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Resume describes your personality, your qualifications, your skills, your achievements and most importantly what makes you the best candidate for the job. When you apply for any job you are highly judged by your resume. So it is very important to put your best efforts to create an attractive and job seeking resume.

Here, we are going to share the 6 golden steps to create a world-class resume. Many people despite having the right skill-sets required for a specific job, are not called for the interview. The main reason for this is because they are not giving their quality time to make a perfect resume showcasing their right skills.

That is why the most important thing needed while creating a resume is to give your 100% attention and time.

With the help of 6 essential steps mentioned in this article, you can create a very impactful and powerful resume. These steps if followed diligently, will definitely help you to stand out in the crowd.

STEP 1: LIST POINTERS

• The first step to begin with when you are creating your resume is to list down all your achievements, activities, performances, etc. you have done in your career or academics till date.
• You don’t have to make the final resume in the start itself, first do some rough work and diligently list down all your activities.
• Take a pen and a notebook and start writing all your certifications, academic achievements, extra- curricular achievements, interests, social hobbies, events you had participated or volunteered, etc.
• Basically, it should be your thorough list of all your work till date. This list will help you to organize your resume pointers in an effective manner.
• Generally people do not make this list, they just search for pointers on internet and start creating their resume. As a result, often they miss out mentioning some important achievements in their life which is different from others.
• Below are the fields under which you can list down your pointers:

• Academic Achievements- eg. If you were a class topper mention that in this pointer. Some other examples like Olympiad winner, any scholarships, etc. can also be mentioned here.
• Extra-Curricular Activities- eg. Head boy/girl, Debate/Elocution Competition /Events /Sports, etc. can be mentioned here.
• Social Activities- eg. NGO/ Free health Camps/ NSS,etc.
• Internship/Work Experiences- If you have done any internships, do mention about them in detail. You can also mention about your past work experiences in this field
• Skills- eg. Hard Skills- Some hard skills are financial analysis, machine learning,typing speed, any programming lanuage you have mastered. This may  be vary with respect to you profession or your academic stream. Soft Skills- Communication skills, time management skills, etc. are some examples
• Interests/Hobbies- eg. Reading,Dancing,Singing, etc.
• All these pointers may vary from person to person. Everyone should note down their own achievements.
• It is not mandatory to include only achievements, you can also list down your participation across different events.
• Activities for which you don’t have any participation certificate can be included in Interests/ Hobbies section
• Relevant Academic Projects which are a part of your academic curriculum can also be mentioned under Academic Achievements.

STEP 2: SELECT RESUME FORMAT

• Now comes the second step, you have to decide the format of your resume.
• On an average each resume gets an attention span of 5 to 6 seconds by an interviewer. Your aim should be to get noticed in that time frame. Selecting the right resume format plays a crucial role here to grasp the recruiter’s attention.
• The most commonly used resume formats – functional, reverse chronological and combination (or, hybrid). You can use any one of the formats or if there is any standardised format you are asked to follow then use that only.
• No matter what resume format you choose, you must follow below basic hygiene factors to make it look professional:

1. Make your resume top heavy. Mention your important achievements at the top.
2. All pointers must be well aligned and readable.
3. Organize, articulate and highlight your pointers effectively to get noticed.
4. Do not include photo.
5. If you are fresher or have work experience less than 5 years restrict to 1-Page resume.
6. Use rating/performance bar to highlight the level of skills.

STEP 3: SELECT POINTERS & CATEGORIZE

• The next step is to identify pointers to be included in your resume. The pointers are to be identified from the list that you had created in step 1.
• Note: Select only those pointers which are relevant to the job position you want to apply for. Do not try to include all the pointers you had listed in step 1.
• Post selection, categorize your selected pointers under different resume headings.
• The main headings generally used in a resume are:
  • Academic Qualifications
  • Academic Distinctions & Co-curricular achievements
  • Select Projects/Live Projects/Papers
  • Work Experience
  • Entrepreneurial/Non-Profit Ventures
  • Internships/part time work experience
  • Positions of Responsibilities
  • Extra-Curricular Activities
  • Other information/interests
• There are some headings which you can be further categorized into sub- headings.

For example: Under Extra Curricular Activities you can include 3 sub-headings which are: Position of Responsibilities, Social Activities, Sports etc.

STEP 4: ARTICULATE ALL THE POINTERS

• Now that you have selected the relavant pointers and categorized them under different headings, it is the time to frame your sentences properly.

• It is very important that you articulate resume pointers in such a way that the statements convey the right information to the reader.
• Use minimal words in your pointers with proper grammar conveying the right information.
• Let us take an example: “I won a silver medal in cricket competition”
  • If you see the above statement there are many mistakes. Some of the mistakes are you should never use ‘I’ as it is already understood that you are talking about your achievement.
  • Also there are many open-ended questions left in front of the interviewer like Which level competition? In which year? How many teams participated?, etc.
  • So you can say that the articulation of the statement is not done correctly as there are many missing information.
  • So you can correctly reframe it as “Awarded silver medal in inter college cricket competition amongst 20 teams ‘20”
  • In the above reframed statement we have answered all the questions that the interviewer would like to know and that too with proper use of grammar. That is why proper articulation must be done.

STEP 5: INCLUDE KEYWORDS

• Including relevant keywords in your resume is very important.
• An interviewer always looks for the skills he wants you to have for the job position he is hiring. So, you must include appropriate keywords in your resume.
• For example: If you are applying for a marketing role try to mention keywords like social media campaigns, search engine optimization, creativity, communication skills, etc.
• As mentioned earlier, the interviewer gives 5 to 6 seconds on an average to a single resume. So in that time duration if he catches the keywords which he was also looking for then the chances of your resume to get selected also increases.
• A small shortcut to find the keywords the interviewer might be looking for, is from the job description itself.
• Nowadays recruiters use ATS(Applicant Tracking System) tools to screen resume basis certain keywords. That is why it is important to add relevant keywords which are mentioned in the job description.

STEP 6: THE FINAL STEP - HIGHLIGHT KEYWORDS

• Highlighting plays a big role to catch the interviewer’s attention in your resume.
• Highlight important words from your points in your resume.
• Don’t highlight full pointers. It should be done in the such a way that it is neither too much nor to less.
• Your points should be highlighted in such a way that just by going through them the interviewer get the gist of your resume and at the same time doesn’t miss out any important points.

I assure you that if you follow these 6 golden steps of resume building you will be able to create a world class resume and your chances of getting interview calls will be much higher than the person who is not following these steps. Do follow these steps and create a wonderful resume and make your dream come true by cracking your dream job.

ALL THE BEST!!!