However, no matter whether the candidate writes his own CV or uses help of a consultant or a resume builder, the following points are necessary when it comes to writing a resume. The following information should definitely form a part of any resume

• Contact Information: this section contains the candidates’ name, residential address, contact number both mobile and landline and email id.

• Key Skills: An ideal resume in the starting should be able to convey in brief, the expertise area of the candidate in just few words. This will automatically generate an interest in the person who is looking at resume and will urge him to go on.

• Profile Summary: Once we mention the key skills, the next step is to write a brief summary of the resume as a start. So that in case the person  who is scrutinizing the resumes, short of time, he or she can be provided with a platform to judge instead of him waiting to have gone through the whole CV where he might also miss some relevant points.

• Detailed Description: Following the summary, the resume should now go on to enlist all past professional engagement. Writing this down can also differ. For example some people write a combined resume, where they write in form of an essay mentioning the previous companies they worked for, tenure with the respective companies, position held and responsibilities undertaken. Another form of resume is chronological resume where an individual list down his work experience in order of his engagements. This is a more commonly used way of writing. Another way of writing resume is functional way, where precedence is given to the kinds of responsibilities held by the individual instead of the company wise engagement.

• Educational and Professional Qualifications: Followed by this a resume should contain educational and professional qualifications of the individuals
• Achievements: the resume should also be enlisting the skills all achievements that a person has had over the past years.

• Some resume also contain objective which highlight the career goal of an individual, trainings and seminars attended, co-curricular engagements etc. But these are optional.

Resume writing should always be given primary importance in case an individual is on a look out for a job because it can make an impression to last for a long time.

• Getting the required profile right:- Recruitment just does not mean receiving applications and short-listing for interview and selecting the suitable candidate. Recruitment starts when a position goes vacant or organizations make a new position. It starts with the correct description of the required candidate. Unless that is in place, it will be very difficult for interviewers to select an ideal candidate for a job. It takes a lot of precision and understanding to exactly note down the expectations from the new candidate for the job. Nevertheless, once this is carefully drafted, almost half the battle is won.

• Calling for candidates: The second challenge for a recruitment manager is to advertise the job opportunity Normally there are three or four ways a company advertises its positions, through newspapers, through recruitment consultants, through job portals and through their own website. Under normal circumstances, what has been seen is that all these options barring the newspaper have there own form of resume builders, therefore the company can receive the resumes in a set resume builder template. Larsen and Toubro for instance, normally upload there position requirement on their website. In addition, they also have an online resume builder for all applicants who randomly visit their website on a look out for career opportunity. These resume builder facilitates easy maintenance of candidate database for use in future. Through these four methods, once the applications have been received, the next step is to scrutinize the based on the job description and candidate requirement already prepared. Once the short listing is done, next step is to call the candidates for the interview.

• Conducting the interviews and preparing the panel: – Every organization has a predefined interview panel. The task of the recruitment manager is to explain thoroughly the job requirement and the candidate’s background well in advance. The challenge that the recruitment manager faces at this level is to think of ways to effective judge the candidate. For example, some organizations employ psychometric tests in addition to the skill tests to understand the behavior of the applicant. The ultimate aim is to get a candidate who is the closest match to the requirement of the job.

• Sealing the deal: – Once the candidate is selected, the recruitment manager has to issue an offer letter inviting the candidate to join the company.

The work of recruitment manager does not just end there. He or she is also responsible for inducting the new employee. Unless the employee receives a proper induction, no amount of planning can help in retaining the new employee. A thorough understanding of organization, its culture, rules and regulation and finally the job expectations are necessary for the new employee to work efficiently.

A job portal provides many services to its customers. To start with,

• Resume Builder: – If an individual is on a lookout for a job, he or she can register himself or herself with the job portal through a readymade resume builder template. In addition they can attached there own version of resume. In case the job seeker wants to fine tune his CV, these job portal also have a resume builder facility. Resume builder facility provided by the job portal enables a job seeker to get his own CV prepared with the help of industry experts. For instance, the resume builder service provided by naukri.com also enables job seekers to avail the resume flash facility which maximizes the visibility of one’s resume.

• Extensive Database of job opportunities, companies, and job seekers: – All job portals have a huge database of both employers and job seekers. The third category that is also present is that of recruitment consultants. Job portals facilitate exchange of job opportunities related information between job seekers and prospective employers.

• In addition, a job portal can provide services like, alert on mobile, private chat, daily industry updates, etc.

There are a lot of job portals that provide their services. Some of the most commonly known are www.monster.com, www.naukri.com, www.timesjob.com, www.Clickjobs.com to name a few.  There are international sites as well like jobstreet.com.

Along with providing web services to its customer, sometimes job portals also liaison with educational institutions and corporations to increase the reach of their services to a wider circle. The idea is to get all parties proactively involved in the search for the ideal candidate. As with every other new service, this service also comes with its set of pros and cons.

