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Crafting a compelling curriculum vitae (CV) is crucial, especially for fresh university graduates. Your education section serves as the cornerstone of your CV, shaping your career trajectory. Here are essential tips to tailor-make this section, ensuring your CV stands out without being excessively lengthy. If you find yourself at a career crossroads, don't fret. Embrace diverse experiences, as they often enrich your professional journey. I navigated from engineering to IT, then delved into sales, marketing, and eventually recruitment and executive search. Despite initial uncertainty, I discovered passion and fulfillment in each role. Remember, every experience, whether deemed wasted or invested, contributes to your growth and versatility. Now, let’s delve into the crucial elements of crafting your education section: Education Importance: For fresh graduates, qualifications, training, and projects take precedence. However, learning is a lifelong endeavor, regardless of age. Continuous education enhances expertise and adaptability. Experience First: Unless freshly graduated, prioritize experience over education. Recent job roles often carry more weight in securing employment than alma mater. Reverse Chronological: Arrange educational background in reverse chronological order, starting with the latest or highest degree attained. However, prioritize older coursework if it aligns closely with job requirements. Omit Dates: Exclude graduation dates, as relevance lies in possessing the degree, not when it was obtained. Highlight Honors: If you graduated with honors, such as summa cum laude, emphasize these distinctions. While GPA is optional, showcasing academic achievements adds credibility. Include Continuing Education: Incorporate ongoing or online courses to bolster your educational profile, demonstrating commitment to skill enhancement. Skills, Awards, and Interests List Your Skills: Create a section detailing relevant skills for the position, excluding basic proficiencies like email or Microsoft Word. Highlight specialized skills and certifications pertinent to the role. Subdivide Skills: Organize skills into distinct categories, such as language proficiency or software expertise, for clarity and emphasis. Show Personality: Consider including an “Interests” section showcasing hobbies relevant to the job. Align personal pursuits with professional aspirations to convey well-roundedness. Avoid Controversial Interests: Exercise discretion when sharing personal interests to avoid potential bias. Focus on activities that reflect positively on your character and align with the job role. Boast Your Awards: Include awards and accolades received, emphasizing their significance and relevance. Whether company-specific honors or personal achievements highlight their impact on your performance. Crafting an effective CV requires meticulous attention to detail and a strategic presentation of your qualifications and experiences. By following these guidelines, you can tailor your education section to reflect your strengths and aspirations succinctly. Remember, your CV is a dynamic document that evolves with your professional journey, so keep it updated and relevant to your career goals.

It is a myth that the ideal length of your resume should be one page. In fact I have read resumes that are one page to up to 13 pages. Of course a 13 page resume gets too lengthy and time consuming so I have not read all of it. But most resumes tend to range between a single page and three pages. When to Use a One-Page Resume When you are a Fresh Graduate: As a fresh graduate, work experience is not one of your strengths and hence the main area of focus is going to be your education, skills, languages, project work, references and your career objective. The is not going to be too much information to warrant a longer resume. When You are Changing Careers: Changing careers will not require you to list your professional expertise and accomplishments in your earlier roles, but will need to be designed keeping your target job in mind. Hence your education, training, key skills and work experience will contain less information. Make sure your resume clearly directs the reader to your new ambition else the hiring manager will be reading irrelevant information and most likely reject your application. Focus on transferable skills and new training/education and make a much stronger case as to why you’re a great candidate for this particular role. When You Have Not Changed Jobs: If you have worked for only one or two employers even after 15-20 years, then focus on an achievement based resume. There is no need to describe 40 points in your job description. You are best positioned for a brief and to the point resume. Statistically 50-80% hiring managers read a single page resume. When to Use a Two-Page Resume A two page resume is ideal when you have eight or more years of professional experience, several qualifications, achievements, projects and key skills. You have more space to incorporate relevant content, highlight achievements and brief job description points. The last 10 years of your professional career is most important to hiring managers and decision makers. You can omit part time or internship roles early on in your career and have more recent achievements highlighted. Statistically 60% hiring managers read resumes that are 2 pages. When to Use Three Pages or More This type of resume length is more appropriate for candidates who not only have extensive work experience, but also publications, patents and licenses in addition to 10+ years of work experience, an array of qualifications, skills and achievements. Statistically 30%-40% hiring managers read resume that are 2 pages. You can create links to external sites (incorporate permission or protection) to reduce on-page content. Formatting Your CV is Basic and Imperative The length of your resume is not as important as the contents. Hence there should be a bigger focus of creating an "achievement based resume" highlighting "key selling points" that makes your resume stand out. Ensure that your resume is formatted for margin and paragraph spacing. Use simple fonts and make sure there is same font size (10-12 is ideal) for all text and the same for all side headings(11-12 is ideal). Make best use of "keywords". These keywords are noticed immediately and it may be advisable to "bold" them. Keywords are those words that are work or industry specific like terminologies, brand, model numbers etc. eg "balance sheet", "sales proposal", "SEO", "consumer electronics", "profit" etc. Maintain 10-12 bullet points per job description. Develop an achievement based resume. Every point must contain an accomplishment. In case it does not then use the most important job description points first. Try and use charts, infographics. Avoid cramming too much text. Smart name your resume e.g. Dinesh DSouza, Sales Manager. Do not save your resume using names such as "CV.doc" OR "DineshDSouza.pdf". Use a combination of your name and position. Do a print preview to see how it appears. Maximize space utilization from left to right. Avoid "space pockets". Most hiring managers do not discount candidates based on the length of their CV. However, you would want them to read your resume and make an informed decision. Long resume have the disadvantage of dissuading the reader from reading its contents, even though they provide a lot of information. Remember, the objective of your resume is "to get you an interview". The objective of your interview is "to get the job". It is best to reserve detailed information to be shared at the interview.

