Job Discussion Forums

[sickmachine]

I don't see the point in listing off all the retail jobs I had worked in the past...since they don't really relate to teaching experience. With this info being invalid in a sense...does anyone else know what info I should place on this resume? I currently do not hold a four year degree or any certifications, but I have tutored in Japan for about 4 months a fews years ago lol. Could I put like the junior college I graduated from and just make a copy of that? I really want this to look as best it can. I will add a photo of me in my nice suit as well. What else should I put down?

P.S. Is it possible to teach English for a company with semi-long hair(like shoulder length or a little shorter)?

[MisterButtkins]

My opinion, not that I'm an expert:

The Japan gig definitely goes on the resume. You don't need to list all the retail jobs you've had, but putting down one or two won't hurt. To flesh out your resume, try to think of some good qualities you think you possess that will help you with the job, and put them under a heading reading something like "Personal skills". These don't necessarily need to be strictly factual - you can put stuff like "Skilled communicator", "Team player", "Natural leader", and other such nonsense if you need to. Personally I put "Natural leader" on my resume, and while I personally feel this is true of me, it's not like there's any way for the employer to tell this. Try to make these attributes fit the position. Make everything well indented and use bullets/bolding. Don't go overboard though - this will just make you look unprofessional and try-hard.

Now ideally, of course, you don't have any of this nonsense, and your resume is just a very impressive list of all your past, relevant jobs, degrees, certificates, etc.. But it seems like you are perhaps running short on these things, and in my opinion you can't just have your name, the Japan gig, and 1 retail job taking up the top 1/10 of the sheet of paper. Also, I've never personally seen a resume with a photo on it or heard of someone putting their photo on the resume itself, so I would say that's a bad idea. You can send the photo with your application email if you want, but the photo doesn't go on the resume itself.

This last bit is sound advice I think everyone will agree with: After you get your resume lined up, looking perfect, etc, save it as a .pdf file. Then you can print copies from any computer and they will look the same, and when you email the resume and people open it, it will format correctly, regardless of what computer or software the person is using. While you might suppose that potential employers are reading through every line of the resume, actually many of them will have massive stacks of resumes and any one of them that looks weird will get thrown out immediately. You don't want that to be you.

There's a lot of guides on the internet about how to do this and I think reading one of them and looking at some example resumes would be more helpful than getting a few tips off the forums.