Resume

What is a Resume/CV?

A resume or CV is a document that summarises your work experience, education, skills and achievements for a prospective employer.

What should you include in your Resume?

Typically Resumes include your Name and contact details, Education background, Work Experience/Projects, Skills, Hobbies, Awards and so on.

Even within these, how do you select which experiences to include? Should I include school level projects? — Include your latest projects/experiences first. The reviewers would want to know that you are an active student and that you keep learning. You can include few of your school level achievements that you are most proud of also.

Embellishing your Resume

While you need only the aforementioned titles to create a basic resume, you can take it up a notch by including links to your Personal Website/Blog, Linked In Profile or Github Repo.

Creating your own personal website that showcases your projects might be a great idea. It will definitely help the reviewer understand more about you as a person and your work so far.

Checkout the following personal websites for some inspiration:

1. Rohan Saxena, Google Venkat Panchapakesan Scholar 2017

2. Arvind Sanjeev, Interaction Designer

You can use Google sites to quickly create your own website. It is super easy and can be done in just about 2 hours. Checkout this tutorial to learn more. You can also google for “Create a website using Google Sites”. You’d find a lot of useful resources.

What you can also do is start a blog on medium.com. It is a beautiful writing tool. You can write about your work so far, your learnings and your experiences.

How long should my Resume be?

1–2 pages is ideal. You really wouldn’t need more than 2 pages. Do look to stay within 2 pages and curate the content to fit in those 2 pages. Include only what is relevant to your work in the technology space. Anything that showcases your tech/managerial/leadership skills, it is a yes.

Why 1–2 pages? About 1000 students apply to a quality opportunity. Reviewing all these is not easy. Naturally, you can expect the reviewers to only skim through quickly, reading the main titles. So the first impression your resume makes and the titles you include will make the most impact. It is not the length that would matter, but the quality of what you have included already. So keeping it short, to the point and specific might be a good idea.

Which format should I pick?

There are tons of Resume formats out there. There is no good or bad format. It all depends on whether the resume does justice to your experiences. So pick one that you feel most comfortable with.

If you have a specific format in which the resume is to be published, do make a note of it. If not, going with pdf version is generally safe simply because it looks neat and remains just the way you created it, irrespective of the device or software one uses to view it. If you use doc/docx, the view may change depending on the version of Microsoft Word the reviewers are using.

Should it be colourful?

Upto you. How you design your resume is completely up to you. But when you do so, prioritise just one thing — Readability. It might look pretty but finally if they can’t read anything, it makes no sense right?

Ensure you use a neat font. Something like Times New Roman, Arial or Roboto. (NOT Comic Sans). Use a 10–12 point font size. And pick colours that aren’t too flashy.

Sometimes, you may have to print out hard copies of your resume. So, you must ensure that your Resume would come out neat and be readable in both black and white as well as colour formats.

Should I add in my Picture?

Honestly, this is debatable. There is no right or wrong. For one, you adding your picture may or may not influence the selection process. What you have done and written about in your Resume surely does.

No matter how good or bad you look in your picture, if your resume isn’t strong and if it doesn’t fit the selection criteria, you’ll not make it through. So while at it, if you feel like adding a picture go ahead. But if you feel that it eats up a lot of space, you may leave it be.

Which softwares can I use to create my Resume?

You can use Microsoft Word or Google Docs to create a basic resume. Google Docs already has templates included that you can make use of. This blog shows how you can create a Resume using Google Docs.

canva.com also has a lot of wonderful, colourful Resume templates if that’s where your taste lies. Canva lets you customise them quickly for free.

Is there a particular format that would work?

There is no one formula that works right. If there was one, then wouldn’t everyone be successful? Wouldn’t everyone have the same kind of Resume or Essays?

The closest you can get is to look at the Resumes that won Previous Recipients the scholarship. But even that’s not the formula you can look for. It worked for them but you cannot say that it was because their Resume was a one-page document or because they used a particular format. Their experiences would have weighed in way more than the format or appearance. So instead of worrying about the length or beauty of it, you are better off focussing on the content more. What you write in there will finally make all the difference.

Can I use the same resume for all opportunities?

No. Your resume is never a one size fits all. You should always tailor your resume to suit each opportunity, with your focus theme in mind.

When sharing your experiences, feeling as if you are boasting about it can be a common insecurity. What do you in such a case?

First of all, congrats on all your achievements. Remember, you took the time, effort and pain to do things in life and eventually accomplish them. You deserve to be celebrated for it.

So instead of feeling like you are boasting about it, the feeling you really must possess is pride. You consciously underplaying your achievements and skills is NOT modesty. It is NOT you being nice. Maybe it is so in your head but that’s not what the reviewers are going to think.

If you cannot deliver what you have already accomplished with confidence, if you keep second-guessing yourself, them the reviewers might feel that you are bluffing about it. That maybe you really did not accomplish these and that you may be just making up stories.

This is why you must sell yourself well (if not oversell). Take pride in your work and confidently talk about it. Be confident and aggressive to the point of a fault.