A Little Trick To Improving Your Resume

I was recently involved in a headhunting program organized by the local (Singapore) authorities to conduct interviews with a group of PMETs (Professional, Managers, Engineers & Technicians) last Thursday, 30th April 2009. 

As I was discussing with one of this senior manager that was being retrenched recently on how can he improves on his resume, we came up with this interesting idea of putting down a list of reference books that he have read, or currently reading it, to be included inside your resume as a means to build rapport with the hiring manager.

Though this little trick may not give you significant improvement in getting yourself into an interview, but I guess there's no harm putting it down to give the hiring manager a slight nudge to consider meeting up with you.

If you ever encounter success through such means, feel free to drop me a email or comment to give other jobseekers a feel of this little trick!

To Your Success,

Allan Heng

5 Words You Should Never Write In Your Resume

Just read an interesting article by Lindsay Capobianco. This is the extraction on the article. 

Human Resources professionals are inundated with resumes on a daily basis. Now, more than ever before, job seekers must learn to make their resumes stand out. One of the simplest and more effective ways to do this is by using power words and phrases. These words add muscle to your resume statements and exhibit intelligence. Search online for resume power words and you will be overwhelmed by the amount of websites that claim to 'provide' the complete list of resume power words.

Some power word sites list several words as power words that are NOT power words at all. Your resume can land up in the reject pile if you use the wrong phraseology.

Five words you should never use on your resume are:

A lot - This is probably the most obvious in the list. The problem with saying 'a lot' is that the phrase is entirely too vague. 'A lot' probably means something different to you from what the phrase means to me. There is no value in the phrase 'a lot.' One girl saying, "I eat a lot of chocolate," could mean something entirely different from another girl making the same statement. How much is 'a lot?'

Instead of saying, "I did XYZ a lot of the time," you could say, "I did XYZ 16 hours per work week." The more specifications you add to your resume, the better your chances are of getting an interview.

Creative - Should someone who boasts of being creative actually have to come right out and say they are creative? Probably not. The best way to show creativity is by accentuating accomplishments or skills you have that emphasize your creativity.

Flexible - Flexible is so overused that the word has lost all power. Flexible does not impress anyone. Flex that muscle on top of your head and come up with another power word that gets the same idea across.

If you are applying for a job where physical flexibility is critical (i.e. ballerina or yoga master) feel free to leave this word on your resume.

Interesting - Interesting as a power word is not interesting enough to grab or keep the attention of a human resources executive. Using stronger power words will create the idea that you are interesting and companies will beinterested in calling you for an interview. Anyone truly interesting will never come right out and say that they are!

It - Using 'it' in place of actually telling what 'it' means confuses most readers.

Want another reason to cut 'it' out?

You automatically appear more intelligent.

Using power words can boost the effectiveness of your resume.

Extracted from Article by Lindsay Capobianco.

Key Success In Getting A Job After Retrenchment

This is a recent article that was written by myself...

In every recession, where retrenchment are a common news, how can the retrenched workers find job in the shortest possible time, and ensure a better employability in the long term. Switching industry maybe the solution to it, but how to ensure a successful penetration into a new industry depends on changing your mindset...

The key success to get a new job after being retrenched is to first change your mindset. Whenever a recession comes, retrenchment seems to be the major corrective actions that many corporates will adopt to keep themselves afloat. This is especially evident in the manufacturing sectors where many managers, engineers and technicians have been made redundant due to low production activities. However, despite most industries were badly affected and resort to pay cut, retrenchment as a cost cutting measure, some other industries will be actively hiring. So switching into a new industry may be the way to ensure you are able to bring the dole back home. And to achieve that, the most importantly factor is to have a shift in the mindset. 

The followings are some basic steps in shifting mindset and getting yourself a new job: 

1. Accept reality, and quickly get out of the depression Most people will feel traumatized when the retrenchment news is broken to them. While some simply break down and cry, others may choose to act as if nothing happens. Whatever your reaction is, make sure you spend sufficient time to accept the reality. This will help you to get out of that depression and move forward to take back control of your life. 

2. Write down all your transferable skillsets. When you've written down all your valuable skillsets that you think is of value, spending sometime to think of the times when you're displaying these skillsets to overcome various obstacles. Feel the emotion, the confidence, the adrenaline rushing up to you, making you almost invincible. Amplify this feeling 10 times, 100 times to make yourself feel like you can overcome all odds. This stage is for you to gain back control and confidence, so that you can start taking charge of your life and move to where you want to go. 

