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methdxman
Joined: 14 Sep 2010
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 Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2011 4:35 pm Post subject: |
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Dunno how recruiters want resumes in Korea, but in most other places you should keep your resume on one page and as succinct as possible.
Put as much work experience in there as you can unless it'll hurt you. Don't put stuff like you ran a lemonade stand when you were 12 or that you worked at McDonald's. If you worked for any decent company put it on there and highlight key accomplishments. I wouldn't put stuff that takes no skill like "prepared photocopies".
No filler... |
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SeoulNate
Joined: 04 Jun 2010
Location: Hyehwa
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| Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2011 5:32 pm Post subject: |
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The above post is good advice.
If you can keep a resume under one page it can only benefit you.
The only exception I can think to this is if you do actually have important stuff to put on there. i.e. you are a doctor, lawyer, engineer or something and actually have some important things that you have done with your life.
OR if you have been the creator of something, art, media or whatever.
However, no one cares how long you worked at McDonalds in college. |
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methdxman
Joined: 14 Sep 2010
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| Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2011 5:49 pm Post subject: |
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| SeoulNate wrote: |
The above post is good advice.
If you can keep a resume under one page it can only benefit you.
The only exception I can think to this is if you do actually have important stuff to put on there. i.e. you are a doctor, lawyer, engineer or something and actually have some important things that you have done with your life.
OR if you have been the creator of something, art, media or whatever.
However, no one cares how long you worked at McDonalds in college. |
Agreed. Doctors, scholars and artists need a lot more space because they usually need to list publications, works, etc. But anyone else should stick to one page, including managers at corporations. |
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blm
Joined: 11 Nov 2010
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| Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2011 8:14 pm Post subject: |
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I included my current job experience which is totally unrelated and it was not an issue. I would have been more worried about having a resume with a 5 year gap in it.
If your work history involves a lot of jobs that lasted less than 12 months it might be an issue though as it looks like your unlikely to hang arround for the full 12 months.
Touch wood (because I haven't started) but putting my non teaching related work history on my resume was the best thing I could have done. I want to maintain my privacy so won't go into details (sorry I can't pm yet) but I'm certain that my work history got me the job it did as the school I will be teaching in specialises in education slanted towards the field I'm in (I had no idea Korea had such schools either). |
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juliajohansen
Joined: 13 Sep 2010
Location: Seoul, Korea
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| Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2011 11:07 pm Post subject: |
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| SeoulNate wrote: |
The above post is good advice.
If you can keep a resume under one page it can only benefit you.
The only exception I can think to this is if you do actually have important stuff to put on there. i.e. you are a doctor, lawyer, engineer or something and actually have some important things that you have done with your life.
OR if you have been the creator of something, art, media or whatever.
However, no one cares how long you worked at McDonalds in college. |
My teaching resume is 2 pages long. On my first page I list my teacher training experience, teaching experience, and education. On the second page I list conferences I have presented at as well as the names of the workshops I led, a section about my skills, and my professional memberships.
So even though I'm not "important" I have enough relevant experience to fill 2 pages. I do recommend thinking of your resume as prime real-estate. Don't fill out a "career objective." It's a waste of prime real-estate and people fill it in with worthless information "I want to be an English teacher" OF COURSE YOU DO, that's why you're applying for the job! However, most places now replace that "objectives" section with a "profile" section. It's a handy little self-summary, which is much more useful and shares great and relevant information about yourself.
I never include my non-teaching jobs. When I was starting out, though, I listed my education first, including details about my programs. I did list my job experience, but it was at the very bottom of my resume and did not include any details other than company name, my title, years worked.
Your resume should be all about highlighting RELEVANT information. Sure, your teaching job won't care that you worked at McDonalds for 10 years, but they may care that you trained 50 employees. In that case, rather than having a list of chronological jobs, I'd have a section called "Training," and give more information like that.
Check this one out: http://resume-template.us/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/free-resume-template.gif
Type in "resume template" in google and you'll get some fabulous results. I'd recommend looking around online and finding a format that works for you. There are different formats for people who have just graduated college and have no practical experience, for people who have just changed careers, etc.
