A perfect resume is an essential tool to help you initiate a discussion with HR or headhunter. In Deutschland, curriculum vitae is thoroughly scrutinized by the hiring manager & HR before they proceed with the candidate. Hence, writing the CV in German format adds a lot of weight to your profile & makes it easier for the person to get a good understanding of your skillset, experience, strengths, and so on.
Key points to make perfect resume:
Based on my successful interactions with multiple employers I would like to recommend the below pointers to make a perfect resume:
- You don’t necessarily need to have your CV in the German language unless & until you are very good at it. Mere translation of English to German using online translators would be irreparable damage to your profile. It is more or less watching English movies with Hindi or any of our regional language subtitles.
- Find someplace on your CV to upload your passport size as Germans expect photographs. Of course, the photograph should be more professional.
- While mentioning your years of experience try to round off to the nearest integer. For example, if you have 5.1 years of experience, do not put 5.1 as it doesn’t make sense to the hiring manager with 0.1 factor. The same goes for 5.9 as well, feel free to round off to 6.
- Include your linguistic skills and I’m very sure you will be asked about German language skills during interviews even though you apply for English speaking jobs. Despite having basic German skills, feel free to highlight in the CV. Something is always better than nothing!
- Clearly outline your work experience & education details in a crisp, concise & compact way having the organization, project details, skills, your roles & responsibilities.
- Do mention your hobbies as Germans are keen to know your free time activities just to know how social you are.
- Keep resume in short, not more than 2 pages.
- Don’t add same roles and responsibilities if you worked for multiple companies. Make it as a summary and add projects, companies you worked for.
Templates for making perfect resume:
I would suggest you try online templating websites to create make perfect resume/CV as they have many space-efficient templates. Few I could suggest are :
https://novoresume.com/ ( Elon Musk uses this :))
https://europass.cedefop.europa.eu/documents/curriculum-vitae
It is good to include LinkedIn, skype-account, GitHub, StackOverflow profiles as they show your interest in the community. Particularly in my case, I’m asked about my free time projects & StackOverflow community and contributions.
Disclaimer: The above pointers are my sheer inferences with the discussions I had with recruiters and more biased to IT profiles. However, it may vary heavily from case to case.