3. Research emerging industries and seek out which one requires your skillsets Talk to people, read the news to find out which industry is actively hiring. The newspaper and job portals will give you a good indication of it. List down which of your valuable skillsets these industries requires. Talk to the industry “insiders” or recruitment agencies on the market standard of compensation and career prospects. Choose the one industry that most require your skillsets.  

4. Set a realistic expectation of salary and job title Moving into a new industry means you're not only competing with experience “insiders”, but also fresh graduates who may have a edge over you in terms of much lower salary and relevant academic knowledge. So set your expectations lower in terms of job title and salary. The salary should be slightly lower than the market standard, and sufficient for you to survive. Remember, the idea is to penetrate into the market to gain the experiences for the long term. 

5. Take massive actions Start taking massive actions by submitting your resumes, talking to people who knows people in the chosen industry. At this stage, if you didn't prepare yourself with the necessary research and preparations mentioned above, you may start to get frustrated and lose your drive and confidence, which is something that is important when presenting yourself to the prospective employer. 

I wish you every success in getting a new job!  

To Your Success,

Allan Heng

Consider Contract and Temporary Jobs as a Long Term Job Seeking Strategy

More companies are continuing to reduce their staff to ensure lean operations and survivability. Singaproe Airlines have recently announced a wage freeze for its management, a shorter work month for the senior management team. And UMC (Singapore-Pasir Ris Plant) has also recently layed off 20% of its Taiwanese engineers, and these engineers will leave the company by mid-April 09.

Most manufacturing companies have been cutting costs through laying off workers, reducing wages and shorter working week. Those who have been laid off have been finding difficulties getting a job with their past working manufacturing experience. Well, the lucky ones will have sufficient severance pay package to tie them through a more than 6 months. But ultimately, it'll still deplete its reserve if no new job has been found.

So what can these jobseekers do to get through this current crisis?

Permanent jobs may not be secure as well. More and more companies have started to consider contract and temporary staffs just to augment its existing lean permanent team while the management team adopt a wait and see attitude to have a clearer vision of the far horizon. Taking up contract and temporary jobs may not neccessary be a bad thing. You're still building up your working experience, something that you'll still be able to leverage on when the economy starts to recover. And working on contracts and temporary jobs allows you to maintain certain level of momentum in your working life, allowing you to have some active income to sustain your financial needs. And most importantly, contract and temporary jobs gives your opportunities to work in various companies, exposing yourself to different cultures, and increasing your mid to long term employability.

Companies are more willing to offer contract and temporary staff a permanent position when there is a place, or when the economy recovers as they have already know you, and worked with you for a brief period.

If you use contract and temporary employment as a strategy for long term employability, your chances of getting it will definitely be greatly increased. Remember the waves have already crushed down on us. While we're fighting hard to get our heads out of the water, we'll also need to swim to position to be ready for the next big wave.

I wish you all the best!

To Your Success,
Allan Heng

Staying Positive Is The Key To Successful Job Searching

Over the weekend, I was at Motorola SG participating in a career fair for their retrenched staff. Most of them were in a very down and negative mood. Of copurse, it's understandable that your mood is not going to be churpy and happy when you're retrenched. But I also realized that it's this critical times that you should get your focus back into your life, and start strategizing your job searching plans.

One of the most important element in getting over with a retrenchment crisis and getting yourself into a new job is the ability to focus on the activities that increase your chances of getting a job, and having a healthy, positive mindset to drive you and your family through these tough times.

Here are a few tips to help you get focus and ride through the tough times:

1. Talk to people who'll be of help to you

There're 2 types of people that you'll need to talk and mingle with: 1 is those who've a wide network, and can refer you to others who maybe helpful in getting you a job; the other kind are those who'll encourage you, and gives your motivation to continue your job seeking journey.

Leave those people who'll only whine at the current market situation, and wanting to throw all their negative feelings onto you. It maybe someone who's close to you. My suggestion is to converse less with them, or divert their attention to something else.

2. Be realistic. Set a timeline

In such tough times where the employers are the kings, it'll take a little more time to find a job. Be realistic and give yourself ample time. It'll probably take at least 3-6 months for you to get a job, depending on what activities you chose to focus onto. Don't expect yourself to find a job within 1 month. And if it does happen, it's definitely a bonus!

Setting realistic timeline will definitely help you manage your emotions better. Do share this timeline to your family so that they don't stress you with your job searching activities.

