This article is the sixth post under the series HOW TO BUILD YOUR RESUME

While hiring, recruitment managers search for various qualities in an employee, keeping a single criteria in mind - How will this particular candidate add more to my organization, especially in comparison to others? One way to make yourself stand out from others is to pursue online courses or certifications.

Here are three reasons why you should add online courses or certifications to your résumé:

1. Ice-Breaker in an Interview.

For any fresher engineering student resume, if you put an extra certification or course, it will increase both, the value of the resume and the interest of the recruiter. Obviously, it can attract some basic questions, so be ready to answer those. You can expect questions like these:

• What drove you to take up these courses and improve your skills?
• What did you learn from the courses?
• What would you be able to do now that you couldn't do before?

Let me share my story of how online courses helped me crack the IBM campus placement drive. In my research about the company, I came across that IBM is shifting priority towards cloud technology. Majority of the questions were around distributed computing and college projects. So, I informed them about the courses I had taken and that I was additionally a TA in the edX course also. They were impressed and while different competitors were scrutinized for hours, my meetings were short and generally HR based due to my excellent knowledge of cloud computing.

2. It gives you a chance to become better than 99% of your classmates

I used online courses to build up a relevant skill set so that when I add that to my résumé, it can show a concrete reason why I am better than my peers. I gave a detailed account of what I studied there, how it helped in my project and how it resulted in scoring great marks in the last semester.

3. You get to learn things that aren’t there in your books

Finishing an online course is, in itself, a great learning experience. Besides that, since you make an extra effort to do something different, it exhibits a person's drive, curiosity, and willingness to improve. These are all vital signs businesses look for in freshers.

Finally, If you have taken online courses in the field of “Big Data”, including an expression like "A self-trained Big Data Analyst" in your resume will draw the attention of the interviewer. I made sure this was reflected on my résumé and LinkedIn profile. It worked extremely well. In fact, I got praised by the interviewers for putting in that extra effort.

Couple of last tips to leave with you

1. Mention these terms on your résumé only if you have actually finished those courses and got certified,

2. The course should be relevant to the job offered, and

3. Don’t do it just for the resume point :) A good quality course can genuinely add value if pursued in the right spirit.