The 15-second test: Give your resume to a bunch of people and ask them to spend not more than 15

seconds and pull it back. Now ask them what salient features they remember. If they are able to
highlight your main accomplishments, then the resume has achieved its purpose.

Typically a resume gets scanned for less than 15 seconds (Imagine yourself as an HR person who receives
thousands of resumes; how much time will you be able to spend on each of them?). For an
undergraduate, it is recommended that the resume be not more than ONE page. You have to very
carefully plan how you use this invaluable piece of real-estate. Fitting your resume in one page should
not be achieved by using tiny fonts and very little margin.

Resumes of students typically is packed with information spreading across two or three pages; one has
to resist the temptation to state everything. You need to highlight your main accomplishments only.

Don't list all courses---just the relevant ones for the specific internship, job, or admission sought. Listing
DSP as a course obviates the need to mention Networks and Systems because you can't have done
DSP without N&S. Such paring down helps you use the limited space judiciously. Moreover, most
people know the typical undergrad curriculum. Hence stating a course must serve a purpose: if an
internship demands knowledge of DSP, then stating you've done that course maybe necessary. An
advanced elective such as "Error Control Coding" deserves to be listed because it is not part of the
standard UG curriculum.

Sending you resume to a technical person is far more effective than sending it to HR. For email, if you
have an active IITM address, give that (and not Yahoo!, gmail, etc.).

You need multiple versions of your resume, each targeted to the specific application---which means you
highlight different aspects in different situations. A Google search using the phrase "resume writing tips"
will give you lots of hits. Take a look at some of them and pare down
your resume to one page.

Some useful links are:

http://www.collegegrad.com/resumes/index.shtml (see the link 'Best College Resumes' and 'Sample

Resume')
http://www.collegeboard.com/article/0,3868,2-7-0-36957,00.html (see 'Resume Resources' at the end)
http://www.jobweb.com/resources/library/InternCoop_Programs/The_ResumeInternship_155_01.htm
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ResumeRead.html
http://ncsu.placementmanual.com/develop/index.html
http://careers.villanova.edu/Students/Sturesumeguidelines.htm
http://www.careerjournal.com/jobhunting/resumes/20020130-marcus.html
http://www.hodu.com/resume.shtml