3. Take some time to enjoy yourself

Yes. You heard me. Take some time to do things that you enjoy doing, but couldn't do it while you were working. I don't expect you to send resumes from morning till late nights. Cater a few hours, or even half a day to do something that you enjoy, either with friends or by yourself. Just watch out of the expenses.

This is a good time to refesh your soul, and prepare for the next career. I did missed the times when I was retrenched. I have the whole time for myself, and there was no stress to walk faster, to eat faster, just pure passion to drive me to do what I've planned to do.

Feel free to share with me your successful job searching journey. Remember, the more successful stories, the more people we can motivate!

To Your Success,

Allan Heng

How To Increase Your Chances Of Interviews

By now, I need not say more on how bad and negative the global economy is right now. Retrenchment are no longer something uncommon. And look around you, most likely you find someone who has just been retrenched. Or maybe you've already been one of the victim of retrenchment.

What are some of the things that you can do when the eventuality falls upon you? You naturally want to look for a new job. And that means writing your resume.

My suggestion is that instead of writing it when you need it, update your resume now when you still can afford the time.

To increase the chances of you landing yourself into an interview, your resume is the critical element. A resume will be the first thing that an interviewer used to judge you. So here's a few tips to help you to write a better resume:

1. What type of job are you seeking

Never make the mistake of having a general resume and send to every and any job postings / adverts. You'll only increase the chances of landing your resume into the dustbin.

Write down a list of job that you're seeking first. Different jobs have different job requirements and skill sets. So the first and foremost task is to list down 2-5 different jobs before you write your resume.

2. Understand the job requirement

After you list down the types of jobs you're seeking, the next step is to list down the type of job requirements and skill sets. This will set the tone and overall content when you're writing your resumes. The requirements should be both technical or specialized skills, and the soft skills that is require to translate your technical knowledge into practical actions.

Technical requirement are like softwares requirements (MS Office, AutoCad, SAP, etc.), specific engineering processes, SAP payroll, full sets of accounts, HR compensation and benefits, programming language (C#, C++, Java) etc. These requirements are essnetial for a staff to perform his/her role that is assigned to him/her.

Softskills are like project management, leadership, program management, Research & Development, etc. These skills are the main skills that translate your techniacl skills into execution, actions and results.

This step is one of the most critical as most recruiters will only spend less than 2 minutes to browse through your resume, and they'll always tend to search for keywords and the general contents, the words that you used. And these requirements will form the keywords for your resume.

3. Writing your resume according to the specific job requirements

When writing your resume, stay focus on the job requirements and phraze your sentences based on the keywords that have been generated earlier (see item 2).

For instance, if you're writing a resume for the position of Software Developer, the job requirement should be on the types of programming language you're familiar with, and the past programs that you've written. This position are more technical and you should therefore put in more technical jargons.

But if you're seeking a Software Project Manager role, then you should emphasize more on project management skills, with just the essential technical jargons in place.

4. Rephrazing your working experiences

As per item 3, rephraze your working experience to show more of the required skill sets, both techncal and softskills. If you think a particular experiences may not be that relevant, but you still want to put it it, make sure it is acting as a supporting role, so summarizing it will be fne.

Always put your latest working experience at the top instead of at the bottom, and list it according to chronological orders. Ususally recruiters only look at your last 5 years of wroking experiences, so make sure it's written with a lot of relevant keywords to capture their attention.

5. Writing your summary

The summary inside a resume should be placed at the start of the document, but it's best that you write it last after you've written all the above mentioned items.

The Summary is like a teaser, to attract the recruiter to continue to read on. It shouldn't be more than half a page. Inside the summary, fill it up with as many keywords as you can. This encourages them to read on to find out more.

To Your Success,
Allan Heng
Read more about Writing a Good Resume, and How To Ace In Interviews.

A Tough 2009, But Great Opportunities Awaits

What an exciting year of 2008! It was truly a roller coaster ride where most of us exprienced the HIGHS in the early part of the year follow by the LOWS since the mid till end of the year. Well, the truth is most economists is also looking at 2009 a bad year where the impact of recession will be felt by most countries, especially in the Asia countries. More retrenchments may take place as corporates are seeking ways to cut down expenses.

But for jobseekers, this can be a good opportunity for you to switch to a job that can either help you gain extra experiences, or leverage on your current experiences.

In fact, some companies are seeking to recruit top talents, people who can help drive their companies through this tough turbulent times. (See this post from Business Times dtd 25th Dec 08 "We Will Hire Top talents & Avoid Mass Firing")

So for jobseekers, this is the right time for your to re-strategize your cover letters and resumes, get ready your best suits for interviews and get yourself a big bang for the start of 2009!

