For those of you in college and approaching the end of it, it might be a good idea to think strategically about your courses not just in terms of completing your degree and in terms of your college GPA. Every course you take during and even after college (you can sign up to take a course at a local college, even after you have a degree) has the potential to enhance your skill set and your resume.

Think about which courses to take in terms of how you might benefit among these four lines:

1) Finding out where your interests lie- For example, you might be a business major and notice that a lot of business majors go into the hotel industry and want to see if that's a good thing to do with your degree, so you take a tourism management course with your elective.

2) Finding out where your skills lie- For example, you might want to use your English degree to work for a newspaper, but aren't sure whether you can cut it in that environment, so you enroll in a newspaper course that challenges you before you risk going out there and failing in an actual real-world setting.

3) Providing additional coursework to be able to put on your CV (curriculum vitae)- I graduated with a degree in geography, for example, and I knew that my GIS coursework was not comparable to many people with geography degrees in my field, so I used an elective on a GIS-specific course

4) Insuring a safeguard against your major not working well for you in the job market-If you picked a major like history and discovered as graduation was approaching that it might not be the most practical major in terms of being successful in the job market, for example, using whatever electives you might have to enhance your other skills. For instance, if you've studied a lot of Latin American history and have studied abroad in Latin America, one could take their electives and pick up a couple extra higher- level Spanish courses since that's a very workable skill.

These four goals tend to overlap with each other as well: Any course you take has the potential to make your resume look better, get you closer to finding your career path, spread out your skill set, and help you solidify your talents.

QUANTIFY YOUR SKILL SETS ON YOUR RESUME

by Sheeba Riyas

Before you send out a resume, take a good look at it and ask two questions:

1)      Does it reflect who you are or is it a distorted version?

2)      Does it have the ability to impress potential employers?

Although if your skill sets fails to match the job profile, you would not qualify for an interview, this doesn't mean that you should provide false information in order to qualify for a position. Instead, focus on displaying the appropriate skills sets in a strategic fashion on your resume so that it would get the employer's attention.

If you have participated in certain competitions or extra curricular activities which require skills that match the job profile, during your academic years; including them in your resume would be highly recommended. Similarly, do not mention skills which are not related to the job profile. It is unlikely that a software company would be interested in the pizza eating competition you won in college! In regards to your working experience, ensure that you specify the responsibilities you had when you were with the previous company, along with accomplishments and appraisals must also be mentioned.

Your resume must contain concise and specific information. It should not take more than a minute for someone to go through the entire resume for most employers would not have the time to read pages of curriculum vitae and would prefer to gather sufficient details about the applicant at just a glance.

If you must mention your personal interests or hobbies, believing that they would add value to your personality and potentials; do so in a very brief manner.

At times, an employer would be looking for additional skills in a candidate but may not mention it in the advertisement. A graphics designer who can also handle some basic programming has a better chance of fitting into the job profile than someone who has no additional skills. So, if you have acquired some additional skills that relate to the job profile, it is wise to mention them in your resume, as it would be an added advantage.

Before you begin to create or update your resume, analyze your potentials and skills and create a list. Match the skill sets with the job profile and then include them in your resume appropriately. A resume should reflect you. The resulting image should have clarity, compatibility and facts, as that reaches your interviewer's desk first.