organization and has planned, designed, and coordinated software engineering efforts for the development of a revolutionary and mission critical application, then employer is sure to get confused and angry. This kind of statement doesn’t really help stating as what exactly this internee has done, and really its quite unbelievable that how in the world that internee has developed, designed and coordinated the software engineering efforts of a mission critical system, and if he has done that why in the hell he was internee there and why didn’t that organization tried to retain that world class asset?
So be realistic and honest. Don’t put in vague and fantastic statements by copy/pasting from web to your resume. It isn’t going to help you much, rather it will hurt you badly and your chances of getting the job diminish rapidly.
Before sending your resume, try to clear up your act online. Employers have made it a habit to search the name of the applicant on the search engines like Google or Yahoo or MSN. You should first your self search you on the net. If the search returns your dirty pictures from FaceBook or Orkut, then first clean up your trail. Have a blog online, and make it sync with your technical niche.
Then in the resume, be very professional. Don’t just give your job description. Try to convey how you grew in each position, and why you made a transition to a new job. Also remember that your personal interests and extracurricular activities are important! They can distinguish you from the competition.
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