How To Build A Resume For E-commerce Companies - Ft. Hari S, ex-Senior HRBP - Amazon India

By Team InsideIIM

With Covid-19 accelerating e-commerce growth at a never imagined scale, e-commerce has become one of the hottest sectors to land a job. The large-scale investments in this sector across the board by organizations combined with fast-paced career growth opportunities, action-packed learning, and attractive compensation makes e-commerce a great place to start one’s career. In part one of our “Decoding E-commerce" series with Hari Subramanian (Former Senior HR Business Partner At Amazon India, XLRI Co' 2011), let us look at a few hacks which will help build a successful resume for e-commerce companies and enhance your probability of getting selected.

6 Tips To Make A Resume For E-Commerce Companies

#1) Patterns of Excellence: E-commerce companies look for consistent patterns of excellence in your career journey, as it demonstrates that you have delivered successful results in a high-pressure situation. Therefore, make sure you highlight all the key achievements in your career across academics and extra-curricular segments. Include anything which shows you have excelled with clear quantifiable impact (academic results, sports competitions, organizing events on campus at scale, live projects with demonstrated impact, case study competitions). It is extremely critical to quantify what you have delivered.

Examples:
1) Consistently ranked amongst the top 10 students in class.
2) As convener of the annual campus fest, you have improved footfalls by XX% over previous years and achieved cost savings of XX% through sponsorships, smart vendor negotiations etc.
3) National level winner, XX Case Study Contest amongst YY teams pan India, where we recommended a comprehensive 360-degree rural strategy for brand Z.

#2) Impactful Leadership: In your work-ex and positions of responsibility. if you can clearly demonstrate handling teams and delivering successful outcomes by influencing across the board, it adds great value to your shortlist chances. Quantify the size of the team, impact achieved, stakeholders influenced to ensure your CV stands out in this area.

For example, as “head of the XX club on campus, led an 8-member team to organize 5+ events with corporate participation of 20+ industry leaders, roping in sponsorship of XX lacs.

#3) Conceptual Clarity: Depending on the kind of profile, highlight all key projects in subjects, which are useful to the job description. For example, a Category Manager is expected to have a strong understanding of P&L and marketing. In this case, highlight any live/academic/ projects, case study contests in the area of P&L management, marketing fundamentals, market entry, brand turnaround etc.
A useful hack would be to work backwards from an existing e-com JD, understand what is required and try to highlight key aspects which bring out these conceptual strengths of yours. Speaking to a few alums in these companies would also help refine your CV and get a better understanding of the job description. In case you don’t have a JD, you can refer JDs on websites like IIMjobs, Linkedin, Naukri etc.

#4) Certifications: Based on the JD, think of certifications that you have, which could be useful to the job at hand. For example, certifications in excel and financial analysis could be useful in profiles, where a deep understanding of finance is required. Similarly, for a recruitment profile, a related certification could help. The key here is to avoid being generic and have a logic for keeping a certain certification.

#5) Case Study contests: A lot of resumes just mention details of individuals/teams winning a certain case study contest with XX participating teams. It is critical to highlight a few keywords of what the case study was about, in order to stand out.

For example, “recommended a market entry strategy in the fragrances category based on primary research of XX consumers “. Quality is important over quantity. You can cut down a few other points in your CV to ensure relevant points get the deserved impact.

#6) Work-experience: People with work experience can start off with a 1-line description of “was part of a XX member team/lead a YY member team). Bring out areas of collaboration with other stakeholders. Quantify the impact /potential impact of your deliverables.

For example,” Wrote a piece of code which helped reduce defects at client side by XX%”. In all cases, this may not be possible but try to use assumptions and potential impact in case you are not able to directly quantify your results.

The CV has to be crisp (avoiding verbosity), relevant to the Job Description and bring out all your strengths and successful delivery of results. Having a customized CV for e-commerce companies helps. A well-constructed and relevant CV is half the battle won. Avoid being generic. Quantifiable impact along with all-around excellence is the key. Be honest to yourself and highlight what you have, without worrying about ticking every check-box. All the best for your shortlists!

Hope the article on how to make a resume for e-commerce companies was helpful! In Part 2, we will focus on preparing for e-com interviews. Stay tuned!

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About The Author

Hari Subramanian is an XLRI 2011 alumnus, with 10+ years of experience in business and HR roles, in diverse organizations like Mahindra & Amazon. He is currently based out of the U.K and is soon to release his first book “Hilarious MBA Memoirs”.The book "Hilarious MBA Memoirs" is a funny, self-deprecating, autobiographical satire on the life of an XLRI MBA grad through childhood, college and corporate days. The book chronicles funny incidents throughout the protagonist's life right from the rote learning methodology in childhood, to the struggle in his MBA days (making a CV, fish-market group discussions, case study contests fumbled, social media related anecdotes, summer internship fiasco, date nights gone wrong etc)