Final placement season is approaching and understandably a lot of B-schoolers are apprehensive given that the first few hours of Day Zero can have a big impact on the kind of life one leads post MBA. Chances are that 99 out of 100 final year MBAs will not have a clue as to what to do for the rest of their lives (Ok I know most will immediately raise up their hands and say “Hey! I will set up my own Bizness you’ll see and beg to be hired”) and there’s rarely anyone who has a well-laid out path to what they want to do. The well-laid out paths hence are the ones which the suits who turn out to interview us lay down and there’s usually a scramble to tread on those paths. Oops just noticed that I digressed and this blog post was supposed to help those who were making their resumes tailor it better for the firms they desire. So back to the same.
Well I’ve only been behind the scenes of the recruitment process at a consulting firm so finance guys pls note that mortal harm may be done to your cv by taking this advice seriously. Fin never seemed as glamorous as pre-Bschool after my lifelong understanding of Debit/Credit was reversed dramatically in the first session on Fin 101. It took me one term to understand why is debit/credit different for banks than other people and five more terms passed before I could still not understand how to balance the bloody sheet. The “Unbalanced sheet” is one of those things which gives a “still-incomplete” feeling to life and makes me want to go back and balance at least one sheet properly in the Fin 101 exam in term 1. Aahh..Such Bliss just thinking of how fulfilling it will be to vanquish that great enemy!
But it won’t be mine, I know. So before I drive the rest of you away apprehensive about taking advice from a complete loser who’s sole motto in life is to balance a sheet, here goes my invaluable advice in bullet points.(One final Digression: I’m assuming all people reading this make a one pager CV in bullet points, if you don’t pls do so. Two-page CV makers in Indian Bschools are of two kinds
a. Those who want to dump in all their achievements starting from their first grade rhyming contest and also think that it’s cool to write a short story about what they did at work (Oh yeah I fixed bugs and exceeded the bug-fixing target by 300%. Those bugs were a particularly creepy kind and would’ve put Dan Brown’s “Deception Point” to shame. Was commended by my manager for the same ..blah blah..You got it rite?)
b. Those who don’t have that big a dump but still want to do it seeing other folks (Yuck!)
Hmmm..Thats not MECE(you better know what that means if you’re sitting for consulting firms!) but will hopefully convey the message to make a one-pager CV )
1. Your shortlist will be decided by around 10-15 points on your CV. I mean points and not lines. So a single point about you winning some major competition can come in two lines where you mention the competition in one line and the associated goodies (prize money, tv/print appearance, Pappus/pappis/lappus/jhappis all ) in other line. So spend time in bolstering the major points which you think boster your CV
2. Associated to the first point, we all know there’re 42 lines in a one-pager CV. Now pls don’t scratch your head searching for that last line. While perusing CVs, you won’t even know whether there’re 38 or 42 lines in the CV you read so chill if you’ve 38 or ever 36 lines
3. Associated to the first point again, try to bring those 10-15 points as upfront as possible. So if you have the academic section at top, you can club your major projects and competitions with academics of course massaging the right words
4. I remember my seniors consistently asking me to make my CV less cluttered and I consistently used to ignore them thinking the more filled up the CV looks, the better it is. Well that partly explains why I consistently got lesser shortlists. Naah, Don’t worry its not as serious as it sounds. Just don’t make it too texty or in other words don’t remove all line spacings/ borders to fit in your points. Take a printout on a normal paper or open in normal pdf without zooming to 200% and see how it looks. If its ok to read, things should be fine.
5. It’s better to be cautious as far as grammatical mistakes are concerned because there might be someone in the reviewing team who gets pissed off thinking “OMG! How can one have such silly mistakes in so important a document”. However its not that big a deal for most who’ve been on the other side not too long back
6. You might be done with your past but your past will never be done with you. It will come back to haunt you unless you’re among the lucky few who’ve topped in all exams Kindergarten onwards as the guys from the well-known institute of management down south claim themselves to be. So understand that the consultants have weightage for all parameters and academics occupy a high weightage and hence no matter how much effort you put in your CV it might just come up short on the screening radar. And to be honest, it also makes a little sense because the environment inside requires you to be on your toes most of the time which a lot of us obviously don’t do in academics thus making it easy for the faceless shortlister. Hopefully realizing this will save much heartburn for later on
7. But yeah, please do apply. It makes the recruiter feel good about himself \m/
8. Once done with your CV, don’t be afraid to flaunt it. Catch hold of any random senior (who’s got a PPO from a day zero firm) and ask him to review it. Repeat the process till they shut their hostel doors and flee the adda leaving their belongings upon hearing the thump of your feet. Strike fear into their hearts, make them shiver and give you respect! Ok, thoda jyada ho gaya, just make people review your CV
9. As an addendum to the above, stop reviews when one guy asks you to reverse a point which another guy has just changed. When that happens a few times ,it means that your CV in terms of form is near perfection and the reviewers are mouthing gobbledook to show their value addition and gyaan quotient.
10. Finally as the last point to all the awesome insights given above which I’m sure none of the gazillion websites giving gyaan on CV-making have been able to give you, Know that your job will only be as good as the best CV that you can make but realize that the best jobs in the world don’t require any CV. Understand what I mean? No? I’ll give you a hint. Think the Gan….(The following line has been Sibbalized owing to the new Indian social media policy) Hey! I was just giving a hint! #idiot^&*%^$##$*&
