Resume on Track

Wow! I can't believe I actually did it. I spent 15 mins and tweaked my resume a bit. Obviously it's not done and dusted yet.

Any product is not ready for the market until is has been reviewed and sent out to a sample group i.e. beta tested. So, I have taken a leaf out of Amar Naik's book, and reached out to a couple of admissions consultants (only those that offer a free first session ;-)   ).  I hope that they will offer some constructive feedback with respect to my resume and target schools.

I was going through a couple of resume tips, and the most important ones are:

1. One Page. Nothing more, definitely not anything less. One page is key to make a good first impression.
2. Show Progress. Most people feel that they are better off showing only their high profile positions on their resumes. The truth is, the more progress you can show, the better. If you worked your way up from being an intern to head of sales marketing, that's fantastic. It's definitely much better than having just one post on your resume titled "Head of Sales Marketing".
3. Now that you have shown progress, show what you did in each post. It's not enough to say "Manager - HR". You have to show what you actually did:
• How many people did you manage
• How you revamped the organisational structure
• How you went about attracting the best talent
• How did the numbers change after you took the post e.g. a company survey showed that employee satisfaction jumped up by 15% to an all time high of 87%
4. Limit details about education. Only include the essentials: Degree, college, year of graduation.. w/honours, president of any associations/ clubs. Do not included any extra courses you took or clubs that you were JUST a part of
5. Hobbies/ Extracurrs: Do NOT post community service if you have not been involved any leadership position with that program. Do not include any hobbies that you do not know much about. "Listening to music" is NOT a hobby (at least NOT one that will get you admitted)
6. This one is scary: "Have different versions for different schools" - My first thought was "what???". Though i still have to confirm whether this is actually required, some people advise that you format your resume according to the class resume book for the school. I'm not sure if this is necessary, but i'll to check it out with a couple of people.

I also spent some time searching for decent resume templates, but couldn't find anything interesting.

Anyhoo... I'll wait for the feedback from the consultants, and once I'm done with all that, I'll refurbish my  resume, reach out to a couple of friends and then come up with a polished version (hopefully early next week)

If you have any interesting resume templates, or can shed some light on crazy resume tip # 6, please drop me an email.

Over & Out!