Endoh’s Dungeon

Resume - An account of one’s professional or work experience and qualifications, often submitted with an employment application. Simple as it may sound, this can be one thing that will either make or break your application.

Over the years, countless friends have approached me to vet their Resumes. Most do it relatively with ease, creating a winning Resume is an art itself. While I am no Resume guru, I repeatedly spotted fatal mistakes made by friends and applicants in an employment firm I used to work for. I am not going to talk about every single aspect, but just some points which I feel job applicants should really take note.

First of all, we have to understand the purpose and dynamics behind a Resume before we even get started in writing. Creating a Resume seems to take only a short while for most, because half the time they don’t even think about what information to showcase and how to use these information to their advantage in their Resumes. The Resume is your first step to securing an interview with your potential employer afterall. That’s what a Resume is meant for.

When it comes to writing Resumes, there are two camps of thoughts. The first is to write as briefly as possible, and the second is to write in details as much as possible. I would prefer the second because that allows your potential employer to have a “bird’s eye view” of your overall suitability. In the realistic world, most of my clients wouldn’t even want to make time for an interview with brief Resumes that barely skimmed the surface. That’s understandable.

Now, treat yourself like a product and your Resume being your marketing collateral. Take a very quick assessment, is your Resume selling you? If your Resume do not look enticing to you, forget about sending it. The key dynamics of a Resume should always be about selling yourself.

Now that you know what a Resume is meant for, we shall now take a look at a few crucial points when creating a winning Resume.

1. Learning to design your Resume through creativity
There are thousands of sample Resumes online, take some time to look through them. There is no specific way of how a Resume should look like, but it must always be pleasant to read. Instead of clogging everything tightly, space them out into sections. This is possible, just like how we write in paragraphs in our blogs.

Two years ago, a few applicants wrote in to me asking for vacancies in design. All of them made fatal mistakes. Nothing was mentioned how they came in possession of my private email address, since I placed no advertisements to recruit. The other thing was, their Resumes were boring. Look, you are applying for a creative position. If your Resume shows nothing of your creativity, I am not keen to even take a second look at it. That simply says, you don’t even get a chance to show off your portfolio even if you have a damn fantastic collection of your works. Basically, case closed almost immediately.

It’s perfectly acceptable to send out different designs of Resumes, but make sure you keep track of your receivers. You can have a formal Resume for your bank job application, and a more adventurous Resume for your creative application.

2. What details and how much to reveal?
It is good to be as detailed as possible, but when too much unnecessary details are placed in your Resume - reading becomes a drag. Employers are traditionally more interested in your recent employment, anything more than 10 years ago is redundant. When you list a whole chunk of such employment details which we care little, you are just wasting our time.

I have seen alot of friends putting up a special section for their hobbies and such. Well, I am sorry to disappoint you but nobody reads a word of these. What we want to identify through your Resume is how relevant your academic qualifications and work experiences are, not what you enjoy doing during the weekends. Your hobbies contribute zero revenue to the company, so why should we care?

A Resume is not a letter, so summarize your information into point forms whenever possible. Another area which one should really take advantage of, is the skills acquired through past employment. We often pick up new skills at work apart from those learnt in schools, so these would be advantageous. You can always list them down in brief and when necessary, explain in detail over the interview.

3. Arranging your information
I just received a Resume to be vetted, and I read three entries of the same company a friend is working for. I can see evidently that a certain progression has been attained so it is needless to separate employments under the same companies into three entries. What one can do under such circumstances is to group all employment of the same company together, and your potential employer will be able to see your achievement and leading to the advancement. Again, take advantage of all your sales track record or key changes to your work due to your healthy contribution.

4. Don’t be too self-obsessed
I mentioned earlier, your Resume is to sell yourself. If you interpreted that as, the Resume must be all about you then you are wrong. What the Resume should tell your potential employer is how you can contribute TO their company. Through your Resume, you should provide some convincing information that presents you as a would-be asset to the company, and not how much a financial burden you might end up under their charge.

Potential employers do not like it when you place your personal advancement above the company’s advancement.

Last but not least…

5. Cover Letter
This is a very crucial page of your Resume, and God knows why I highlighted this at the bottom of these points. I really should place this up there.

The cover letter should briefly tell your potential employer of yourself, your experiences and a glimpse of what your Resume is all about. However, that does not mean you have to write about every single thing you have in your Resume. What’s the point of repeating?

Think about the cover letter as the appetizer of a meal, something that makes you want to find out more about the underlying pages. It is also something to entice the HR manager into wanting to read the rest of your Resume. Write your cover letter with the same dynamics of the Resume, while revealing information about yourself without sounding all about yourself. Now, that sounds tricky isn’t it?

The way you word your cover letter plays that key role. Telling your potential employer everything that you want, doesn’t quite tells your interviewer how you can contribute to the company. Take a search online too, for sample cover letters.

Transform your sentences from “I this… I that” into power sentences. Power sentences influence people like marketing messages. For example;

“I am seeking this opportunity to extend my services for a new employer.”

can be written as…

“With a vast experience in Marketing & three promotions in two years, these are key elements in qualifying me to be an asset to your team.”

These are all I have to share for now. Of course, a good Resume covers more than these but I shall only identify these mistakes which are frequently overlooked. As long as you take the effort to do your research, you can still create a winning Resume even if it’s only your second in 20 years.

Good luck to those who are seeking jobs.