A resume and the letter that lends cover to it can be said to be your forerunner. Which means it heralds your physical presence at the interview. It should be manifest from this that the Resume is what conveys the first and, even lasting impression about you. It is essential therefore that resume should be impressive not only in content but also in presentation, look and neatness. Make sure the following when drafting a resume:
1. Use white paper and leave adequate margin on the sides and space between columns.
2. Provide headings with bold letters and keep material confined to the heading. Do not incorporate anything that is alien to the heading.
3. Be careful about accuracy, spelling and facts. Check and double check. After you are satisfied about the resume, let someone also go through the same. The reason for the check by second person is that we omit to see an error second time sometimes which we have missed in the first check.
4. Be brief and to the point but do not be curt. Where an information requires longer presentation, do not economize nor try to be too liberal either.
5. When you are highlighting your outstanding achievements be cautious that the language used is not self-adulating. The achievement itself will speak for you.
6. While you will incorporate in the resume your technical skill specific to the job applied for and provide all information relevant thereto, do not ignore nor understate conveying of information pertaining to your interests and extra curricular activities. Bear it in your mind that your prospective employer is looking for something more than the job strictly requires of you. He (the employer) is also interested to know your capacity for leadership and cooperative spirit of team work. An employer would always prefer a person who would be his mobile advertisement and of whom he would feel proud. For this the employer looks for a well rounded personality.
7. It should be one’s endeavor to fill one page for a Resume but, additional page may be used if things which the employer should know from the forerunner do not get explained or known.
To summarize, make the resume appear pleasing at the first sight, make it flawless in spelling, grammar and language, include only relevant material but do not ignore anything of importance.The employer should find you exactly as your resume had pointed you. That means the ideal person he (the employer) was looking for.
Covering letter: Keep the cover letter brief like resume. Half page should suffice. What this is intended to do is to explain why you consider yourself fit for the position you are applying. Briefly maintain your experience, education, training and whatever the resume does not contain. Begin the letter by referring to the advertisement or source from which you come to know the opening. Keep language polite and deferential. Write specifically that enclosed with this letter is the resume.
Having done that, Luck too will feel inclined to be kind.