Home

RESUME

Generally speaking, potential employers would like to have as much information as possible about the candidates in order for them to make a better shortlisting for interviews. Of course, some candidates would prefer to put in limited information for personal reasons. A well written, honest resume will save time on both sides. Employers in Asia usually feel more comfortable to have more personal details. Employers in the West will accept almost anything you give because of employment legislations. There is no one standard format, or the best format per se. The arrangement is entirely up to you. The style will reflect your personality. How your career has developed will influent your format. The way you want to project yourself will show your creativity and set you apart from the competition.

Personal Info:

Career Objective: It's optional. Unless you're very sure, if it's too specific it may hinder general application.
Name: Family name in capital letters or underlined, followed by given name.
Date of Birth: Best to write in this manner to be universally understandable, e.g. 5 July 1960.
Gender: Some employers prefer males, some prefer females, for certain positions.
NRIC No. (or Passport No.): Non-Singaporeans to use passport numbers.
Nationality: Country of citizenship.
Marital Status: Married or single.
Office Tel: If it's safe to contact you. State reachable hours if necessary.
Mobile: Absolutely necessary for fast communication.
Email: Permanent, private and personal email address. Don't use company email address.
Home Tel: Would be nice to state the time you can be reached and on which days.
Address: Give corresponding address if different from home address.
Languages: List your ability in all languages you speak, read, and write.
Resignation Notice: State how many months of notice required, or when you can start work on the new job.
ECA/Interest: Not crucial especially for senior professionals, but important for fresh graduates.
Present Salary: State your monthly pay, and annual compensation, e.g. allowances, bonus, incentives, etc.
Expected Salary: State the amount you hope to get if you are firm -- to avoid wasting time on both sides.

Qualifications: State names of degrees, institutions and years graduated.

Scholarships: List the scholarships, honors, and awards received.

Professional Affiliations: List all professional memberships, associations, and social work done.

Career History: This is the most important part of your resume. State in details your work performance and achievements. Candidates are judged by this more than academic qualifications. List the companies in ascending or descending order according to the style that reflects best on you.

References: Give three names who know you well professionally, and socially if possible.

Photograph: Include a digital photo saved in jpeg if sent by email. It helps the recruiter to remember you.

Very Common Mistakes

This is a list of the most common mistakes we encounter:

Under Career History or Employment, most candidates state their job responsibilities and stop right there. It doesn't show how good they are. It is more effective to elaborate on your work performance and achievements. If you are a sales person, give facts and figures on sales targets achieved. If you are an accountant, write how much you have saved for your company. If you are an engineer, tell what productivity you have gained for the factory.
Watch out which company you are addressing your resume to in your email. It's not uncommon to see a covering letter sent as an attachment but addressed to a different company! It reveals your weaknesses that you are not good at details.
When emailing, always send your resume as an attached file. Don't type your resume in the email letter itself because the presentation is not impressive. The importance of first impression cannot be over emphasized.
Remember to email resume free from virus. Some servers will reject or delete your email automatically.
When you email your resume, remember to take out your password first!
Always check if you have attached your resume. A good practice is to always open your own attachment before you email it out. Otherwise, you will be wondering why you never receive any reply although you think you are the most qualified candidate for the position!
If sent by post, put enough postage on the envelope and write your return address. Sounds common sense, but we still see such carelessness.
It's not a good idea to use shaded background for headings because it's difficult to read when printed. Plain bold headings stand out better.
Don't update your resume with a pen if you are sending hard copy. Retype and print it. Your non-verbal action says a lot about your character and interest in the application.

Submitting Your Resumes

Apex Headhunters welcomes unsolicited email resumes if you have the potential to earn S$100,000 per annum and above. We don't delete email resumes of outstanding candidates. We keep them in our database if we don't have any immediate search assignments suitable for them. Therefore, it is a good practice to reserve a permanent, private and personal email address for confidential usage such as, applying to a headhunter, so that you can still be contacted years later after you have changed jobs several times! From our experience, sometimes we found from our database some very good candidates who had sent in their resumes many years ago, but unfortunately all the contact points were no longer in use! We contacted their last company on the resume, but usually their colleagues were not willing to tell where they had gone to, or simply they really didn't know. Well, these guys really missed out the golden opportunities!

Whenever a new search assignment comes up we will go through all the email resumes in our database. Candidates who meet the search criteria will be contacted confidentially first. Those who pass this hurdle will meet our consultant for a face-to-face meeting. If everything is right we will recommend them to our clients.

Please send your resume in Word, not in pdf format, because we need to make adjustments, and include a digital photo in jpeg by email only. Please don't send in hard copies.

Apex Headhunters


Home For Candidates Strategic Move Headhunter's Diary Resume For Employers Client Services Success Stories Contact