As a student looking for a new job, it can be quite time consuming to figure out the right way to build an attractive resume. For example, you might question what to include to make your overall profile attractive.
In this blog, some of Agoda’s top recruiters share the five most important tips that will make your resume appealing to employers.
1. Read the job description (really)
Spend time to understand the job you’re applying for by going through each section of the job description. This is important for two reasons: 1) It builds your preparedness to answer questions in the interview. 2) It wires you to reflect and collect instances which reflect to specific parts of the job.
We recommend spending at least 15-20 minutes reading each part of the job description to better align your resume and cover letter (if applicable).
Pro tip: include keywords that match with what the job requires.
2. Showcase relevant skills
Don’t forget to showcase your skills that are relevant to the role. It’s also important that you do not include everything you can do – relevancy is the keyword here. For example, if the role requires analytical skills, make sure you state analytical tools you can use, whether it’s R, SQL, Tableau or Excel. Or if you are applying for an engineering role, adding specific programming languages required for the role would be helpful. You may also consider including your experience with opensource, mobile app or web development, and adding a link to your GitHub profile.
3. Emphasize your academic history
If this is your first job and you do not have relevant experiences to showcase, you can choose to put your academic background in focus. Besides your field of study and name of your school and graduation year, it’s worth adding academic honors and recognitions. Share your GPA and other achievements obtained during your study to show your hard work. Another great addition would be to highlight the courses that are related to the job.
4. Include extracurricular activities and projects with measurable results and impacts
Extracurricular activities are important anchors that show what you value and who you are. Remember that companies hire you for more than just work, they also hire you for your ability to work in a team, your leadership skills, your coordination ability and more. For example, at Agoda we have four values that help us identify and hire students who would be a great fit to the Agoda culture. Sharing non-study related activities will help employers discover the other interesting sides of yours.
For example, you may have led a volunteering project, organized a camp or won a hackathon, etc.. Don’t forget to include that in your resume.
Pro tip: Focus on explaining results and impact of the activities. For example, having led an annual fund-raising project to help students in rural area by creating a social media campaign with volunteering members and successfully raising $2,000 (exceeding 150% of the target within 3 months).
5. Proofread your resume before submitting
Especially your contact info. All the effort would go to waste if you put a wrong phone number or email. It’s also important to ensure that you keep the font-type and font-size consistent. A clean and error-free resume will make you look more professional. You may also ask your friend or family member to help proofread the resume for you. Most importantly, we recommend submitting resumes in the PDF format to prevent unpredictable changes when opened on other computers.
Now you know how to craft your resume, put that into action and apply now!
