A résumé, called a curriculum vitae (CV) in English outside North America, is a document created and used by a person to present their background, skills, and accomplishments. Résumés can be used for a variety of reasons, but most often they are used to secure new employment.
A few colleges and all organizations insist on résumés for their admission/hiring procedures. However, it’s advisable to carry your résumé to interviews even if they have not insisted on one explicitly.
A résumé works like a ready reckoner for the interviewers and they get a fair idea about important events in of your course of life (curriculum vitae in Latin means ‘course of life’) about which they can ask questions to you in the interview.
Many aspirants falsely assume that the purpose of a résumé is to provide a full overview of their professional history. Instead, the goal of your résumé is to convince employers that you’re worth interviewing. To that end, your résumé is a valuable tool you can use to highlight your academics, experience and other attractive features about your life to interviewers.
- Do not stretch your résumé beyond a page or at max two pages – nobody turns over to the third page unless it’s very appealing.
- Your résumé must provide a concise summary of your relevant qualifications and skills in a format that makes your ability to handle the work as clear as possible.
- Write in points, under proper headings – do not use flowery words or make blatant spelling or grammatical mistakes.
- You will be questioned on each and every point written in your résumé– never write things that aren’t true or you cannot prove with documents.
- Get help from mentors, who have years of experience in guiding students to write admission-winning résumés.
