Job Discussion Forums

[aidanari]

Hi all, I'm just working on my Resume to send out to potential EFL employers. Was wondering if anyone has any tips? what areas should I highlight? what skills are good to put in? how should I talk about my TEFL qualification?

Can't seem to find anything around on this stuff. Thanks Aidan

[PAULH]

Here it is

http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/job/viewtopic.php?t=19922

Good luck

[Cdaniels]

PAULH gives an example of how to present References on a resume:

[Kent F. Kruhoeffer]

Here's one more resume resource worth a look:

http://www.rockportinstitute.com/resumes.html

[Gregor]

Depending on your experience level, put on everything!

Here's a story about my early years - My girlfriend and I were getting our resumes ready and just sort of helping one another out. At this point, we'd both been working in ESL for a couple years, so we wanted to update and take out the fluff.
Now, for the most part, you DO want to do this (I tell you as a person in charge hof hiring teachers as well as a teacher having used resumes to get jobs, myself). Fluff is the stuff that has nothing to do with the job. In the case of ESL though, that only means past jobs you've had in different industries. No one cares if you stocked shelves at Wal Mart, now that you have a contract or two under your belt.
On the other hand, if you do NOT have a contract or two under your belt, you DO want that stuff on there - it says "I may not have experience teaching, but I'm a hard and reliable worker." I would much sooner hire someone with Wal Mart experience than someone whose mommy paid for everything during universitry, you know what I'm saying?

OK. So much for work experience. So I was going to remove the interests and hobbies, as well as my work as a musician. Has nothing to do with anything. But my girlfriend told me not to. "It's interesting," she said.
And she was right. If what's on there says something about you as a person, keep it in. The very next job I sent my resume out for (after updating it with my GF's advice) hired me - out of about 200 candidates - because I said I was a jazz drummer and another teacher at the school was a piano player in desperate need of a drummer. THAT was what put me over the top.

One more thing you need to be aware of. I get a lot of VERY verbose resumes. This is not a creative writing assignment. Don't write an essay or any other kind of prose. If you don't know what a resume is supposed to look like, go to one of these other links, or google "reumes" or "C.V." A resume is more like a list. Do NOT make anyone wade through sentence structure and syntax to find the information they need. Because they won't do it. They'll just throw the thing away. That's what I do. Job hunting is a skill. It's not a difficult one to learn, but you gotta do it right. Employers respect that.
Good luck!