You have just won a massive order! Great, Congratulations. You trained your entire team to perform independently...Well Done Indeed. You achieved your annual sales target in 8 months... Outstanding!. You might have a long list of achievements, but what if you are so passionate about your job that only you know about your accomplishments and no one else knows about how much your contributions have helped your company achieve profitable results. When salary increments, promotions and bonus' are being announced, you may just be left out. The people making the decisions need to know what you’ve done. You need to make sure your manager and the rest of your company is well aware of your contributions. Here are five tips for getting credit for your work. 1. Keep Your Manager Informed You should not assume that your manager knows what you’re doing, the great progress you’ve made, or the obstacles you’ve overcome to get the job done. Make it your mission to provide that information. If you wait until your annual review, your accomplishments will be old news. You will be in line with your co-workers who are also pushing for their own accomplishments to be presented. Your Strategy Should be Make sure your manager knows the status of each of your major projects, at least a weekly update . Highlight how you’re leveraging relationships with other teams or colleagues and making him or her look good in the process (e.g., “Jack in marketing was confused about the pricing strategy, so I brought him up to speed based on the guidance you laid out. We’re both on track with the goals you set for margin”). By having regular conversations, you’ll remind your manager of your value—and keep it in the front of his or her mind on an ongoing basis, instead of just once a year. 2. Focus on Results As a manager, I found that during regular update meetings with my team, they tended to focus on sharing the activities they’d completed throughout the week, from making phone calls to holding meetings to creating power point presentations. However, while those types of activities are certainly necessary, what I really wanted to know is the impact those activities had on the organization. Your Strategy Should be Instead of giving your manager a list of tasks you’ve accomplished, explain what those tasks mean in the bigger picture. So, rather than: “Last week I met with 10 of our suppliers on rebidding the widget production, and then I had a conference call with the team to share our progress.” Try this: “I met with 10 suppliers last week. Three are seriously hungry for the business, and I suspect we’ll be able to increase our projected savings by at least 5% based on negotiations. That’ll be worth $1.5 million in revenue. I’ll get you the final number once completed.” 3. Get Social Proof When you do something awesome and your colleagues/clients express appreciation, ask them to speak up on you behalf. Managers especially love hearing from satisfied customers, and this is a great way to collect feedback on your performance! A brief note to your manager or team lead outlining how you helped achieve a desired result, overcome an obstacle, or move the project forward will generate visibility. Your Strategy Should be When someone acknowledges your work, ask him or her to make it official: “Thanks for recognizing me in the project wrap-up meeting this morning. The results we got together were over the top. Would you be willing to send a note to my manager about my contributions to the project? She holds you in high regard, and it would be a tremendous professional validation coming from you.” 4. Get in Front of Decision Makers The power of presenting your ideas and results well, carries just as much sway in your career as actually doing the work. When you make the right presentation to your boss, you’ll create a memorable impression. Soon, that manager will know your name, which will give you a boost when it comes to performance reviews and special projects. Your Strategy Should be Identify one of your strongest projects that you feel confident talking about. Get the chance to present the progress of the project to your Director. A good presentation will catch attention and present you as a confident speaker. Make your manager look great in the process. 5. Take Your Stolen Ideas Back There will undoubtedly be a time in your career when you run an idea by someone to get some feedback, and he’ll love it! He’ll love it so much, in fact, that he’ll turn around and present it as his own idea. This can be extremely frustrating, but you do have some options. Your Strategy Should be Now, you’re not going to interrupt the meeting where the topic is being discussed and say, “Hey, that was my idea!” But you can present more details, numbers, and data to support your suggestion. In other words, take control of the conversation to direct the spotlight back to you. For example, “Yes, the numbers show that sector is projected to grow by 12% next year. Also, I talked with the logistics team a couple of weeks ago about this, and they are ready to build more capacity into the system. Competitors haven’t ventured out there yet, so we’ll be ahead of the game.” Boom. You now own it again. —and you’ll end up with the credit. We all need to be good team players. It is amazing what can be accomplished when it doesn’t matter who gets the credit. But remember, that teams aren’t promoted; individuals are.