The pros are endless. Easy access, timely results, a lot of convenience is the immediate positives that come to mind. A job seeker can access new jobs at any point using just his internet connection and as these sites are getting more and more user friendly, they provide alert on mobile which make it all the more easier for an individual to stay updated. He or she does not have to spent endless hours traveling from office to office submitting his resume. Just one click of mouse will do the work..

However as with everything, job portals are also not free from criticism. The foremost being the authenticity of the applicants. The resumes have to be taken on face value and do not provide any validation of the truth. Another side is that it is only accessible for people with access to net. In a country like India, where Internet still has a long way to go, these portals end up having limited reach.

How are resume consultants different from other resume writing method?

Writing with the help Resume consultants as compared to writing on own is always better as experts are more thorough with the job market as compared to the job seeker. They are aware of what points to highlight, what are the points that the HR manager looks at while scrutinizing the CV, how to make the resume more appealing, etc. In addition resume consultants can also guide a job seeker on how to present a CV. However it is a paid service, so all job seekers may not find it possible to afford this.

Resume consultants also fare better than the resume builder software or even the online resume builders available in the market. Resume Builders normally provide various templates and a detailed instruction guide (in case of resume builder software) but they can only work as a guideline. Resume consultancy is more about handholding. An internet site www.resumeconsultancy.com for instance provides a resume consultant to each individual. Also since in resume builders, the basic information is provided by the incumbent himself, the language content may or may not be ideal. However, because in case of a resume consultant, the experts write the CV or at least they play a big role in guiding on one to one basis, rest assured the language and the presentation are impeccable. In addition, there is definitely a personal touch to the resume consultancy service as there is fair amount of handholding and guidance. However, there is another side to this service. Though resume builder can be both paid and free service, resume consultancy is essentially a paid service making its accessibility limited to the number of people who can afford it. Resume consultancy is a time taking procedure and requires the candidate to devote time and effort. Resume builder on the other hand does not have any such demands from the candidates.

Why use a resume consultant?

Even Though some of the points have been mentioned in the previous paragraphs, to quickly review the following are the reasons for the same.

1. Puts a job seeker in touch directly with the expert where he or she can get one-on-one guidance
2. Enables one to build a customized resume as per requirement of the individuals.
3. Talking to the industry expert can help job seeker boost his confidence, when applying for a job.

Some sites providing this service are www.resumeconsultancy.com, www.bestsampleresume.com, etc. Resume consultancies are also sometimes used by the employers as they get vast amount of database at their discretion. This ends up benefiting both employer and job seeker.

Greg sturgeon realized that the procedures to create and edit resume were decent but not fool proof. Therefore, the need had arisen to see how well the online resume builder worked in fulfilling the requirement of IPT project. The aim was to look at resume builder that enables a student make his or her own choice with regard the content and formatting. The purpose of this study was to look at a resume builder that is easy to use and maintain and offers real improvement to the editing process and not just a rewrite job. Therefore Greg chose the following selection and evaluation criteria, compatibility with Windows 2000 and XP; availability of a demo copy; editable document file output (e.g. Word, HTML, etc); and availability of backup support. Further on resume builders were evaluated on  how well it: allows multiple formats/ number of templates, allows user flexibility with a number of preset categories, has easy to use interface, helps him or her upload large amount of information, is secure and has a good editing process.

Greg evaluated three resume builders against the criteria listed above, Autoresume.com, resumeeasy.com and Resume Builder 3.15 by Sarm Software. On the study of the three resume builders, the following observations were made.

• Autoresume.com offered its users flexibility of format but there was a content limitation. The users were not allowed to enter as much information as was possible in IPT resume builder. In addition, it did not have a privacy policy.

• Resumeeasy.com though was better as compared to autoresume.com in terms of formatting and content, but the basic services were the same.

• The third resume builder i.e. Resume Builder 3.15 by Sarm software was a desktop application and offered much more flexibility in terms of both content and formats. It also was considered the most secure amongst all three. However, like the above two, despite the fact that it was easy to use, it did not have any feature that facilitated better editing.

Another alternative that was thought of was to build a customized resume builder according to the requirements of IPT project. This would have all the required features of formatting and content. However, it would also require tremendous outlay of resources at the project’s discretion and would be high maintenance.

The conclusion of this study as mentioned by Greg Sturgeon was that it was in the best interest of all to continue with the current system of resume writing and editing and in the meanwhile keep looking at the prospect of developing an in house resume builder.

