Seven Things in Resume that Caught My Attention

One random weekend, I was bored and decided to drop my resume to Human Resources (HR) email of Market Research Firm in Indonesia. I did my research and found roughly about 15 firms, then I deposited my resume to those 15 firms. The following week, I received interview and/or test invitation from 3 different firms. By percentage, it is 20% successful rate of resume screening. Well, 20% is not really a great number, but 3 different invitations in a week could be a major problem for someone who already working like me.

I would say that my resume is not really that great, but it is sufficient enough to catch some people attentions to, at least, give me a chance for interview and/or test.

Before I continue, I would say that this post personally from my experiences and personal judgement,  because I do not have any training background in HR or resume coaching.

Yup, this time I would like to explore a topic that important to everyone who recently graduated: RESUME!

I have seen a lot of different kind of resumes, from the bad to the good one (in my personal opinion). Due to my track record and randomness in joining hiring process from different companies, I know that my resume is acceptable. Due to this as well, some of my friends asked me to check their resume or requested my resume instead. In my opinion, there are some mistakes that I've seen from resumes that I checked. Following are the list that really caught my attention whenever I checked a resume or perhaps let's pretend that I am an HR.

1. Longer than 2 pages resume
If you have 10-15 years working experiences, it is fine to have longer than 2 pages resume (in my opinion), but if you are just graduated from your bachelor degree, my first reaction will be: WHAT THE HELL DID YOU PUT IN YOUR RESUME?!

2. Nice layout attracts me ...
I define nice layout from the flow of the resume and how you make a full-use of those (2 pages) space.

I have seen too may resumes with so many spaces. This is one of the reasons why some people have a resume longer than 2 pages. On top of that, some people do not know which one to put first after education part: working experiences, co-curricular/leadership experiences,  achievements, or skills. From my personal opinion, put the one that you really want to talk most and more first. I have seen a few resumes that put achievements first after the education part, meanwhile in my resume I put achievements as my 4th part. Whichever you choose to put first, make sure it is really something that can catch attention of others when they screen it.

3. ... but relevant content makes me "stay" longer
There are some people who put every single thing from their life into their resume. That will be a total disaster (in my opinion)! Why would you put if you are a member of organization A, B, C, D, while at the same time you are the head division of organization E, F, G. These kind of listing-everything-resume is another reason why some resumes could hit more than 2 pages. In my personal opinion, it reflects that you can't really focus your energy on something that you really want to do. It is better if you focus on the latter, elaborate and highlight more of your experiences and achievements instead.

4. One-two liner for every points you put
Write concisely for the job and title descriptions or achievements is important. Such a long-winded text in resume rarely impress people, unless it is a paragraph/story.

5. Play with one or two other colours
By default, the font of your resume will be in black. It is no harm to add another colour for your font, to make your point, highlight, or hierarchy of header and sub-header clearer. As long your resume does not look like a rainbow. My favorite colour for this case will be Blue.

6. Availability period
You do not want to go for interview and/or test which the position need to filled immediately, while you need to give one-month notice to your current employer, do you? If you already put, and you get a call, it means they can wait for one-month notice period, don't they?

7. A (nice formal) picture of you
Most of the time when I went for job interview, the picture in my resume will be something that lightened the nervous situation. The interviewers normally will say "you look different from picture". Well, at least from my experiences, it indicates that they read your resume beforehand, which is good.

So, is there anything that caught your attention whenever screen a resume? or do you even agree with me on above points?