New graduates may feel like a small fish in a huge ocean, but you can make a strong start in your career with a rich resume that will make you stand out.
But how can you create a strong resume when you are a new graduate and do not have enough work experience?
First of all, you can take a look at what the modern business world demands, get online training in these areas, and show how open you are to development.
With advancing technology, gaining skills through various types of training across numerous industries, particularly for remote roles, has become easier than ever.
In this article, we’ll share valuable tips on how recent graduates can craft standout resumes.
How Should the Format and Language of a Resume Be?
Before discovering the details, let’s start with the basics: language and format! Here are some key tips for recent graduates on how to craft a CV.
- The language should be clear, concise, and professional. Use short, straightforward sentences and active verbs to highlight your responsibilities and accomplishments.
- Ensure there are no grammar or spelling mistakes, as attention to detail reflects your professionalism.
- Use a simple font like Arial or Calibri, with a size between 10-12 points. Keep it well-organized, with sufficient spacing between sections.
- Save your resume as a PDF to maintain formatting consistency.
- List your work experience in reverse chronological order, with clear descriptions of your roles and achievements.
Format is important, but it’s not everything. What information you include is equally crucial. So, let’s take a look at the essentials of a resume.
The Essentials of a Strong Resume
No matter which department or university you graduated from, a strong resume goes beyond simply listing your degree.
Employers expect more. Your resume serves as a gateway for them to assess how effectively you can apply your education to real-world tasks and challenges.
The better you can express yourself in a resume, the better you can show employers your potential success. Let’s start with the basics!
Personal Information
We say basic, but many people fill in this section incompletely. Your personal information is the first glimpse of you. Also, if you are a new graduate, this is probably the most important part you need to fill out.
In addition to your name, surname, address, and phone number, there are extra moves you can make to show that you are ready for professionalism.
The first of these is a professional email address. Create your email address simple and memorable. Reduce numbers and punctuation as much as possible. Remember, your goal is to have a clean, memorable, and understandable email.
Add your website, portfolio, or LinkedIn account to your personal information if you have one. You can fill your portfolio with projects you have done in your school life. If you don’t have a portfolio, try creating one!
Your Goal
Create a section that describes your goals just below your personal information. You can change this section as you gain work experience.
However, as a new graduate, it is important to first specify the goals you want to achieve in your career. Your career objective should be tailored professionally to the position you’re applying for.
While tools like ChatGPT or other AI platforms can help with brainstorming, it’s crucial to craft your objective in your voice and make it unique. The last thing an employer wants to see is a generic, AI-generated statement.
Education
You don’t have to start from kindergarten in the education section. Some new graduates want to list all the schools they attended to fill out their resumes. However, a concise resume is always better than a resume full of unnecessary information.
Listing your university degree is sufficient in this section. However, education is not just about formal schooling.
Here’s a key tip for new graduates: include certificates from online workshops! These credentials can help you stand out and demonstrate your commitment to continuous learning.
Online workshops allow new graduates to gain the practical knowledge they need as well as create a strong resume. Now, let’s take a look at some online education you can take to enrich your resume!
Online Workshops to Strengthen Your Resume
Of course, you may want to add certifications related to your profession to your resume. We leave this part entirely to you.
The approval of these certificates by certain institutions enhances their credibility. When hiring, employers not only focus on the content of the certification but also on the institution from which it was obtained.
We will advise you to focus on the skills that most employers demand, regardless of profession.
Here are online workshops to strengthen your resume!
Project Management: Navigating Remote and Hybrid Work Models
Gaining skills in project management isn’t just good for management. It’s good for anyone working on a project.
Project management courses will show you how to complete your tasks on time, keep the project moving according to the company’s goals and budget, and achieve successful results.
By gaining expertise in project management tools, you’ll demonstrate to your employer that you’re already familiar with the software used for task distribution and tracking. This minimizes the need for extra training and shows that you’re already a step ahead.
Artificial Intelligence: The Key to the Future
Artificial intelligence is another valuable area where you can enhance your skills through workshops, as AI-powered tools are becoming more prevalent every day.
The main reason for this may be that artificial intelligence increases productivity. It gives employees the chance to take part in more critical tasks by automating repetitive tasks.
