How To Build A Resume With No Experience: Fill & Download for Free

First, consider this letter you are writing will represent you. It’s the only thing about you your potential employer can see.Hold on to this thought. We will come back to it.Set aside all the reasons why you want, need or deserve a job. The place where you are interviewing is wondering how you can help them, not how they can help you. Focus on that instead.Think about the things you have done that might be considered a transferable skill. Some examples: writing, places where you have shown you are responsible, places where you have demonstrated you can handle multiple priorities, places where you have exhibited common sense.Keep in mind that you don’t really know what can count as a transferable skill until you know what kind of job you are applying for. In other words: your resume should be tailored to the job you are interested in getting.Consider anything you’ve done that gives you a boost - by this I mean “you will not have to spend too much time training me, because I’ve done a version of this before.” This is why internships are such a plus.Is there anything your future employer can see that might give them the wrong impression? Ask yourself this as you reconsider things you’ve posted on social media. Employers can and often do look through everything.Finally, remember when I said your resume will represent you? Be extra careful with how it’s written, with grammar, punctuation, format. It says a lot to have in your hands something clean, light, simple, easy to read.

Just as the best product is the one that gets the job done, the best resumes are those that communicate your skills and accomplishments in a clear, effective way.Graphical resumes are, in particular, terrible. Unless you can be one of the lucky few to get a bunch of media attention for a nifty format, you will hurt yourself far more than you'll help yourself if you use a graphical resume. Graphical resumes are typically difficult to read and they sacrifice content -- your hard-earned accomplishments -- in favor of pretty pictures and useless graphics. See: Why Your Awesome, Creative Resume Isn’t Working.A good resume format has the following attributes:Multiple Columns: Multiple columns make it easier for someone to quickly skim your company titles, positions, schools, and other key facts. It also stores this information in a very compact way, allowing more space to list things you've done. (Note: do not use one of those templates where the entire left part of the resume is a column for the categories. They waste a lot of space.)Short and Sweet: People only spend about 5 - 30 seconds reading your resume, and this isn't enough to read even a full page of content. When your make your resume too long, it just dilutes the quality of each thing on your resume. Focus on just the highlights. One page is often all you need, but if you have 10+ years of experience and multiple roles, you can justify at most two pages. That's it though.The Right Sections: No objectives (they're useless). Summary sections can be okay, but they're usually not (after all, if your resume is short and concise, then you don't really need a summary section).Use Tables: Okay, this is really nit picky, but it's a personal pet peeve of mine. The way to make multiple columns in Microsoft Word is with tables (with invisible columns), not by hitting 'space' dozens of times.Bulleted -- No Long Text Blobs: Again, you only have about 15 seconds to make an impression. Large blocks of text will not be read. Keep your bullets to 1 - 2 lines (and, ideally, about half or more of those bullets should be one line).Appropriate Use of Fonts and Formatting: You don't want to go overboard with fonts and formatting. However, a little bit of formatting (bold, italics, etc) can be useful to organize your resume.So with that said, here are two formats that work perfectly well:This resume can be downloaded here: http://www.careercup.com/resume.This resume can be downloaded here: http://www.thegoogleresume.com/resources.htmlThe first resume is a format I designed myself, whereas the second one is a format required by Wharton's MBA program.

It is said that a piece of paper cannot define you completely. That is true. But when you apply for a job, sometimes a resume is all the information that the firm has on you to make a decision. In that way, a resume is a reflection of your personality, and it is important to send the right signals to the firm.From the perspective of job applications in India, especially during college placements, here are some tips on how to write a good resume:Number of pages: If you are applying for a core job, the number of pages should not be more than 2. For non-core jobs, since you don't need to mention the technical details to that level of depth, you should try to keep the resume within 1 page. A firm has to scan multiple applications, and they don't have the bandwidth to go through long resumes.Separate sections: The resume should have separate sections for academic achievements, professional experience or internships, extra-curricular achievements, positions of responsibility and so on. The order of the sections depends on which section is the strongest.Proper formatting: The resume should be well formatted, with consistent and legible font. The individual points should be mentioned using bullets. There should be the right amount of space between sections. The important phrases should be emphasized using italics or bold font.Crisp points: Each point within the CV should not span more than one line. If you have a point which spans two lines, try to break it into two separate one-line points.Lot of numbers: Firms, especially finance and consulting firms, love numbers. Try to have numbers in the resume, such as revenue impact, number of customers impacted, sponsorship value, and so on.No spelling errors: This is very important. If your resume has a spelling error, it means you did not find it important enough to read it properly before submitting it to the firm. Nothing irks firms more than spelling errors.A resume is generally the first point of contact between you and the firm. And first impressions do matter a lot.