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

The resume should not only include your academic qualifications or work experience, but extend to your hobbies, your co-curricular activities, and your passion. What you do with your free time or what you’ve chosen to get involved in gives insight into what kind of person you are, what interests you and your strengths as well.

Coming to the important question, what kind of activities can you be involved in to strengthen your resume?

One thing any interviewer will notice is your communication. It makes the first impression. To get better at this, join a club, participate in debates, do as much as public speaking possible to get into the groove. If you have made efforts to improve your communication, this will be appealing to a potential employer. Make sure you highlight it. For example, my friend was actually reprimanded by a potential employer for not mentioning that he was a Toastmaster on his resume!

Next, think about the field that you’d like to get into. You must try to stay abreast of all matters of that field and participate in various forums and conferences conducted for its promotion. For example, an engineer could attend conferences held by the IEEE in India. This makes him more aware of the industry and the mechanism that holds it all together. It gives him insight on how an engineer is supposed to behave, what are the informal procedures in place etc.

Another star on your resume would be your experience in college fests. Any college worth its money conducts fests, both cultural and academic, to promote sportsmanship and healthy competition between colleges. Being an engineering college student myself, I’d like to add that the level of competitiveness has reached a new high. Gone are the days when just simple games were played between colleges. Colleges now host some of the most competitive management fests and programmes for entrepreneurship development (for example Mood INDIGO by IIT Bombay). Besides being a valuable point on your resume, these fests are very useful for networking, exchange of ideas and of course to learn so much more than what textbooks can teach you.

My last piece of advice would ensure that the activities that you get into reflecting who you are. Take the time out to follow your passion and very importantly, FOLLOW IT UP WELL. If you're interested in photography, make sure you work on it. Attend workshops, take pictures, submit them in competitions, share them on your social media; ensure that you give your talent the right platform. If you love running, run as regularly as you can. Beat a record.

When you know you’re good at something and it makes you happy, do more of it. If you follow your passion, it shows your determination. To an employer, this determination can be channeled into achieving the goals of the company. So go on a stage. Participate. Showcase your talents. Your resume must showcase the best of You.