Resume Revamp!

I am on a resume revamp this week.

The first time I put down something together for a resume was during the final year of my Engineering while registering for Shreds! The concept of CV was sort of new then; to confess the one made was more or less similar to a senior student’s CV I referred to. That time CV focused on semester marks, mini projects and major projects, learnt (!) programming languages and so on.

However, this was more than enough for campus recruitments for IT companies then since they look at your academics percentage scores, technical interview, language test, group discussions etc. Happily contented after the first job CV was never touched until I started making applications to Universities in UK for my MBA. It was not just a CV act, instead statement of purpose, applications, interviews and so on which made sense on what is getting done. But here things are different; you have a clear idea on what you want to pursue, which aspect of management you would want to take further and see what the University offers. And clearly indicate how well you are suited on taking such a course. If everything ties in together only you need to invest your time on an application. Personally I don’t feel one does need to make millions of applications for a foreign MBA and wait for something to click. By the time you are into the MBA hunt, you would have an idea on what is where and if that’s for you. Having the limitation of location to North East England I didn’t have to worry much on my ‘choice’ problem here. However, I was put down by one of the Universities indicating my lack of full-time experience required for the MBA they offered. But, never mind I was offered a more ‘convenient’ one and I realised that was exactly what I wanted.

Then started the days of job hunt and working on resume. Resume is something which you can keep on working with. There are some areas of resume which you don’t change much like your education, personal details, membership of professional bodies etc. But if you are applying for a specific job you need to put in quite a considerable amount of work on the supporting information sometimes referred to as additional information. How you are suited for the job, what are the skills you can demonstrate for the role, how much experience you have in that, what are your areas of expertise and how well that fits in for the job role; even though they don’t align directly with the essential and desirable competencies of the role. Explain how you can make a difference or add value to the employer. Then if the competencies are well stated and if you know you don’t meet more than a third of them then effective utilisation of time, resources and reputation will be not to make an application for that. Though you are sure that you meet all the essential and desirable competencies for a role most of the cases you would not get an interview call unless you make a strong application, a strong kick off.

It has been a long since I revamped my resume. It is not very old though as it has been only 7 months I am in my new role. But there are provocations to revamp my resume now, overhaul time… on the lighter side!!! Three years of full-time employment experience; I consider the year of MBA education as experience and I can very well demonstrate that. And how can you be expected to retreat your three years in no more than three pages???