Last week, I went to a Career Workshop hosted by the South Asian Student Association (SASA). The workshop consisted of a Resume writing workshop, taking headshots as well as successfully using a LinkedIn profile.
The first thing I learned was that my resume was sub-par in comparison to others. I was lucky enough to recieve help from a fellow SASA member, Lav Patel. Patel was able to provide me with various pointers on how to improve my resume. Most of the advices were pretty simple, but often overlooked. He informed that for every bullet point you have, it should start with “aggressive” verbs, meaning verbs that grab the employers attention, as well as include some sort of number in the bullet point. For example, instead of saying, “Helped kids with homework at my local library,” something more impactful would be, “Assisted students of grades 5th-12th with math,science and english asssignments at my local library.”
Also, using lines to separate sections in your resume looks more professional than white space, as well as it “fills up” your resume, for lack of better words. Something that is often forgotten is that your personal information should be the biggest font size than anything else on the paper. Overall it is the minute details that can make the difference of you becoming a potential employee at a multi-million dollar company, or the guy they will “call in a few days.” I was surprised that this workshop took no longer than 15 minutes, but in those 15 minutes I learned some valuable information that will help me out in the long run. I can not wait to attend my next Career Workshop.