Resume… the few details about you that will get you the job that you are applying for is a wrong definition for it. Though a resume comprising information about your successful career, achievements, skills and accomplishments can be vital in getting you “the” job. Such an important summary of yourself must be so effective as not to eliminate you from consideration. Now, understanding the importance of resume is just the beginning. To make your resume crisp and attractive, the following tips can be helpful.

Self evaluation:
The first and foremost step required to be done is making a self evaluation of you and putting them on to a rough paper. Make sure you’ve included all your skills, achievements, abilities, work experience etc. you can get help from colleagues in this regard.

Content of the resume:

• name, contact address, contact number, e-mail address:
  Take care not to include nicknames or names in short, include a valid postal address which you’ll be using permanently like that of your parents’, include a valid telephone number. Do mention the area code. And if an answering machine is connected a neutral greeting is a must. Your mail address must be professional. Not the coolboy86 or the sexygirl19 stuff. One mail address with your name would do the required job.
• Objective:
  The main idea of a resume is to project yourself. This is what tells the employers what job you expect to do. And do make sure that this is very specific. For e.g.: to do research oriented study and management of database systems. This can be made flexible to satisfy employers’ needs. Thus one resume can be tailored to suit all.
• Education:
  All your educational achievements can be listed. But in the descending order of chronology (recent achievements first). Fresher must add this to immediately after objective whereas experienced people can list them after their work experience. All degrees, honors, majors, institution attended (if popular), and C.G.P.A (if greater than 3) must be included.
• Work experience:
  Brief overview of your previous work experiences can be an added advantage. List them in the descending order of chronology as well. The name of the institution, post held, and specific skills required for that post must follow. Also if people are willing to serve as reference, it would help a great deal.
• Other information:
  Your participation in voluntary service activities, sports, events exposing leadership abilities deserve a special mention in your resume. Use action words to emphasize.

Checking of the resume:
After all this is done, the resume must be checked for spelling mistakes, grammar and other technical flaws over and over and usually an expert’s help ought to be sought. After this is done, print it in A4 white sheets on one side only. Do not use very large or very small fonts. Also take care not to use graphics, designs, etc. Do not pin or staple or fold. Always have multiple copies of your resume.

Dos:
Use good quality paper, non decorative style, reasonable font size, and do leave good blank space around on all sides and particularly on the left for filing it. Try to finish the resume in one or at the maximum two pages printing only on one side of the paper.

Don’ts:
Do not post unnecessary information on your marital status, children, low level qualification jobs, examination failures, place of birth , nationality, people from your family already working in that firm etc.

Submit your resume to classified ad sites like webcosmo.com and others. Many recruiters periodically visit the classified ad sites looking for talent. Your skills may be needed by a prospective recruiter.

These are the steps to be followed for producing a good and powerful resume which will help employers understand your potential to the fullest and help you get hired very easily.