Revised Resume Format

Your resume, along with your cover letter is the first of the many documents that you will have to give to your employer in case you get hired. Through your resume, your potential employer will know your educational background as well as your experience, if any.

Traditionally, and the easiest way to write your experience is to write them in chronological order. That means you write down your most recent job experience first or you could start on your first job and then move on to the latest. It is simple, and you can easily recall them and write them without any notes.

But writing your resume in a chronological order is usually a bad idea if you are a fresh graduate. As a fresh graduate, you could write your experience in your resume that may not be related to the industry. Oftentimes, you start to get a job from other industries that usually offer minimum salary.

Some of these experiences may not sound really good to the screener and might cost you your chances of getting hired for the job. Jobs such as a greeter in a supermarket may not really sound nice and will not improve your chances of being hired for the job.

These jobs are not necessarily bad but they might give a bad impression to the screener. You might be dubbed as someone who might not have the right experience even though you have the right experience at the bottom.

The reason for this is that the screener does not have the luxury of reading your resume. He will just take a good look at your resume for at least 10 seconds and move on to the next resume.

If you place your experience as a supermarket greeter on top, then the screener will most likely discard your resume and you do not even get to the point of being interviewed.

That is why you should consider an alternative format of resume if you have some job experience that may not reflect your true personality. Instead of writing your resume based on chronological order, write your resume based on the industry or topic. This is commonly referred to as functional wherein you place your job experienced based on what you have done. You can place the most important experience on top so that it will catch the attention of the screener.

If you really do not have any experience at all, it would be better to avoid writing these experiences. They will not disqualify you for it as you are just increasing your chances of getting hired.

On the other hand, if you really do not have anything to write as an experience that will boost your chances of getting hired, look for experience first by being an intern or a volunteer.

This will not give you any pay at all but you should consider this as an investment for the future. You can volunteer for different companies and maybe use their references to increase your chances of getting hired.

Editorial Team at Geekinterview is a team of HR and Career Advice members led by Chandra Vennapoosa.

Editorial Team – who has written posts on Online Learning.


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