Job Discussion Forums

[haopengyou]

I am sure this is wishful thinking but is there some place I can post my resume and get some feedback on it - content, format etc?

[naturegirl321]

Post it here, just take out the personal details.

[haopengyou]

Thanks! Here it is...but be gentle None of the formatting or spacing came through when I pasted it here.

OBJECTIVE: ESL or EFL teaching position

SUMMARY OF QUALIFICATIONS

Professional teacher with more than 18 years experience teaching.
Ten years experience living in China; nine years teaching in China.
Competent to teach students ages five to 75 years old, in class and tutoring.
Culturally sensitive and morally upright.
Highly effective at communicating with people at their level.
Able to apply teaching concepts in the learning situation.
Comfortable in a team or as a lone teacher assigned to a school.

LICENSING & CREDENTIALS

California State Teaching License, junior and senior high school Expires: 2014
California State Community College Credential, Accounting Expires: Lifetime
TEFL Certification, California State University, Los Angeles Pending � Summer 2009

EDUCATION

California State University, Sacramento, California
Bachelors of Science, Business Administration Graduated: 1983
Graduate Teacher Training Program Graduated: 1988

University of California, Los Angeles
Teaching English as a Foreign Language Course Pending � Summer 2009

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

As classroom teacher, built rapport with students and families to help overcome student's shyness at communicating with a �foreign teacher�.
Developed an appropriate atmosphere to help use students' strengths, weaknesses, and personal learning styles in the learning process.
Engaged students through humor and activities designed for maximum interaction in large and small groups.
Developed curriculum that was appropriate to students' learning abilities and reflected their needs and interests.
Utilized music, games and other activities, including speech contests and spelling bees.
Incorporated computer assisted training tools when available.
Tianjin Senior Citizens University (public); (50 classroom hours) 2006-07
Students ages: 45-75

Tianjin School for Disabled Children (foundation); (460 classroom hours) 2004-08
Students ages: 10-16, and teachers; children had cerebral palsy.

Beijing New Oriental School (private); (300 classroom hours) 2002-03
Students ages: 20-35; most were college graduates seeking to go abroad.

Beijing Shuren Private School (private), (1,200 hours) 1999-01
Students ages: 8 to 17; taught oral English class and hosted oral English club.

Shanghai Jiao Tong University (public) 1998-99
Students ages: 22-30; Taught graduates in a weekend class format.

Adult Education Teaching (USA)

Business & Technology Training Institute; Sacramento, CA (public) 1995-98
Students ages: 18-75; Developed complete computer, accounting, business writing and office skills curriculum for this vocational training center; heavily focused on using simulations and tutorials; 95% of my students found jobs (county average was 80%).

Training, Inc.; Indianapolis, IN (public) 1992-95
Students ages: 18-60; Provided training and counseling for people on public assistance (mostly African Americans) in accounting, writing, introductory computer usage and job search skills.

Happy Camp High School, Happy Camp, CA 1990-92
Round Valley High School, Covelo, CA 1989-1990
Students ages: 15-19; Developed training to help high school students find employment as entry level secretarial workers; students were mostly Native Americans.


OTHER WORK EXPERIENCE

[Glenski]

Way too wordy!

Save stuff like your objectives, summary of qualifications, and that blurb before teaching experience for your cover letter.

And, no need for "other" work experience unless it's teaching-related.

[jdl]

Information is fine. Reads well. Check out microsoft office suite for a template you may want to use. It takes all the worry out of 'what goes where' in a resume. You could experiment with a bullet format under each major heading. Be sure to add your current contact information (email is essential) and three current references since employers do often check. Be sure to advise/ask permission of your references so they can support you when approached. Your public school teaching certification is a selling point and your reference to moral uprightnesss is important in many countries and to many employers who above all else do not want to hire 'trouble'. Often in ESL the task is more one of 'not hiring the wrong person' as opposed hiring the right one. Have you thought of adding a picture. Your additional work/life experience is important since it gives the employer an idea about who you are away from work. Character is important!
As a former HR/hiring manager I would call you on the basis of this resume for a follow up.

[naturegirl321]

Put your photo up too.

As for references, I don't include them, because it's other people's info, unless asked.

[jdl]

All applications without current references listed went into my 'last resort file'. The exception would be that one outstanding resume that I could not put down. This exception of course was very rare. For every job I posted I would rerceive up to 50 applications for review. Those without listed references reduced my work by half. The remaining applications were then sorted into a 'first look pile' and a 'back up pile' based on the contents of the resumes with reference to the institution's needs and the 'extras' that the candidates could bring to the school. A few quick phone calls to the candidates (to see if they were available) and then to references (to see if the candidates were acceptable) reduced the 'first look pile' a great deal.
"References upon request" was interpreted as " I don't have the time and couldn't be bothered to keep up to date references" (laziness/arrogance) or "You don't want to know what my references have to say". Reference letters were read very carefully for the 'code phrases' which indicated caution.
Give your potential employer every reason to put your application on the top of his/her 'first look pile'. Do what you can to increase your accessibility. The purpose of a resume is to get that 'call back' or 'second look'. It is your marketing tool so make it attractive to potential employers by pitching it to their need and convenience. The vetting process will go much more quickly and more often to your satisfaction.

[naturegirl321]

I don't put references down unless requested and when I do, I attach the scanned references that my employers have written for me, with their contact info.

Thing is, I'm not just applying to one job, I'm applying to a couple and don't want everyone contacting my references unless a job offer is on the horizon.

What do you mean by "code phrases" ?