You are welcome to look at mine:
http://juliajohansen.wordpress.com/resume/ |
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PatrickGHBusan
Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Location: Busan (1997-2008) Canada 2008 -
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| Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2011 8:39 am Post subject: Re: Resume Paring? |
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| SoylaMBPolymath wrote: |
Greetings to you all. This is my first post so I hope you will all be gentle with me.
I am intent upon being on a flight to South Korea no later than August. I'd love to leave sooner but the assembling of documents and an assortment of other pecuniary limitations impeding upon my ability to make that possible. I spoke to a few people (two recruiters, one employee of a Language School) and feel good about my chances of securing a position when the time arrives. The language school employee made a recommendation to me which I took with a bit of trepidation. I thought I'd relay it to you all and see what you thought of his advice.
Essentially, he advised that I remove any and all work experience from my resume which cannot conceivably be parlayed as helpful in a classroom. Bear in mind I have no formal teaching experience, but I have worked with children in both bookstores and public libraries, and well, I love kids! The employee advised me to emphasize that experience but to remove my other experience (i.e. boring clerical and administrative work). I don't feel comfortable doing that. I expressed my discomfort to him and his response was, "Trust me, they won't care about any of that stuff and it's not useful. I've been in Korea since 1990, I know what I'm talking about." Working for a securities attorney or in a court room records office is certainly not germane to teaching English, I'll grant you that, but I just feel like I should keep the resume reflective of all of my experience.
What do you think? Is he right? Should I pare down my resume so that it just shows what I've down with books and kids? |
Bascially, this person you talked to was right.
Resumes should not be an all-inclusive tour of your professional and educational life. Resumes are functional documents that need to be tailored to the job you apply for. This becomes especially important when you apply for a job in a market that is flooded with applicants (ESL Korea for the past few years).
While the temptation my be strong to keep all that experience, if it is not relevant to the job you want, all it does is lenghten and clutter your resume. This in turn reduces your chances of getting interviews because people who sift through resumes want a quick and effective glance of your qualification and experience. If your resume is long and packed with jobs that have nothing to do with teaching then it stands a higher chance of heading straight to the "not time to sift through all of this" pile or in clearer terms, the rejected pile.
Do yourself a favor and tailor your resume to the job you want. |
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Troglodyte
Joined: 06 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2011 5:51 pm Post subject: |
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I have a couple versions of my resume that I use depending one the focus of the job. e.g. kiddy schools, adult schools, mixed (or unknown) students, and other related jobs. If I'm applying for a position at a language school then I don't list many details about my non-teaching experience. I have a small section of my resume where I list the various other types of jobs that I've done, but it's just that. A little list of the TYPES of jobs. Unless the school is looking for someone to teach English for specific purposes (e.g. English for lawyers) then they really don't care about your non-teaching experience. If you have zero teaching experience, then sure give some more details about the work you did with kids, but really they're still not going to care about your office work experience. If you have no teaching experience, then you're only going to get an entry level teaching jobs (which is what most ELT jobs in Korea area), so they likely don't care about your managerial skills. Put it on if you really want to, but I think that the guy you talked to gave you good advice. Putting it on isn't likely to help you one bit. If anything it's going to hurt your chances a little bit.
My resumes generally have the following format.
Name
contact info (especially email and phone number)
nationality
education and qualifications (university and certificate courses)
skills
(computer skills, musical instrument i play, arts and crafts, driving licence, etc.)
employment category 1
(most relevant to the job i'm applying for)
employment category 2
(partially relevant)
employment category 3
(not very relevant - and only used if space needs filling)
From top to bottom, list the most relevant to least relevant.
I include only stuff that is relevant to the job. I also group stuff together but that's because I've been doing this for more than 15 years. If you're just starting out then you might list each individual job and describe it, just to flesh out your resume. Like other posters have mentioned, Koreans generally don't do anything more than skim over a resume (some don't even do that). When I've done hiring at schools (not in Korea) I skim over resumes first. If I don't notice many interesting/relevant info, I put them in the secondary pile. No one cares about your total employment history. They just want to see your relevant history. If you clutter up your resume with irrelevant stuff, the people who are quickly skimming through a couple dozen resumes may overlook the good stuff on YOUR resume because it was hidden among all the other stuff that they aren't interested in.
My advice, list that between year X and year Y you've been doing "various administrative and clerical work". That's all you need. |
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