In the age when every minute your Facebook feed changes, Donald Trump is elected President and demonetization is bringing a cut-down in jobs, we need to change. And so, should your resume, if you are on an intended career move. It must be spot on and follow the resume writing process of this year.

Consider you are in an elevator with 2 more people. One is well dressed and jovial while the other is nonchalant and forgets you are even present. Who would you choose to strike a conversation with?

First impressions matter a ton. Your resume is a gateway to your professional persona. It helps the employer make quick observations before even meeting you in person. To land that dream job, you surely need to keep your resume 2017ish.

Here are a few quick tips on the expert resume writing process to help your resume undergo the indispensable makeover:

1. Sacrosanct order: Theodor Adorno once said: “The task of art today is to bring chaos into order”. A resume must follow order too! The best resume writing should have everything aligned uniformly.

a) Name & Contact Details: Your name should be on the top of the resume in bold font so that it can be clearly seen and remembered. Under your name, you should first mention your contact number, followed by your e-mail ID (a professional one) and finally your LinkedIn Profile URL.

b) Personal Statement: Below the name, carefully draft a Personal Statement, enriched with keywords relevant to the prospective profile. Maximize use of this area to give the recruiter reason to continue reading the rest of your resume.

c) Core Skills: Reinforce the above-mentioned keywords in this section as key skills pertinent to your profile. This will make it easier for the recruiter to notice the right skills if you are a good fit for the profile.

d) Professional Experience: Starting from the present date, reversing in chronological order, list down your work experience. It should briefly include your key responsibilities.

e) Academic Details: Mention colleges and schools you have studied in. Do not include all the schools but only those which are important. If you are a graduate, only mention your graduation schools and above.

f) Key Achievements: Include all your crucial achievements at the workplace. Candidates with no work experience can include key achievements and co-curricular activities of their college and school.

g) Other important skills and interests: If you have additional knowledge of a software, or know any third language mention it. You can also mention any social or volunteer work that you have done.

2) Perfect presentation: A professional resume writing process would never underestimate how your resume would look. Here are some tips to keep in mind:

a) Condense it in a page or two: An HR has limited time to scan through your resume, just about 6 seconds to be precise, so aim to fit all your information within a single page or maximum two. And it saves paper too.

b) Personalize: If your profile calls for you to be bold and creative, dare to use different colours and fonts, yet keeping it professional. It is important that your resume showcases a bit of your personal character. Garamond, Calibri and Helvetica are fonts that can help give you an edge.

3) Hyperlink: Whether it is your blog, recent work you have been rewarded for or your portfolio, hyperlinking is always a good option to give a richer experience.

4) Go Social: No, I don’t mean to be online and post on social media. Organisations are clearly focusing on keeping their brands more humanistic and appreciate employees who have a soft heart and have lent their hand to social causes.

5) Keep it honest: Honesty never goes out of trend, not even in 2017. Never mention anything untrue or you may land in deep trouble.

If you keep all the above factors in mind, you should be able to build the perfect resume and help increase your confidence. The key to any professional resume writing is to reflect yourself and keeping it crisp. I’m sure this year you will add one more feather to your career cap. Good luck!