The more effectively you demonstrate your ability to use AI, the more likely you are to capture your employer’s attention. AI offers numerous advantages, especially in time management, and can help you sharpen skills in big data processing, generative AI, digital strategies, and design.
However, considering how vast the field of artificial intelligence is, you can understand how many courses are available in this area. Therefore, the AI courses you choose must be relevant to your profession.
Coding: Demonstrating Technical Competence
Even if you are not a software engineer, having basic coding skills can make you stand out more than you think. Basic coding skills are technical competence.
Coding is a skill that every business needs in the age of digital transformation. Moreover, it can improve your problem-solving capabilities and logical and critical thinking skills.
You can start developing your coding skills with visual-based programming. You can also get training in popular coding languages such as Python, JavaScript, C, and C++.
Online Video Conferencing: Mastering Online Work Tools
Here is one of the most important skills you need; online meeting competence! This seems pretty simple, right? However, online meetings can be more detailed than face-to-face meetings.
Improving your online meeting management skills will take you one step ahead in every field. This is necessary for all kinds of businesses, not just those with remote or hybrid work models.
Even if you work full-time in an office, you will have to hold online meetings to connect with clients or other partners. Therefore, acquiring new skills to increase your online meeting productivity will be beneficial for you.
You can receive training on effective note-taking techniques to increase competence in online meetings. You can also improve yourself in these areas by looking at the basic features of online meeting tools.
For example, how well do you know features such as screen sharing, whiteboarding, file sharing, or screen recording?
You can even hold online meetings in a job interview. In order not to disappoint your employer, you should show that you are familiar with the features of video conferencing applications.
In addition to complex video conferencing applications, many businesses now prefer comprehensive software with intuitive interfaces.
OctaMeet is one of these software! With OctaMeet, which is a favorite of both individual and corporate users, you can discover many different online video conferencing features!
Do you want to improve yourself with OctaMeet? Then register now and start developing your online meeting skills with a 30-day trial version!
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As a result, there are many different workshops where new graduates can strengthen their resumes.
You can take seminars on web design, digital marketing, design, programming, collaboration programs and more, and add your certificate to your education section.
The Most Common Mistakes New Graduates Make When Preparing Resumes
New graduates need to pay attention to what they shouldn’t do as well as what they should do when filling out their resume. Here are the most common mistakes to avoid:
Skipping Important Information
The information that many new graduates say is useless does! For example, that project you led in university…
What matters here is not only the content of the project but also your skills. Completing a project shows that you have strong communication and leadership skills.
Include your professional goals, projects you have done throughout your school life, internships, and short-term jobs in your resume.
Show which skills were used in these tasks. Explain how your useful skills can be used in the position you are applying for.
Adding Too Much Information
If there’s one thing less sufficient than an incomplete resume, it’s one overloaded with unnecessary details. Avoid writing all the information in elaborate sentences. Instead, use keywords.
Choose keywords that are relevant to your job. Highlight your skills by looking at the job description.
The employer should not be faced with a complicated image when they look at the resume.
Disorganized Resume Format
Another thing you should pay attention to when preparing a resume is an excessively disorganized format. Disorganized appearance causes your skills and experiences not to be fully understood.
To achieve an organized appearance, you can browse resume templates on the internet.
You can choose the one that appeals to you the most from many different free templates and prepare your resume more easily.
Incorrect Language Use
In addition to lack of knowledge, one of the most common mistakes made when preparing a resume is mistakes in language use.
These mistakes might not seem like a big deal if you’re not an editor, but avoiding them demonstrates your keen attention to detail. It reflects how much care and precision you bring to your work, which is important for everyone, not just editors.
Therefore, it is important to proofread your resume after preparing it and prevent incorrect language use.
As a result, when preparing your resume, it is recommended that you pay attention to details such as language use, format, and complete information, as well as your skills, certificates, and experiences that will make you stand out.
In the modern world where remote work has become quite common, it may also be important to fill your resume with your collaboration skills, emphasize your skills in task planning, and indicate your inclination towards digital tools.
If you want to strengthen your collaboration skills with OctaMeet, which stands out among video conferencing software, you can register for free and continue using the trial version.
You can contact us to get information about OctaMeet and other solutions. Moreover, you can book a demo meeting for solutions specific to you.
