I was asked by my husband’s cousin to help fix his resume so that he can send them to apply for practical training opportunities.
His resume was horrendous, copied from a one-size-fits-all, untruthful and rigid resume that has no personal feel to it. I asked him to let me have a go at his resume. He politely declined at first, only to agree to it after my husband (his cousin) took a look at the resume and insisted taht he let me have a look.
A resume is important in the sense that it gets you to the interview table. It’s not the credentials, it’s not the referee, it’s not the staggeringly low expected salary (hmm.. sometimes it is, but anyways…) that gets the HR personnel reaching for the phone and dialing your number. It is how your resume stands out.
If your resume stands out, you stand out and you reap the reward of going into the first battle: the first interview.
First things first…
Below are the things graduates do wrong (that I have noticed from the resumes I've helped edited in the past 4 years) when preparing for their first resume. Try to avoid doing them and you might just get through to the long list.
1. Being too cocky for your own good.
Some people call it embellishment, I call it being too cocky. A resume is the first glimpse an employer has of you. Hence, it is best to be as truthful as possible in your resume to avoid giving people the wrong impression.
If people expect too much from you and you cannot deliver or prove yourself during the interview, you chances of negotiating better terms for yourself are as good as gone.
Remember: with good first impressions, comes great expectations.
A cover letter is always a good thing to attach to your resume. However, be sure to make the cover letter personal. I mean, don’t submit the same cover letter you used to apply for the position of a dancer when you’re trying to apply for the position of a chef. *Hey I know people who can dance and can cook*.
In your cover letter, use a tone that is humble and appealing. Do not make it out as if the person owes it to you to give you a job or an internship in their company. Use proper salutations, be polite, be engaging and be sensitive – for example, it is safer to us Ms instead of Miss or Mrs if you are not sure about the marital status of the Human Resource personnel you are writing.
For me to hire you, I have to first like you.
2. Labelling yourself as a faceless drone in a sea of wanna-‘bees’.
The usual suspects: eager to learn, independent yet a team player, responsible, punctual, highly motivated, cheerful, etc. What exactly were you aiming for when you put those adjectives under your personal strengths?
If I am the person reading your resume, I would like to see characteristics in your personal strengths that tell me that ‘you are the one I am looking for’. Being punctual is useless for a writer, being able to complete a project within the deadline is more of a bulls-eye. Both are related to time management (which is another common suspect) but both deliver different relevance to different things.
Learn to differentiate between the characteristics that will get you in and those that will leave you out.
3. Overlooking and undermining the importance of good spelling and grammar.
There are people who use bombastic words to show you that they are well learned. Then, they show their sloppiness by failing to discern between ‘two’ and ‘to’, ‘form’ and ‘from’, and ‘an’ with ‘and’. You may not think highly of prepositions and conjunctions but if detail-oriented was listed under your personal strengths, this may rub the HR people the wrong way.
No.2, never mix languages. AJK’s are committee members and PNGK is CGPA for you university wizards.
Be precise. Be accurate. Be flawless. Or get yourself a good editor.
4. Putting too much information
No one cares if you were a cub scout back in 1982 or you got 10 A’s in your primary level public examination. I also need not know if you attended swimming lessons or ballet classes. Go straight to the point and don’t waste people’s time. They have a lot of resumes to go through so stop giving their information that serves no function apart from allowing them to write a biography about you.
You’re putting your yourself, your credibility, your achievements, all in one page. Get to the point fast.
5. No structure
A resume is not like cooking. You cannot just throw a dash of salt here and a pinch of pepper there then serve. Plus, when it comes to information, it is a whole lot better to have it laid out in a structured presentable form, than to prepare it like a draft for ‘Where’s Wally?’.
There are many other candidates competing for that one job that you like. You have to be able to stand out, even at the resume level. Having a good-looking resume that is also neat, clean and complete will give the reader a good impression of you.
Learn to categorize. It will show your future employer that you have structure in your life or at least in the things you do.
6. Forgetting your place.
Imagine writing in your resume that you are there to ‘propel the organization into stardom’ and ‘take the company to greater heights’, and having that resume read by someone who has been in the said organisation for 10 years and has yet to achieve either of the career goals you stated. Either he would look like a fool or you would. Most of the time, the candidate would be at the losing end. Look here, look here, that means you.
You have to understand that you are coming out from the pinnacle of the academic world into the grassroots of the working world. You basically score a zero in the Experience section and being in that position in a society that thrives on experience, telling people that you are capable of turning their organization around is a flat-out lie or a delusional view of what the working world is really like. Both do not help you to fair well with first impressions. So don’t do it.
It’s your first job. If you are there to learn, act like it.
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