Sahil recently finished his mid-term assessment of his final year at an undergrad college. He is pursuing a major in mass media and communications, with a minor specialization in digital marketing. He has a two-month break from studies till he begins his final term. Excited about his study area and strong relevance with current industry trends, he is keen to undertake a 2-month internship with a leading media agency or a digital marketing firm in Mumbai. He passionately applies for over 5 internship openings with popular agencies. Regretfully, he receives a rejection notification from all of them, with only one agency informing him to submit an appropriately drafted resume!
Sahil now confronts the requirement to draft a good resume, to help him get an internship opportunity with an agency of his choice.
The situation discussed here is familiar to many when the internship/job hunt begins. Let us try to help you with resume building.
How To Build Your Resume?
A resume is a formal document that summarises your education, skills, experiences, and accomplishments. It is your first point of contact and introduction to the company where you apply for a job or internship. A well-written resume plays an instrumental role in capturing the interest and attention of prospective employers, securing a call for a job interview. A well-written resume backed by a strong interview defending its contents increases the likelihood of receiving a job offer as well affects the starting salary. Prospective employers get an opportunity to build an impression about the applicant based on their written communication skills, content and quality of the resume submitted by them. Thus, time spent learning to craft a good resume is very worthwhile for you.
Here are a few important tips to consider while writing a resume that can stand out.
- Customise your resume for each role that you apply for
Your resume needs to be tailored to the particular job or internships that you are considering and should emphasize or highlight specific information about you that will grab the attention of the hiring manager. Your skills and experiences should strategically match and align with the job opportunity of your interest.
Now, the question is, when you are just starting out in the job market, how to get this right. A few suggestions for you are below.
- Use the job description as your guide
Identify the key requirements of the job and address them. Look for keywords such as ‘digital marketing’, ‘coding’, ‘data analysis’, etc. or other specifications listed in the ‘Requirements’ section in the job description. These are the skills and proficiencies that prospective employers are looking for in the candidate. Ensure that you emphasize your core competencies and accomplishments that conform with the given requirements as per the job description, provided it is true and you can back.it up in an interview.
- Include genuine information about yourself
It is important that you maintain genuineness while explaining your experience, skills, and competencies. You must include information in your resume that is actual and authentic. This will help you to face interview questions more confidently and effectively. It is a common observation that candidates include keywords and buzzwords in their resume, to get the attention of the hiring manager and potential employers. However, during the interview, this fails miserably if questions specific to those keywords are asked to the candidates. This reflects poorly on their character, trustworthiness and such candidates who often face rejection from prospective employers.
- Use of ‘Action words’
These are the words that describe your professional skills, competencies, experiences and accomplishments in a POWERFUL way. The use of such words brings a confident tone and helps build trust in your achievements listed in the resume. Some examples of action words are – Achieved, Stimulated, Spearheaded, Exceeded, Established, etc. Such as
- Spearheaded promotional events, marketing campaigns and road shows to increase product awareness with new clients
- Developed relationships with key stakeholders and government institutions
- Established master plan for expense monitoring and control with the accounting department
When action words are combined with quantifiable results, they make a powerful impression. Such as
- Exceeded the targets by 20% in the 2nd quarter
- Achieved 10% reduction in production cost for marketing events
- Developed online marketing strategies that effectively increased followers by 1500+
Check out the resources listed here to ease writing this section of the resume:
- Keep your resume brief, simple and organised
While creating your resume, be sure to organise it into the most relevant categories for the given opportunity. A typical categorisation of your information can include the following content areas, such as
- Skills and proficiencies
- Work experience
- Educational Qualifications and Skills Training
- Activities, Honours, Certifications & Coursework undertaken, Accomplishments, Language proficiencies, Professional affiliations, and Volunteering or CSR activities.
- Contact Information, link to the LinkedIn profile, and References
A resume should be easy to read, and you should avoid the use of technical jargon or complicated terms. The first review is mostly conducted by mid-level hiring managers who shortlist based on relevant details. Make use of bullet points to grab attention to specific information. You should try not to exceed your resume beyond 2-pages by avoiding lengthy descriptions of projects. Maintain a professional tone and avoid any personal information.
It is advisable that your resume broadly matches your LinkedIn profile. You can tweak your resume as per the job role that you are applying for, but keep the core of your resume content similar to your LinkedIn profile. Many times, the hiring managers reach out on the LinkedIn platform to explore your profile, network and other career-related milestones. Thus, you must ensure that your LinkedIn profile is updated and reflects your latest professional information.
- Structuring your CV
Ensure that the language you use is appropriate as per professional standards and expectations from an applicant. Maintain uniformity with respect to format, appearance, and font size. Utilize consistent formatting style and improve the appearance by using stylistic differentiators such as bold, italic or underline, where necessary. Standard fonts such as Arial, Times New Roman or Sans Serif, in font size 12, offer ease of readability. Your resume should be a reader-friendly document that reflects well on your written communication, language usage, organisation as well as presentation skills.
- Edit and proofread your resume a few times
Your resume builds your first impression on the hiring company and hence, there is no scope for committing any spelling or grammatical error. Resume content and quality often determine whether the applicant will be granted an opportunity to interview or not. Resumes with errors have a very low likelihood to be interviewed or hired. Thus, you should proofread your resume a few times to ensure that your resume is accurate and factually correct, and free from grammatical and typographical errors.
- Use of readily available resume templates
There are numerous free resume templates available online, such as
However, these templates cannot be customised and hence, they should be used for obtaining resume building ideas only. The best option is to create your own resume. It is indeed helpful to maintain a master resume, with a record of experiences, accomplishments and other career-related information, and you can selectively create new ones based on the job role that you apply for. This offers the choice to create your own format, categories, spacing, styling and placement of text in your resume, making it a unique original document.
The importance of a well-presented resume is evident as it bears a huge impact on your chances of landing an interview opportunity, the first step towards securing the job you are applying for. It is therefore critical that you spend some time thinking about the content of the resume and how you are going to present it. The suggestions presented above can offer guidance to build an impressive resume.