Phone or Video interviews can be less stressful (if you are worried) since you are not physically across the interviewers' desk. You are in a more comfortable environment (you can choose where to take the interview call) and you can choose your surroundings. You would have obviously researched the company, and the interviewers and prepared yourself for questions that could be asked. Phone Interview: Make sure you are comfortably seated with desk space and a connected laptop (for access to research if required) Your CV is in front of you with any notes that you think you may require to refer to. A noise-free surrounding - It only enhances communication. A simple formal introduction when you answer the call. Something like "good morning, this is XYZ speaking" and definitely not "Hello" or "Hi" Good listening skills since the disadvantage of observing your interviewer's body language or lack of physical presence may require even more attention. Always let the interviewer complete the question before jumping to give an assumed answer. Write down the interviewer's name so that you may address the person as Mr or Ms. ABC. This makes it more personal. Pause a few seconds after each question - you know that the interviewer has completed the question and you can gather your thoughts before answering. Video  Interview: Be prepared in smart casual or formal attire. Make sure you are comfortably seated with deskspace Ensure you have logged in and tested the video connection at least 10 minutes prior to your interview. Your CV is on your desk with any notes that you think you may require to refer to. Noise-free surroundings to avoid any disturbances. A simple formal introduction when you answer the call. Something like "good morning Mr or Ms. XYZ and thank you for this call" and definitely not "Hello" or "Hi" A neat-looking background since the interviewer can see your surroundings, which must look good. While phone and video interviews have seen a dramatic increase these last few months, it is best to practice the maximum use of digital technology for future interviews. This also includes screen sharing for presentations. You will now save a lot more time - travel time, struggling to park time, finding the venue time, etc. All the very best.

There are tons of questions that an interviewer can ask you and hundreds of questions that you ask the interviewer. It is a two-way street. But there are a few words that can raise a "red flag" right away. Here are some Important Interview tips for you. Below are some ordinary words that you must avoid at your next job interview No. A closed-ended question may always lead you to give a Yes or No answer. Either way, it is important that you elaborate. When you know the answer is negative a plain No will not suffice. e.g Have you worked on JD Edwards? and if you haven't, I would rather say " I have not worked on JD Edwards, but I have worked on Microsoft Dynamics which is very similar to JDE and I will practice and work on it well during my notice period with my current employer so I can join with hands-on knowledge JD Edwards" ​ Er… Um… If you do not have anything to say, do not say a word. You can rather think silently for something positive to share regarding your experience, knowledge, skills, or planned education. ​ OMG, groovy....? Do not use slang at an interview. You want to come across as professional and not urban. ​ Sure, cool... These words can be too casual for a professional workplace and interview. Remember this is not Facebook chat. You could be interviewing at a top multinational where presentation, professionalism, and delivery are more important than work experience. You should be presenting the best side of yourself, not a casual version. ​ We We mean a "team" or a group of people. It is not your team that is interviewing for this role, but you are. You deserve it. Use “I” as much as possible. ​ Dedicated, motivated, team player... Empty talk means nothing. If you want to convey your dedication or motivation, share an example from your past work experience to make your claims believable. What challenged you and how did you handle it? You will not believe how many millions of CVs say and interviewers hear "I am a very dedicated, loyal, and motivated individual looking for a good company to work, where I can contribute my experience and skills for my own growth and the development of the company." ​ Leverage, synergy, ideation… Do not use too much jargon. A sentence flooded with jargon may sound very pretentious or fake. Besides, you do not want the interviewer to feel that he/she needs to look up the dictionary to understand what you just said. You may be just too complicated for the company. ​ “Hit the ground running,” “Circle back…” These words are just too much "fluff" and hold little meaning. Best to leave them out. ​ Hate "Hate" is a very strong word. Hating something speaks strongly about your views, so you must be very careful about how you use it. Worst, if you use the "hate" word against your boss or former colleagues, you may have just nailed the "coffin for a job prospect". ​ Perfectionist No human can be perfect. It is see-through for most interviewers, knowing that the answer is untrue. I have interviewed thousands of candidates and I remember asking some of them to share one weakness. I very often receive a reply "I am a perfectionist". I would rather prefer an honest answer and most importantly what steps you are taking to improve. Not using the above 10 words will help portrait you as a genuine candidate, a genuine person.