A resume builder template also works as guideline that can help if one’s resume needs writing or rewriting. The job seeker can take help of the resume builder template by reviewing the same before starting to work on his or her own CV so that he has a clear idea on how the CV can be presented. Keeping a resume builder template as a base, a job seeker can fill in his side of the information under the broad heads and then edit it to personalize so as to highlight his or her own skills and capabilities. For starters, a template can list the information one needs to include in a resume, based on which one can compile the information in form of the template to customize it according to the requirement of the job.

Broadly, all resume templates would have following sections:-

Contact Information that highlights one’s place of residence, contact number, email id, etc

Objective (optional): this section communicates in one or two sentence the employment goal.

Experience is a brief summary of past professional engagements.

Educational qualification includes both academic and professional qualifications of the candidate

Skills section would normally include the kind of abilities that a person may possess relevant to the job requirement, like computer proficiency, language skills, etc.

References: A candidate may or may not provide references in his resume. However the better option is that reference should only be provided when asked.

There are various kinds of resume templates; templates for entry-level candidates, high school resume template, Microsoft resume template, etc. Microsoft resume template for example  are made available by Microsoft as free downloads to its users to create a CV. Microsoft word resume option includes basic resumes, job specific resumes and career specific resume. In addition there are sample combination resume which present information in a combined form. It is more written as a detailed history of the work experience and not an individual engagement wise. Another kind of template is Chronological Resume where in an employee highlights his or her past engagement chronologically. This is the most common form of CV template used by jobs seekers. There are many more templates like functional resume template that highlight the kind  of responsibilities that the incumbent has been handling in his career, mini resume format which help an individual prepare shorter version of his or her CV and resume formats highlighting accomplishments and skills.

Resume template help the job seeker in visualizing his CV even before his resume is ready.

What is resume builder software?

Resume builder software is a tool that helps job seeker prepare his own version of his resume, based on the numerous templates provided in the software. For instance, www.easyjob.net provides resume builder software with 25000 templates in it. This facilitates customization of resume as per the requirement of the individual.

Where can we find resume builder software?

This software is available on internet as a paid product and can be purchased from companies which are into development of this product. Some sites from where one can purchase resume builder software are, www.easyjob.net, www.sarmsoft.com, www.tucows.com to name a few.

When should resume builder software be used?

Resume builder software can be used when there is a requirement of customized resumes as per need of the work profile. Normally this software does not limit themselves to a small number of templates and the vast number of options allows the customer to choose according to his or her need.

Why is resume builder software better than online resume builder?

Though the basic concept behind both resume builder software and online resume builder is the same, i.e. facilitating easy creation of resume by job seekers the accessibility for the both the products is slightly different. For instance, online resume builder is accessible for all net users and it is at user’s discretion whether they want to avail paid service or free service. However, when it comes to resume builder software, normally an individual would not go for such product as his requirement is limited and buying it may not always be cost effective. The software uses on a larger platform like by recruitment consultants who look for helping their candidates come up with customized CVs, or even companies who might require a large template base from which they can choose the kind of resume requirement that they want applicants to fill.

Who uses resume builder software?

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, this software is being used both directly and indirectly by job seekers. A job seeker may choose to purchase this software in order to access a vast amount of templates for applying for jobs. Indirectly, a job seeker can access the templates build in the software through a consultant or a company. A recruitment consultant or a company who gets thousands of applications on a daily basis can use this kind of software to get the applicants registered in their database in a set format provided by the software.

How can one get resume builder software?

The process is purchasing this software is different for all sites. Though most of the sites give it out as a paid product, some sites also give a shorter version of the software as a free download. Easyjob.net for example, helps its visitor download a demo version before they want to go for the full-fledged product. In case someone is interested in buying their product, they have mentioned the price on net, and they provide four options for payment via credit card, wire transfer, cheque payment, paypal and electronic fund transfer with proforma invoice. They also require the customer to fill in billing details where in they can send the software package.

These questions in a very simple form explain the concept of resume builder software.

Resume builder includes individual information like personal detail, employment history, educational and professional qualifications and co curricular engagements, if any. The skill and competencies possessed by the incumbent also form an important segment of the resume.

Various people in the recruitment circle use the facility of resume builder. To start with, job portals most often use this facility. Job portals like monster.com, naukri.com, timesjob.com provide this facility to its clients. These sites help job seekers build resume in two ways. One, they will ask the individual for some basic information pertaining to candidates’ background and contact information and ask them to upload their CV. This is a free service as the candidate already does most of the work. The second kind of service provided by job portals is a systematic documentation of the individual’s profile. The information collected is then collated by the site managers and presented in a set format for employers to see. This is a paid service provided by the job portal.

There are sites that are dedicated for resume writing. Internet sites like www.writeclickresume.com, www.savedraft.com, www.getresume.com, etc are some sites, which help job seekers, make their own CV by providing relevant information as required in various fields to be filled. Based on the information received site provides a resume in a readymade template prepared by it. This service is also in both forms- paid and free.

