How to Write a Killer Resume / CV

Why is a killer resume important? Simply put, it is your own 'advertisement' to the prospective employer. Your resume is the very first impression to the employer even before you get the call to attend an interview. If your CV fails to convince that you are worth to be interviewed - all your effort will just be wasted, no matter how good you are.

What is a 'killer' resume?
Just remember one word - simplicity.

Yes, a killer resume must be kept simple, as simple as possible, without leaving out vital information. By 'simple', what I mean is do not include unnecessary information, and include all necessary information.

By doing that, you achieve 2 things:

1) The person reading your resume will not get bored by reading what hobbies you have
2) By only including vital information, your chances are much higher to get an interview.

What should we avoid?

1) Hobbies - trust me, no employer is interested about whether you like to play basketball or not. They don't even care whether we have a hobby or not, right?

2) Spelling / grammar mistakes - The ultimate sin of writing a resume is to have grammar or spelling mistakes - I always press 'F7' in my Microsoft Word to check on these.

3) Irrelevant skills - if you are applying for a job as an mechanical engineer, you do not and should not state that your skills include juggling or playing the piano - again, no employer is interested in that. But if you are applying for a piano instructor position, you should not specify that your skills include doing Finite Element analysis.

4) Long winded essays - in the working world, nobody really has time to read a long essay boasting about yourself. Just go straight to the point, in fact, my entire resume is written in point form, and it proves to be very effective.

5) Too small / big fonts - this is again obvious - but I have see resume with fonts so small that it is a pain to read. I will recommend 12 pt Times New Roman for normal texts, and 14 pt Times New Roman, bolded, for titles.

What should we include in our resume?

1) Relevant skills / work experience - just remember to avoid writing a long boring essay, ok?

2) Contact information - phone number and personal email address

3) Current job's responsibilities - this should give the employer the impression that you are a person capable of handling many tasks.

4) Education background - you usually just need to list your highest qualification - if you are a bachelor degree holder, then list your degree, university name & year will do. But in this case, you do NOT need to put in information about primary / secondary school education, which is pretty obvious.

5) Achievements in current job - this is a major selling point - just be careful not to include any confidential information about your current job.

Other things to remember

1) If you are sending a hard copy resume, make sure you use a laser printer

2) If you are sending a soft copy resume (via email usually), make sure you use a PDF file
- PDF files ensure that what printed on the employer's PC system will be exactly the same. Sometimes Microsoft Word displays differently on different systems.
- you can get a free PDF converter at www.pdf995.com

3) Also be sure to read my article related to attending an interview here. :)

So that's it! Happy job hunting!