I wish you every success, and a great Happy New Year! We're going to have a great year ahead!

To Your Success,

Allan Heng

Read more about Writing a Good Resume, and How To Ace In Interviews.

How To Increase Your Cover Letter Response By 2-3 Times!

Frustrated over the low response of your cover letters? So what if you've tons of great experiences and your resume generally lands into the paper baskets, or being thrown away by a mere click of a button if you're sedning it through emails.

This is what I've learnt today, and can increase your response by 2-3 times! And it's very simple. This technique is known as the "Mr. P.S.".

Most of the times, post scripts, or simply P.S. is the first thing that people will read when they open a letter. It's that powerful!

What you need to do is simply to add a P.S. in front of your signing off, just after you finished the last paragragph of your cover letter.

This P.S. is generally not more than 3 sentences, the main objective is to grab the readers attention and call for a action, either through your promised following up, or them calling you. Below are just a few examples:

P.S. The attached resume explains my relevant experience in detail. I look forward to an interview where we can chat in person to get better acquainted!

P.S. I'm sure you review several resumes each day. I hope mine will allow me to quickly show you how my experiences and qualifications can greatly enhance this role I'm applying.

P.S. I would like the opportunity to present a few additional ideas to you in person. Let's get together soon. How about next week?

Use this little trick and see how it works for you!

To Your Success,
Allan Heng

P.S. By the way, if you want to learn how to write an irresistible cover letter, you can check out this fantastic Cover Letter Creator that I've just discover. Click HERE to find out more!

How To Increase Your Chances Of Getting Headhunted

In this information age, being headhunted is getting easier as the opportunities and chances of your skills being exposed to others are much more. Getting headhunted is not about merely showing your resumes and your accomplishments. It's about getting yourself known to relevant people that makes the difference. Below are just a few areas where you can get others to know you more professionally:

1. Participate in relevant trade exhibitions
This is probably one of the most effective and easy way for exposing yourself to people within your trade or industry. Don't just go to trade exhibitions with the sole objective of understanding the latest technology or products. Talk to as many people as you can. The focus is to let more relevant trade companies know who you are. And remember to exchange your business cards for future correspondance.

2. Join the School Alumni
School Alumnis are as good as trade exhibitions because you can get to know people of the same specialised trade/area. You can even get yourself more exposure by being one of the alumni committee member. That'll give you more reasons to contact the members.

3. Join social networking sites like LinkedIn, MySpace & Facebook
It has becoming not a trend, but a way of life for people to engage into cyber social networking. Some headhunters even screen through their candidates through their social networking sites profiles to ascertain whether is he/she the right person. Just make sure your profile is casual and reflects your true personality.

Another thing about such sites is that you can widen your social network easily, and should you need job recommendations, it spreads extremely fast. And such referrals will land yourself much more easier into your desired job.

4. Join relevant forums
Make sure you put a decent profile and state your interests. Read through the topics that are relevant to your desired job, and make comments on it. This will allow people to get to know you more, and start to look at you as a professional in your trade.

5. Writing & submitting articles
Writing articles to your local press, magazines will greatly enhance your image as a professional. However, you'll need to know what articles the press and/or magazines will be interested in. So make sure you do some research on what type of articles do they generally publish. Alternatively, you can also submit shorter articles to Ezines like Ezine Articles. They're a huge e-articles directory that have millions of visitors visiting them and searching for relevant articles.

One tip for you: If you can't think of any topics to write to your desired press or magazines, go to Ezine Articles to do your research on the type of topics that generated the most visitors.

6. Create Your Own Blog
Creating your own blog builts credibility, reputation and allows people to "locate" and understand you easier. All you have to do is to get a free blog provider like Blogger or Wordpress, and just follow their instructions. And make sure you update your blog regularly so that your blog can be easily searched by the search engines.

If you're really interested in creating your blog, you should learn some internet marketing techniques to increase your exposure.

Getting headhunted is not an overnight thing. You'll need to build your credentials bit by bit. And if you apply what I've mentioned above, you'll definitely increase your chances of being headhunted by leaps and bounds.

To Your Success,
Allan Heng

The Cover Letter Is The Sales Teaser

Why is a cover letter the most important element in your resume? just imagine that you're the HR Recruiter in a large MNC, and you're required to review & filter hundreds of resumes in a day. Can you afford the time to screen through all resumes in details? Absoultely no efficient at all!

