Day: September 11, 2013

All About The Resume – Part 1: Why You Must Send a Resume in Your Application Packet

Dilip Oak's Academy

 

Why Sending a Resume Matters

Resumes (pronounced re-syoo-mayz) are included in your application for an American university for three reasons:

  • firstly, to give the admissions committee a brief snapshot of your academic performance – academic performance carries great weightage in deciding whether you will be admitted or not and in some universities admissions committees form their first impressions of your academic performance by looking at your resume
  • secondly, to present your qualifications for a research or teaching assistantship – for this reason remember to attach a covering letter to your resume requesting that it be circulated to interested professors
  • thirdly, to provide details of projects, seminars, industrial training etc. that you could not include in your SOP because of the word limit

All About the Resume – Part 2: Make It Easy for Professors Select You

Dilip Oak's Academy

Why the Resume is Different from a Bio Data or a CV – and Why It Should Stay that Way

Note that the resume is different from a bio data or a curriculum vitae (CV) in several respects: whereas bio datas and CVs are all-inclusive, data bank-like documents written in chronological order, resumes are compact, focused documents written in reverse chronological order that highlight only the most relevant and important information for course (or post) being applied for. So, don’t turn your resume into a Bio Data or CV – that would defeat the very purpose of the document.

Your resume should contain only the relevant information because professors are busy people who are hard pressed for time: if you bury the information they need in a sea of irrelevancies they might lose interest – and you might lose a position they might otherwise have awarded you. In other words, don’t hide the information that tells them that you are the candidate that they are looking for: make sure that when they see your resume they can’t miss it.

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All About the Resume – Part 3: How to Create a Snapshot of Yourself in One Brief Page

Dilip Oak's Academy

Tips for Writing Resumes

A resume, like all other application documents, is designed to answer one crucial question: “Why should you be selected?” Of all the application documents (the SOP, the recommendation letters, and the transcripts), the resume answers that question in the briefest yet most comprehensive way. In order to achieve its goals, the resume must present the most important facts about you in their most concentrated form, in the smallest possible space. This will enable it to present a compelling snapshot of your strengths as a candidate and persuade the Admissions Committee that you are a good choice. Here are some tips that will help your resume to achieve its intended goals:

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