Dear Juniors,

I take this opportunity to share with you my knowledge and experience about making CV. The

motivation behind writing this article is to give you a heads-up as well as a head-start for your career

after your college which might be your job or post-graduation. CV is not a deciding factor for any of

the campus interviews that you will face at J.K. But is sure is a Make-Or-Break situation after your

under-graduation. Nitty-gritties of CV will be discussed later but the whole idea should be clear to

you. The fact that each year going past is a year lost to do thousands of things should be

motivational enough for you to take your CV seriously.

Hope you will make the best out of your graduation and your time at prestigious JK.

Warm Regards,

Vineet Mishra

Batch of 2009 - 2013

So to begin with I would describe the essential things that is required in a CV which are:

Educational Qualification with percentages

Academic achievements

Certifications/Publications

Work Experience Details

Work Experience Achievements

Internships/Projects

Positions of Responsibility

Extra-Curricular Activities

Now taking on each of these I will begin with

Educational Qualification

Here you will include Your Graduation Details, Intermediate and High School Details. Now,

throughout this article I will tell you one principle that you should embed in your DNA which is

‘Mediocrity is crime (MIC)’. Everyone wants to see high percentages here. But the bitter truth is

everybody doesn’t have flashy percentages in schools and I would tell you with 100% assurance that

it doesn’t matter now. What has been done is done and you can’t do anything about it. The only

thing you can do is achieve high scores in graduation. Now the twist here is for those who have

scored more than 90% in school are going to have a tough time here. Unfortunately you are not in a

college where teachers would love to throw away marks and you are eternally happy. But then you

have to deal with it by working harder because one thing that raises a question in every interview is

“How come you scored low in graduation when you have such high marks in 10th and 12th. And

believe me no excuse like “Sir, I studied in XYZ board which was lenient or Allahabad University is

very strict and doesn’t award high marks”. No my friend this excuse is not going to work because

actually no one cares. I have been one of the sufferers of this situation and trust me this question

and answer becomes just a rhetoric.

So bottom-line is, Forget what you did in past. Just focus on present and future (if you are really

serious about it which by the way I expect from you)

Academic Achievements

Everyone likes to see academic achievements on a CV. Be it you or your parents, your

girlfriend/boyfriend (if they get a chance to see it), your relatives and not to mention the

Interviewer. Yes my friend, do what you have to do and achieve something academically like

scholarship, top of the batch, NTSE any such thing related to academics. Imagine an interviewer asks

you what are your achievements and if you have one or more achievements then you get all the

bragging rights about it. And it makes you look like a performer which again follows the principle

MIC (already forgot, look up!)

Certifications/Publications

The whole gap between our college and other elite engineering college is the lack of innovation and

scientific enthusiasm. Normally, what you will do in your hostel would be grabbing every single

moment, squeezing it out and evaporate it in the name of engineering religion called TIMEPASS. No

my dear friend. I want you to stop doing it substantially and change it into doing something usual.

You can ask me a fair question “What should I do then?” Two simple answers. First do

Certifications. Now I don’t need to tell what certifications you can do. But my sincere request is if

you are doing any certifications then please don’t again evaporate it in the name of timepass. Forget

being just in touch of it, you should strive to be master in it. So better do one or two certification and

be the master in it than doing n number of project and knowing nothing about them.

Second thing that I demand from each of you is to do aim for getting your article or research paper

published in a renowned journal. For that you have to get your ass out of bed, sit in front of laptop

and do research work. Take up a topic, it can be any from technological, to social, to business related

(if you are interested in it) or even better think of how innovation can change the dynamics of

today’s global markets and businesses. Choose a topic, do research about it and write something

original. My dear friend, please don’t copy anything from anywhere. If you are doing it then quote it

and give reference. And if you are not copying exact words but just exhibiting an idea then just give

reference. If you don’t do it then it is called PLIAGIRISM. You won’t understand it now but that is a

legal issue and believe me you don’t have enough money at this stage to get yourself out of that

mess.

Work Experience details and achievements

It is not applicable to you right now but it will after few years from now. Again just like academic

excellence try to achieve work-ex excellence. Nothing more to say. Just follow the same principle

which is… don’t remember… MIC.

Internships/Projects

I suggest you take these seriously. Projects include the project that you did or will do in college and

projects that you will do in Internships and Training programme.

Positions of Responsibility

When you hold a Position of Responsibility and you do few things and think that someone will come

and thank you for it, then you are absolutely wrong. Any POR you hold is a THANKLESS JOB. So why

should you do it? You should do it for yourself. You should do it because you want to test your limits.

You should do it because it will make you a responsible person. You should do it because you will

evaluate yourself and realise what you like what you don’t, what irritates you what brings you

happiness. I can’t emphasise enough on it. By the time you are out of college, if you don’t know

about yourself then I can guarantee you that it will be a tough road ahead. If there is one thing you

should take away from all this gyan that I have written, then it should be my message i.e. Know

yourself and Understand who you are, what you want to do in life.

Extra-curricular Activities

Now, for this thing there is no dearth in J.K. Institute. You have Creative Art in form of drama,

singing competition, dance competition and a loads of other things. In terms of Sports you have

SWAT CUP, TECHNOCUP, badminton etc. When it comes to Literary you have various events in

AVIRBHAV. Technical Domain again you have events in AVIRBHAV and you have workshops and

seminars. You should also do something in Social domain if you have any interests like joining NGO

and working for it. Coming to Hobbies I want to tell you that whatever are your Hobbies and

Interests just know in and out of it. This shows your passion or atleast your dedication.

Other thing that I want to tell you is that please don’t restraint yourself inside the college. Go out in

other college, participate there and win the competition. The thing that these wins do is boost your

confidence which you take forward to other competition and boast it in your interview. My juniors

and super juniors have done things of this sort and won. Get hands-on their experience and learn

from them.

Well, that is all I wanted to tell you about the components of your CV. If after reading this,

particularly 4th year guys, you feel that it’s too late for doing anything then I assure you that it’s

never too late because of the fact that CV is not going to be checked in your campus recruitment

process. It will only be taken seriously after your college especially when you go for post-graduation.

So you still have time for it. For the 1st, 2nd and 3rd year students, there is enough time for you do to

enough things that will add value to your CV. And why you should do it is because the time that

passes by doesn’t come back. This statement might be the most clichéd statement of the entire

human history but it still holds true and will till you die.

I would also like to clarify that I have not done majority of these things. So consequently I know what

I missed out on and I don’t want any of you to miss out on any opportunity you get. One major

reason I have written this article is that I want you all to enrich our legacy that we left behind in your

hands and aspire to achieve excellence in everything you do.

All the best in your endeavours. Keep up your spirits.