Most recruiters will screen the potential candidates first thing is through the cover letter before they decide whether to go indepths into your resumes. So writing a good resume is not only about the details, but more importantly your cover letter.

Think of your resume as the sales copy of a product or service. The more benefits and specifications the better it is to see how good tjhis product / service is. And your cover letter is the teaser. The teaser does nothing but to attract potential buyer to read more into the sales copy.

I hope I've made it pretty simple on the role of the cover letter. Writing a good resume is not going to help you increase your job search interview chance if nobody wants to read it.

To Your Success,
Allan Heng

5 Pitfalls of Writing a Good Resume

The followings are some of the pitfalls that you should avoid when writing a good resume:

1. Too Lengthy
The reviewer (usually a recruiter or the HR practitioner) will most probably be screening through hundreds of resumes within a day, and will not have a lot of time reading the details. If your resume is too lengthy (more than 5 pages) and/or your cover letter is more than a page, chances are your resume will be deleted away.

2. All About Yourself Only
Writing a good resume is not about who you are, and what you do. Instead add it more pointers on how your experiences can be of value to the company, especially on your transferable skills and accomplishments. Focus on what you can do for the company through your experiences and accomplishments than just merely stating it. You maybe were managing a project of different nature. So you can simply stated that your project management skills will allow you to take on ah-hoc related projects, etc.

3. Spelling & Grammatical Errors
Some companies may have little tolerance on such mistakes. So make sure your proofread it again and again, and get a third party to do another round of proofread. This is the worse pitfall, and also the easiest mistake to make.

4. The Wrong Type Of Font (Resume Formatting)
Do not use fanciful fonts. A safe bet will be using Times New Roman or Arial. It is easy to read. And make sure your paragraphs are sufficient spaced apart. If it is too cramped, the reviewer will be discouraged to read on. Remember, you are writing a good resume, not a fanciful resume.

5. Contact Information Wrongly Placed
Putting the contact information on the front page will allow the reviewer to have access to your contact number easier. That is the most important aspect. Your sole purpose of writing a good resume is to attract them to contact you. Putting your contact information at the wrong place will discourage them to contact you.
Only put your picture if you think that will enhance your chances, especially if your job requires meeting up with customers. A pleasant appearance will definitely be an advantage. However, if you do not have a proper picture, it will also be fine.

Writing a good resume is not difficult. If you avoid the above mentioned pitfalls, it will surely increase the chances of getting interviews.

To Your Success,
Allan Heng

7 Powerful Tips on Writing Good Resumes

The following are tips on writing a good resumes that all employers and recruiters will love to see:

1. Resume Format
If you are a fresh graduate with limited working experiences, put your academic accomplishments first, especially if you have good grades. If you have sufficient working experiences (2 years or more), you should put your working experiences before your academic accomplishments.

2. Contact Information
It is important to put your contact information, preferably on top of your resume to allow the recruiter and/or HR personnel to contact you. If you have a decent picture, put it up. This will give you a slight edge. Otherwise do not put any picture.

3. Highlight Key Points
After reading the job descriptions of your desired job, highlight key points that either matches or enhance the job description using a different font colour. This will allow the recruiter / HR personnel to spot it faster and easier.

4. Job Responsibilities vs Accomplishment
Writing a good resume through mere detailed job responsibilities is not sufficient. It merely tells others what you have been doing, and not how good you are. Putting some accomplishment after your job responsibilities details like the extra projects that you have undertaken and how that contribute to the company, will allow the reviewer to estimate your capabilities.

5. Know Your Audience
Your resume is written for 2 types of reviewer : The HR practitioner, and the hiring manager. Both types of reviewer are usually looking for different things in a resume. Writing a good resume means that you will need to cater in these 2 types of reviewers.

6. Limit To Not More Than 5 Pages
Do not write your resumes more than 5 pages as the reviewer will find it too lengthy, and be discouraged by it. Instead a good resume will be around 3 pages. So write the essential points. You can elaborate it more during the interview.

7. Cover Letter
The cover letter is the most important aspect of a good resume. Make sure the cover letter is within 1 page, with the main paragraph occupying not more than 2/3 of the page. The cover letter is a teaser, to attract the reviewer to read more in the resume, so no details.

Writing a good resume is critical as it is the first impression that the reviewer gets. I wish you all the best in your job hunting and hope you will get your desired job as soon as possible!

To Your Success,
Allan Heng