It is the job hunting time of the year, whether for full-time or part-time positions. I have full faith in the education that our university imparts and the skill set of the Wolfpack, but there is a great deal of competition in industry. You are often only judged at first glance by the quality of your resume, whether you apply online or you attend a career fair. While you may get a chance to interact with the recruiters from a company in the fair, do not assume that interaction to be an interview itself.
Your resume, dazzling as it may be, is just one in a pile of resumes. This implies that out of the huge number of job applicants, a very small percentage ever get interview calls based on this interaction. This is primarily because a lot of students are applying for jobs, which makes it difficult for an individual to remember names and profiles.
I had the opportunity to have dinner with a family as a part of a cross-cultural interaction program. The person whose house I was invited to was a part of the recruiting committee of Lenovo. He told me that a recruiter does not read a resume for more than 10 seconds, owing to the huge number of applications.
This means that if you wish to apply for a job, you must highlight your skills properly, or else the recruiters will lose interest in you immediately. The resume should be a clear and concise document of your skills and projects in which you used those skills.
A good approach to build a resume is to mention your skills immediately after your name and contact details, rather than later on in the document. This ensures that anyone who reads the document gets an idea of your skill set immediately and may proceed if your skills match their requirements. Analysis of the skill set of an applicant is the primary filter applied by recruiters. If your skill set matches their requirements, you will easily cross the first screening of the resumes, and will probably land an interview.
The second main section in a typical resume contains the projects. Proper description of projects, including the specific skills and tools used and your contribution, is essential to make your candidacy stronger and appealing to the recruiters.
A resume should also be job specific. You cannot apply to a data scientist’s job on the profile of a communication engineer. Students especially need to keep this in mind. We often think that highlighting all our skills and projects is a good approach to designing a resume. Tempting as it may be, this approach has multiple disadvantages. It shows a lack of focus on the part of an individual and a student may end up skipping relevant projects in a bid to include major projects from different streams.
I had the opportunity to discuss my resume with some industry professionals. The information I got is quite useful for all students, who may not know it owing to a lack of experience. Most companies use the Application Tracking System to keep track of the applications they received. The latest strides in artificial intelligence and natural language processing have been used innovatively by industries in their screening process. If a resume does not contain some of the keywords (generally given in their job description), the candidate is automatically rejected.
The only way for students to get past this form of screening is to read the job description of the major companies and customize their resume accordingly. I can say from my experience that this approach is successful much of the time, and many of my friends who customized their resume in this fashion ended up landing an interview.
What kind of job you are applying for is another thing to keep in mind when tailoring your resume. If an undergrad student in our university wishes to apply to a research position, for instance, the best approach would be to highlight their research projects and publications in their resume. If on the other hand they wish to apply to a more industry-oriented job, they should highlight their industrial internships.
The resources offered by the university should be utilized properly. The Career Development Center is always ready to help job applicants to improve their resume. Its team is experienced and can work along with students to polish their resume and make it ready for the industry. These resources can be put to great use by the students.
Remember that the world is not as supportive as the Wolfpack, and competition is inevitable. You need to put your best foot forward, and if your resume is lacking in the crucial aspects mentioned above, your chances are diminished from the outset. Make your resume as striking as possible and enjoy the fruits of your hard work.