Some educational institutions also use resume builders as part of their networking programme. For instance, the advertising club of West Virginia University provides resume builder for its students, which helps them, a lot in their networking purposes both within their business circles and between fellow students.

In addition, sometimes, a company may require the candidates to apply for jobs in a certain format that makes it easier for them to scrutinize the applications. For this purpose, they post online resume forms, which require the candidates to fill in the requisite details. However, this form of resume is meant only to be used by the employer and not the individual.

Resume Builder is one of the most effective ways of helping an employee represents his background to his employers. It is easy, time saving, and relatively cost effective. Though the services of resume builder are mostly like to be used by job seekers and benefit them in some form, the advantages for the employers cannot be denied. There is nothing more difficult than deciphering an inadequately drafted resume. Resume Builder’s easy accessibility to all makes it possible for all to make use of its service hence resulting in employers wasting less time on deciphering the language or content and more time on forming the first impression of the candidate based on the competencies and skills outlined.

The question now is what an ideal resume should contain. An ideal resume should have contact information, work objective that provides insights into the kind of work the person is looking at, a summary that serves as a brief introduction of the individual’s competencies, educational and professional qualifications, past work engagements and achievements during the same. In addition, job seeker can also include sections such as Community services or extra curricular activities, training and certifications, etc. The training and certification section can include all kinds of trainings, workshops, seminars attended by the individual. Normally an individual tends to skip the last part thinking that it is not that relevant.

However, the job seeker should also keep something in mind. It is imperative that the information as submitted by the individual should be true and accurate. He or she should avoid all temptations to fabricate details. In addition, the job seeker should try to avoid story telling. It should be realized that the employers are short of time and they need precise information at a glance and resume should enable just that. Finally, the resume should be a tool to sell one’s skills and competencies.

Ways to get an effective resume prepared-

• Write it yourself: First option is to write a resume yourself. In order to write a good resume, one has to ensure that he or she does proper homework on writing resume. He should make sure to add all the relevant points and that it makes an interesting read as well. However, the risk involved in writing one’s own resume is that, one, the individual may skip some important detail and second, the formatting of the resume is also not proper.
• Get a consultant: Another option to write good resume is to get it written by a consultant. There are recruitment consultancies, job portals etc that provide this service to its client. It is both paid and non-paid service. Naukri.com for example helps it customers write good resume with the help of recruitment consultant. The positive side about this is that, expertise of the consultant can draw out information from the job seeker and even the language is good. The flip side is, that it is a time consuming process, where the individual is required to give lot of time for the same in meeting the consultant.
• Online resume builder: – The latest in resume writing is using online resume builder. Resume builder again is used by various job portals to take a summary of the candidates profile to be uploaded for various employers to access. Resume Builder provides various fields to be filled in the candidate so that it can consolidate the experiences of the candidate in a template. This service has proved to be the most time efficient service as it does not require the candidate personal presence for the same. Resume builder is also both paid and free service.

Resume writing is the most crucial step in job search and calls for precision, accuracy and talent and should be given primary importance.

But is it the end of all job seeking problems. Let us look at the pros and cons of online resume builder from both employer and employer’s perspective.

From Employer’s perspective: It is evident that the resume prepared with the help of a resume builder helps the employer as it is easier to understand and is presented in a very effective format. For example, a resume prepared by the resume builder would essentially start with a brief summary of job seeker’s background, his or her skill sets and competencies, followed by detailed description. Therefore, in the first glance the employer is in the position to judge whether the job seeker fits the job description or not. Also there are no irrelevant details that are mentioned in the resume like hobbies, areas of interest or any other unnecessary personal detail. However, the accuracy of the information provided in these resumes cannot be guaranteed as the honest representation of the job seeker. The resume builder does not and cannot verify any details as filled in the job seeker, and the ultimate responsibility lies with the individual. Therefore the employers have no option but to believe the information provided in the resume.

From Employee’s perspective: As has been discussed previously, resume builder helps an individual to present forth an effective summary of the experiences. It acts as an effective form to communicate past achievements in the best possible manner. In fact, sometimes, when a job seeker is unsure regarding what details to include, resume builder, by asking specific details triggers the thought process that fills in the blank in resume for the candidate. Also knowing that he or she is well represented on papers, it works as a confidence booster when one faces the interview panel. However, there also is a loophole to the entire resume making process. The resume builder only provides one version of the resume. Sometimes some work opportunities require the candidates to highlight certain specific competencies which resume builder does not facilitate. It is more a generic representation of the individual’s background. Therefore, if the individual is looking for customized representation of his profile according to the job requirement, resume builder is not necessarily the best option.

Despite this, if we want to answer the question posed in the title that is resume builder a solution to the hiring problems, the answer would essentially have to be a no. However, we can positively say that it is a definite start.