Resume in India — busting the myths!
✒️ 📝 Today, let’s bust some myths about the resume and professional requirements for Product Managers in India!
Many of you suggested, that my resume guidelines might not be in line with what is expected from Indian people applying in their home country. Being really concerned I’m giving bad advice, I met with Samirul Mallick, Engineering Leadership Hiring at Microsoft in Hyderabad Area to check if my Western knowledge is compatible with the Indian market. Here’s what I learned!
🖖 Personal intro — While many of you said, there should be no such thing on the resume. I am, after speaking with Samirul, very confident this is a very important part of this document. Use it to introduce yourself (In the first person narration) and present your professional profile — just like you would introduce yourself to the recruiter in person.
📜 MBA — MBA in Product Management (not finance or other unrelated fields!) is only useful if you are trying to break into Product Management while changing companies. It’s not needed for internal promotion and it won’t make a difference if you have already worked for several years as a Product Manager. Real experience is always superior to education and certificates.
✔️ Number of pages — There is a myth that everything has to fit on one page. However, 1–2 is OK for those of you with relatively little experience, up to 4 for people with 15+ years of experience. It’s very important to focus on the last 3–5 years of experience and provide only brief descriptions for roles before then.
◼️ Bullet point-based resume — Don’t do that! It’s ok to use bullets in a justified context (listing something) but focus on first-person narration and storytelling about your growth and achievements. Focus on how, by fulfilling your duties, did you impact your product and company!
📑 Education before experience — This is indeed a good idea for Indian graduates with little work experience: Show your growth path! This is not that important for established professionals.
Finally, the most important, be sure not to have a single version of your resume for all job opportunities! Adjust it to the role every time you apply! Make sure to match the job requirements clearly on the resume and use the personal intro to stress, that you’d really like to work for the company you are applying to!
Happy to say my recommendations were quite on the spot! While they might not to the liking of every Indian recruiter, Microsoft’s Engineering Leadership Hiring opinion is a good baseline :)!
Here are some additional resources from Samirul on how to build a great resume:
https://news.microsoft.com/life/put-polish-linkedin-profile/
Good luck developing your careers!
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