Okay. This is a toughy, but maybe those of you who have been here longer can help with this.
I am trying to make a resume to send out to get substitute or part time work. But my experience is very hard to put into a resume.
I am not a teacher. I came to Taiwan to learn Chinese. I teach 1 on 1s 4 nights a week but this barely pays for my school so I am trying to find weekend or morning hours at a school. Thus the need for a resume. But how do you put a year’s worth of 1 on 1s, one summer camp at a school whose name you don’t know, and one semester at a high school whose name you don’t know onto a resume.
Even saying that makes me look like a chimp.
So. Anyone with great creative ideas as to how not to look like a chomp when putting all that lack of information onto a resume?
[quote=“SuchAFob”]Okay. This is a toughy, but maybe those of you who have been here longer can help with this.
I am trying to make a resume to send out to get substitute or part time work. But my experience is very hard to put into a resume.
I am not a teacher. I came to Taiwan to learn Chinese. I teach 1 on 1s 4 nights a week but this barely pays for my school so I am trying to find weekend or morning hours at a school. Thus the need for a resume. But how do you put a year’s worth of 1 on 1s, one summer camp at a school whose name you don’t know, and one semester at a high school whose name you don’t know onto a resume.
Even saying that makes me look like a chump.
So. Anyone with great creative ideas as to how not to look like a chump when putting all that lack of information onto a resume?[/quote]
Well, not including a photo would probably be a good start…
you do not need a resume to pick up jobs as a techical writer, sales monkey or any other function with most taiwanese comapnies…all you need is the patience of a saint…and the ability to work in a chaotic, unstructured, enviroment…and bring some sense to it all.
walk into a trading company and tell them what you can do for them.
Pick up thier brochures and redo them…correctly. Turn a hole in the middle biscut into a “Tasty Glazed Donut”
“A personal transportaion for the hills and lovely scenery of life that lets you feel the wonderfulneess” into a “State-of-the-Art Mountain bike for the adventurous at heart”
[quote=“chodofu”]you do not need a resume to pick up jobs as a techical writer, sales monkey or any other function with most Taiwanese comapnies…all you need is the patience of a saint…and the ability to work in a chaotic, unstructured, enviroment…and bring some sense to it all.
walk into a trading company and tell them what you can do for them.
Pick up thier brochures and redo them…correctly. Turn a hole in the middle biscut into a “Tasty Glazed Donut”
“A personal transportaion for the hills and lovely scenery of life that lets you feel the wonderfulneess” into a “State-of-the-Art Mountain bike for the adventurous at heart”
you have to lie a little…but not on your resume…
Chou[/quote]
Don’t listen to him, he’s posting shitfaced drunk from Carnegie’s.
#1: find the names of the places you worked. If you prefer not to actually use them as a reference then don’t say you taught at a particular school or for a company.
#2: You can list your experience just as it is-
Put this line directly after the education section.
Potential employers will see that and take it for what it’s worth.
#3: List previous work, unrelated to teaching, in terms of responsibilities and skills that could come in handy in a buxiban.
[quote=“you”]Dec 2001 - Apr 2002McDonald’s Restaurant
Duties: Food preparation, customer relations, assistaning managers with training of new employees
(if you showed someone how to put fries in the oil)
[/quote]
#4: Make your resume look professional. Use spacing and headings to separate sections of your resume. Don’t be verbose, but make every sentence sound like you will make a good employee.
What is a good length for a professional resume? Mine is currently 2 pages long with 6 years’ professional work experience, but I find that in order to maintain the two page limit as recommended, I have to cut out things. Is it okay to have a three-page resume?
I’m also starting to wonder what should be included in my reference letters.
Most of the people I want reference letters from asked me to write them and then they would just sign them. So, what should I write?
Also, I think it would be more interesting if I could either get the parents or the children to write the letter instead of me writing it. I’m afraid I’m going to make all the letters sound the same.
[ul]1. Is it acceptable to have letters written by children?
2. If so, what hints can I give them to put in the important information?
3. Would it be equally acceptable for me to make a template/questionnaire for the parents and children to fill out and just turn that into the school?[/ul]
I have ten years of work experience (two years as an ESL tutor in highschool), but my resume is only one page. I cut out a lot of jobs and only left in the most impressive-sounding ones. I’ve read in a resume book that you should really only include about the last 8 years anyway. And, if a lot of your jobs are the same, you can do your resume by job type/position rather than chronologically–that can save you a lot of space.
You can stress that, teaching 1 on 1s, you did all the curriculum design, planning, lesson plans, scheduling, and marketing yourself. Mention any special purposes your students were studying for – was some of it Business English, technical, scientific, news,…?
As for children’s letters – a letter signed by Mom or Dad would hold much more water. They are, after all, the ultimate consumers most buxibans want to please, no matter what front they put up. Junior doesn’t pay the fees, Mom and Dad do.
[quote=“the chief”][quote=“SuchAFob”]Okay. This is a toughy, but maybe those of you who have been here longer can help with this.
I am trying to make a resume to send out to get substitute or part time work. But my experience is very hard to put into a resume.
I am not a teacher. I came to Taiwan to learn Chinese. I teach 1 on 1s 4 nights a week but this barely pays for my school so I am trying to find weekend or morning hours at a school. Thus the need for a resume. But how do you put a year’s worth of 1 on 1s, one summer camp at a school whose name you don’t know, and one semester at a high school whose name you don’t know onto a resume.
Even saying that makes me look like a chump.
So. Anyone with great creative ideas as to how not to look like a chump when putting all that lack of information onto a resume?[/quote]
Well, not including a photo would probably be a good start…[/quote]
Oh my God, I am so sorry.
Please, please, can you find it in your heart to forgive me?
Jeez, I really put my foot in it this time.
See, when I first read this thread title and responded, I thought it said:[quote]Building a resume that doesn’t make me look like a chimp[/quote]
I have ten years of work experience (two years as an ESL tutor in highschool), but my resume is only one page. I cut out a lot of jobs and only left in the most impressive-sounding ones. I’ve read in a resume book that you should really only include about the last 8 years anyway. And, if a lot of your jobs are the same, you can do your resume by job type/position rather than chronologically–that can save you a lot of space.[/quote]
One page?! How did you do that? A 9-point font?
I believe my resume may be better described as a CV as I have included my duties under each job title I have held at the places where I’ve worked. This means sacrificing the managing positions I’ve held during my college years in order to maintain two pages, though. They are not related to teaching, but they demonstrate the responsibilities I’ve held over other employees and how quickly I rose through ambition and a strong work ethic. A shame to lose them. So 3-page CVs are a go?
I don’t see any reason to avoid writing your own letters of recommendation in Taiwan – that is the usual procedure for Chinese. You ask the referee whether he or she is willing to write a letter, but what is understood is “are you willing to sign a letter I write for you?” It’s considered nice to avoid troubling the referee with the task of actually writing a letter.
