Do I customised my resume?

It does not matter whether you are in which stages of your career, fresh graduates, young executives or senior executives because, at some point in time, you might need to prepare a resume. Over the past 18 years, I experienced a few strategic career changes and I am going to share my experiences with you.

1. With or without a resume. What are the differences?

First of all, some of the job applications do not require you to submit a resume, for example, Google or Facebook.  It is optional to submit a Cover Letter and a Resume for certain companies. You have required to fill up the form online and I assume someone will do a data collection and filter the right candidates for the next stage.

The difference with or without a resume is that you can customise your resume as a marketing advertisement about yourself. It does not mean if you have a resume uploaded will 100% guarantee you an interview, but, when it does play an important role when you are selected and the interviewer needs a quick preview of you.

Do you know by just updating your resume will increase 20% of getting the job you are applying for? That is amazing right?!

Source: https://jits.jobs/5-top-tips-for-updating-a-resume/

2. What is the important information in a resume that interview will look for?

This is not an asking the obvious question joke but it is a fact. Put yourself as an interviewer, what is the important information that you look for? Actually, the answer is depending on the job requirement. 

In a resume, usually, the standard must-have sections are Personal Information, Work Experience, Education, Skill and Summary.

The important information I am going to share with you is actually regarding the specialities that will help you stand out among the rest. Let me share with you an example, maybe you are applying for a vacancy that will serve different races of customers, therefore, if you can show your language section that you can speak fluently multiple languages that will help.

The more common "special" additional information section will be Languages, Certificates and Activities.

3. A long or a short resume?

Once again, there is no must-have or sure-win formula for a resume length or number of pages. However, based on my reading and research from other experts (zety.com), the average resume length is 350 to 500 words.

What does it mean? It means nothing, really. If you are a fresh graduate, I will assume your resume length will be shorter and there is little benefit to adding in a page-long list of the activities you participated in school (if it is really is not related to the job requirement). On the contract, if you are applying for a more senior position, I don't expect it will be shorter than 400 words. Does it make sense to you?

I just want to tease your mind further by sharing with you that if you have a 2-page long resume, you are 2.9x more likely to get an interview for a managerial role. (https://zety.com/blog/resume-statistics#product)

In summary, at the moment when I am typing this post, there are 600,000 jobs available for you. If you are contemplating between a job as a runner for delivery services or a full-time office job, the choice is yours. I am doing this because I just want to share my thoughts so that you can become better.

If you are interested to talk more about it, please join me on my Monday night live stream here at YouTube or Facebook Page.