A Good Resume: Key to get the interview

This might be interesting to the fresh or recent graduates.

After 4 years of hard work in KUET, I know that many of our fresh graduates are often frustrated at the beginning of their career  if they don't get enough calls for interview.

One might have thought that reference is the key to succeed to get an interview or job in Bangladesh. I will tell you about reference sometimes in future - just one comment for today is: reference is very important to the employer for valid reasons, it's not unfair what we used to think in our culture in Bangladesh.

Let's back to resume. What is the purpose of a resume? Simple answer: to get an interview. A good resume is the key to be short listed for the interview.

One most important thing about resume is - you don't write it for yourself but you write it for someone who needs a person with a set of skills. Skills that outside of his/her requirements are nearly valueless for him/her. For instance, if you are a Java programmer and applying for such position, and you are also fantastic in graphic design (for example, photoshop/Illustrator), it doesn't make any sense to include your graphic design skills in your resume. It doesn't carry any value to the reader as graphic designing skill is valueless for that position. I should say that it diverts reader's concentration to something else that he/she doesn't need.

Thumb point is you sould be very specific and precise. Think about a rifle shooter, his/her target is the middle point inside all the red circles. If he/she also concentrates on the red circles, it is likely that he/she would miss the target.

I have attached a wonderful document how to write a great resume (source: Harvard University), how to prepare for interview etc. You can start reading from page 6. Spend a couple of hours reading and understanding the document, I am hopeful that you will get return of your valuable time on reading the document.

I am writing about this because, I was involved in a few recruitement processes in Bangladesh in 2002 and found that writing resume is very common problem - from fresh graduates to experienced people. Your resume must stand out, your reader must say, "wow, this is the one I am looking for".

Remember, from a pile of hundred resumes for one position, reader  spends only a few seconds to scan your resume, if he/she likes it in one glance,  he/she must separates it to go through again carefully which eventually leads to shortlist.

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