Things to remember while sending a CV

Isn’t it frustrating, when we rarely get a response, on sending our resume / CV to Employer’s?
I often format the resumes of my friends and I see many mistakes they make while formatting and sending their resume. I can’t say that the resumes I format are 100% perfect; but I believe that there are some basic things that you need to consider while creating and sending your resume to the employer.
I am sharing my experience in creating a better resume.
What are the common things that we should remember while sending the resume?

• Job Position should be mentioned in the subject line of the email.
• Use proper cover letter as a message while sending your resume to an employer. Do this as a practice to draft a professional mail when you send a mail to anyone, other than your friend.
• Mention the role you are applying for in the cover letter. Do remember that the resume is under the screening with the HR of the company and not the technical team; so make sure that you are clear about the position in the least possible technical term, and it should specify your job profile.
• Confused?; e.g. Say, there is a vacancy for a .Net developer in ABC company and you need to apply for that. Just mention that you are a .Net developer with ‘n’ years of experience; I have seen people who mention all their technical abilities in the cover letter which I think, is very confusing for the HR to screen it out from the huge list of mails they receive.
• Do not send mail to more than one employer at a time and specify the name of the employee / contact person of the employer in the cover letter; remember you are adding their mail ID in the ‘To’ line and not in ‘BCC’
• Make sure that you are having a good signature in the end of your email; People tend to use funny and colorful font as their signature. Just don’t do it. Signature should be clean and should be in a standard format. E.g: Regards, 'Name of the person'. [Contact Number is optional]
• Make sure that you have a professional email address; do not use funny email addresses like lovingfriend18@ymail.com or sweetgirl@gmail.com etc… I prefer a standard professional looking email address like bryan.adams@gmail.com or badams@live.com.
• Similar naming conventions can be used when you name your resumes as well. Do not use just CV.doc or Resume.doc. Instead, be a bit more specific about the resume. E.g.” Neal Gabriel – Resume.doc” or “CV – NealGabriel.doc”
• Avoid using Auto reply option in your professional mail you are using. I used to get very irritated when I receive such mails; so as the HR.

I hope you have an idea about how to send a resume. Now we will discuss about creating a resume.
What are the common things you should remember while creating your resume?

• Make sure that your resume is properly formatted
• Do not use funny fonts. Use Standard fonts like Arial, Times new roman or Tahoma.
• We can make sure that the destination system will definitely support the font you have used in your system
• Use the same font throughout the resume; Header should be differentiated with a bold title rather than a change in the font size.
• Justify align the text. It looks very clean when you take the hard copy of it.
• Make sure that your resume is not exceeding 3 pages.
• Brief your experience and details.
• Limit the projects you have done to 2 or 3
• Ignore/avoid unwanted or irrelevant details; say an experience which is not relevant in the current role which you are applying for.
• Avoid using photographs, certification or any other logo's in your resume.
• Make sure that you have a summary in the very first page that reflects who exactly you are and why you should be hired. (I know, it is very difficult to get a better summary – but you may try with your best.
• Do keep it in mind that the interview will be based on this and you should be sure about what you are writing.
• Project the certificates and awards you have received but not too much
• You don’t have to add the image of the certifications. This will understate the quality of the resume.
• Avoid irrelevant details in the resume
• Do not mention hobbies such as chatting, surfing etc.
• Avoid family details, such as fathers name, mothers name, number of brothers/sisters etc.
• Do specify a valid contact number and an email
• It’s good to have an alternate contact number and an alternate email, if you have one
• Make sure that you have mentioned the current date in the desired section (Signature)

These are the basic things that you should consider while creating and sending a resume. We can imporve this topic as and when we get good suggestions. So, you can comment on this, to make this better. I will add it on the main list, if it seems relevant