Edited by Nalli Sai Soumya
Design by Alphin and Ramana
The dreaded email detailing the timeline for the 2022-23 intern season is out: The tentative resume deadline is……. Everything goes downhill from there as you realize that every careful plan you had made went down the drain, just like all the time you spent procrastinating and attending every random event in insti that you excused due to FOMO or YOLO. You could now spend your precious few days muttering ‘Those were perfectly valid justifications!’ or join T5E as we help you cook up the ever-elusive perfect resume, IITM style! Made super easy to follow and a simple trip through all the traumatic school years you had long forgotten about can get you all your ingredients.
We all know the way to anyone’s heart is through their stomach so why not plot to steal someone’s position in a company through a simple recipe! If you’re already familiar with this process through experience or other obviously inferior sources, use this as a reference to add some extra spice to your resume! Though I’m pretty sure throwing paprika at your computer screen might undermine the ‘good decision maker’ image you’re going for.
This delicious and taste-tested advice delivered at your digital doorstep was tried out on street-acquired rodents (human trials had way too many legal hoops) but it’s ok because aren’t we all just in a company-sponsored rat race? Before you jump in, we are morally obligated to warn you that, “After all, Recipes are like a dating service. They might never end up looking like the picture”. With that out of the way, let’s compile your entire existence and worth into a piece of paper that will decide your professional life for the foreseeable future!
Ingredients:
A random word template, maybe even one a senior had lying around and was kind enough to share with you
Placement Bluebooks of the past 5 years…or you know, 50 works too
A handful of really fancy words sourced from a sketchy online Thesaurus
6-8 highly exaggerated ‘accomplishments’
One or two letters of recommendation from mentors (no your mom doesn’t count)
A stack of certificates from the deep crevices of your cupboard, preferably without dust and cobwebs
Steps:
- Prepare your work area and stare at the space on the screen that matches the emptiness in your heart, better yet if you are sitting in the library surrounded by a kid with 10 textbooks, someone watching a kdrama, and that token couple just going at it.
- Google the dishes prepared by a few of the most successful alumni of the IITM culinary school. Acknowledge their pure deliciousness, the huge number of high-quality ingredients, and subsequently cross those companies off your list, coming out of this endeavor with even lower self-esteem than before. Works 99% of the time!
- Start with a good base, that is, your name. This is the worst place to pull a Ross and while Emily might’ve been forgiving, I’m not sure the Hiring Managers will settle with you getting rid of all your furniture. Don’t know if your name is correct? Google it.
- Add a cup of your educational background into the bowl called MS Word. Middle school, high school, that one drunk neighbor who taught you to tie your shoelaces and the hostel security guard who trained you in fending off monkeys using a mop – they all count.
- If you get distracted by YouTube videos, visualize the stunning final dish that will- IS THAT RICK ASTLEY?!
- Refrigerate the mixture in the A/c classrooms of CRC- zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
- What secret ingredients will make you stand out from the competition? Tabasco sauce? A knack for voodoo? Ask yourself important questions like these to make your dish truly special and one of a kind.
- Add some baking powder into your PoRs and watch them rise to become PoR Deluxe Edition through absurd exaggeration and the vocabulary of a high schooler just trying to meet the word count on an essay.
- Judge all the consulting buffs and software nerds as they mop up 10 PoRs and hoard their brilliant CP ratings to camouflage the budget pack of insecurities in the far corner of your brain. Of course, their success doesn’t phase you, you’re better than that!
- After collecting all your skills on a chopping board, chop them into pieces to fill up your bowl. Fry to make them crisp.
- A sprinkle of extra certificates you have gathered over the years will always add a flair to your resume. Don’t be shy to beg your 7th-grade class teacher for that one poetry competition award she forgot to give you.
- Don’t forget to carefully fold in the mandatory identity crisis while listening to your friends discuss all their fancy internships. Nothing like a side of self-doubt to add to the quarter-life crisis you’re brewing up!
- Into the prepared batter, add in a 1-2 hr Usha cafe break and socialize with that one “friend” among certain people in power you lost touch with as soon as offline classes began. Pretend you cared about them this entire time and didn’t just hit them up to solicit sneaky favors and acquire insider information. Trust me, people love being used.
- Like a nosy neighbor with a suspiciously frequent shortage of sugar, follow your professor around campus until they get frustrated enough to put in a good word for you. Extra points if you hold them at gunpoint but if anyone asks, we don’t condone the use of violence.
- Prepare a bunch of excuses to add if there is a lack of…spice. For example, “the monkeys ate my homework” … oh wait we’re all adults now and we don’t have homework anymore T_T
- Don’t forget the big helping of research on the companies you’re applying to. Knowing their weaknesses and black market dealings can add a level of edge and seriousness to your application that they’ll never see coming.
- Know in your heart that you will never be worthy of the Michelin star from Google and realize that you are insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
- Anyone who told you “don’t judge a book by its cover” has never seen Masterchef. Grab a thesaurus and transfigure each achievement until it’s virtually indecipherable. Serve it pretty and hope no one notices if the taste is questionable at best … hmm .. wonder why no one had this idea before.
Finally, you can enjoy the delicious resume you have cooked up using the ingredients you traded your blood, sweat, tears and other bodily fluids for over 20 years!
All that’s left now is to tape these resumes on the mirrors of unsuspecting hiring managers so they are sure to see them. Refrain from accompanying this with messages in blood, feedback on our previous edition has shown this to be ineffective and frankly, a waste of blood. For good measure, take the Hogwarts route and magically enchant owls to send an endless flurry of resumes to their head office.
Disclaimer: T5E is not responsible if Gordon Ramsey shows up and calls you an idiot sandwich.
