You’ve experienced the joy (and indeed relief) of collecting your degree and graduating from university. It’s an achievement of which you should rightly feel proud, although in the bigger picture it’s a means to an end rather than an end in itself. Now that you have that impressive qualification in the bag, it’s time to make the most of it and forge a lasting career – although that’s a whole lot easier said than done.
The unfortunate reality for graduates today is that the job market is extremely competitive, and you’ll need to be very sharp – and even a bit opportunistic – to fend off other applicants for a vacancy. After your graduation, the first step towards securing full-time employment is to have a resume that a recruiter simply cannot ignore. Amazingly, this does not come all that easily to intelligent, highly educated university graduates.
Without an excellent resume, an applicant simply doesn’t stand a chance of being hired, or even being considered for interview. Recruiters have little time to waste, so if they see that a candidate hasn’t even put together an adequate resume, they will simply dump the application and move on. Worse still, recruiters are swamped with the same basic mistakes that constantly appear on job applications – poor spelling, sloppy layout, outrageous claims, and unnecessary information.
Australian company Ayers (www.ayers.com.au) has produced this infographic which advises job seekers on how to write a resume. It pinpoints what needs to be included and, just as importantly, what should not be included at all. If you’ve recently graduated and you’re trying to land your first full-time job, take a few minutes to read the information below.
Image by Colin Cuthbert
This article was contributed by guest author Colin Cuthbert.