To the OP, why did you include how many classroom hours you taught? (HOw long is a classroom hour, 40 min 50 min?)

And why are you including the ages of your students?

just curious

[fluffyhamster]

References can get tricky once you've been overseas TEFLing a while, and perhaps had your share of dodgy employers (some of whom turn out to not want to pay you, let alone provide you with a fair, reasonably positive/not unduly negative reference!). So I've at times pretty much HAD TO put 'References available upon request', because I've felt like it would've been unreasonable to keep asking the same old previous nice tutor or employer, and I rather suspect that e.g. my old Chinese professor is by now either well retired or indeed dead (he was knocking on when I took his course, and the Chinese programme has long since been withdrawn at that institute)...so I often depend on testimonials or certificates of employment instead (any opinions on these? Mine are impressive and official-looking enough, and often still relatively easy to verify if one really wants to...not sure what I could do though if a school had shut entirely - hire a PI to track down and hound a previous boss?). But obviously I try to make the effort to provide contactable, willing and thus "up-to-date" (up-to-speed?) references when I'm applying for a halfway-decent sounding job and/or the potential employer contact is a westerner with those sorts of expectations.

[jdl]

Sometimes reference letters are actually statements of employment. This usually is the case when referees have nothing really good to say but don't want to 'torpedo' the candidate in writing. Some reference letters include qualifying adverbs, adjectives, verbs which raise red flags; for example, 'managed the classroom quite well", "appeared to conduct her/himself in a professional manner", "attended all required meetings" etc.

For those employees I could personally recommend I asked them to provide me with highlights they would like addressed in the reference letter and then would tailor and contextualize the letter to their needs as well as add those 'selling' points which I had observed but they had overlooked. For those employees I could not recommend I provided a 'record of employment' and refused a reference.

When reading a reference letter I assume the letter is the most positive comment on the candidate possible. If it is not I wonder why the candidate would include it or why the referee would write it.

I advise candidates to collaborate with their referees in the creation of the reference letter with the adage of, "If the reference is important make it so by spending some time and thought on it and discussing it with your referee"

As an employer I paid a great deal of attention and care to the hiring process. I found it time consuming but also found out that it is better to spend the time 'up front' rather than what appeared an eternity of time in termination proceedings or trouble shooting the aftermath of a bad hire.

[jdl]

As a result I had very few 'bad hires' and in the process established a very mutually supportive relationship with the successful candidates. My philosophy was/is, "Hire the best then support the hell out of them". We all won personally and the institution/students got what they deserved from teachers and administration. Administrators and employees and students pay dearly for hiring misakes

[fluffyhamster]

I think you're getting a little caught up in your own "terms of reference(s)" there, jdl. When I've been given testimonials/reference letters, they are (appear? LOL) detailed and positive regardless of whether the employer has asked me what I'd like included (usually they don't - as opposed to more personal references, obviously), and I think it would take a somewhat pathological reading to construe them as at all negative or somehow subtly qualified*; then, when I've received formulaic basic statements or certificates of employment, worded identically to any other employee's, that has just been the Japanese way of doing things (with no faintly and certainly no strongly damning personal judgement intended or implied). Any problem rather (in Japan at least) has probably been to do with things like pay withheld for little or no legally justifiable reason, and usually that looms larger for the teacher than extracting truly worthless pieces of paper that the employer themself could print but really does have no intention to (that is, if I were to mention but have absolutely nothing to show from a Japanese employer, chances are they rather than I were the truly bad one...so, my good references are truly dependable, at least in light of the reasons for my non-existent ones!).

* 'Appeared to conduct himself in a professional manner' - is this a real, attested example? Teachers can be one of three main things: present and conduct themselves professionally (or at least, reasonably professionally), present and conduct themselves unprofessionally/completely unprofessionally (which would make the actual issuance of any reference doubtful), or absent (usually with permission - if without, this is as "good" as being present but unprofessional etc). As for 'attended all required meetings', why should a teacher attend 'unrequired meetings' (if there could be such a thing - how would it be adequately announced, monitored etc)? Surely they have many other and potentially better/more productive things (which a boss can often find for them to do) to be getting on with (who loves meetings?), and may not have the time or inclination to do more in (and certainly not outside) of their paid hours than is strictly necessary...so I'm not quite sure what you read into or rather mean by that. And what's untoward about 'managing classrooms quite well'? To me, that simply distinguishes a good/satisfactory teacher from an very good or excellent one (excellent = 'manages classrooms very well', or similar), but I suppose if you absolutely are looking for only supposed excellence, then anyone merely satisfactory just wouldn't do (and there'd be no way that an "excellent" teacher would've twisted the referee's arm far more, while playing it pedagogically safe all the while?).

[fluffyhamster]

[naturegirl321]

[jdl]

It is advantageous for a candidate to put him/herself in the employer chair knowing how much attention a careful employer/HR person pays to hiring. These types; that is employers/HR/ administration, have their own view on the process with a rather proactive and self serving eye. Self serving in the sense that a hiring misfortune creates no end to problems in the work/learning place. It takes so much more effort to correct a mistake than to avoid one. These types, although not necessarily lazy, really want to avoid the fall out from a sloppy hire. It is just too much work. Could all be irrelevant in any context? The candidate will never know once 'deselected'. The standard employer response to an unsuccessful candidate who queries his/her inabilty to secure the job is, " The fit between our needs and applicant qualification was not an adequate match" or something to that effect. When queried further the employer will ask if the candidate is requesting feedback on how he/she may improve marketability in future job searches.

Just providing a bit of an insight into what goes on in the chair across the table.