Your Passport to International Employment: A Strong Resume

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A resume is more than just a document containing credentials, experience and education, it should be viewed as an opportunity to leave a good first impression.

In essence, your resume is created with the intention of ‘selling yourself’ to prospective employers.

In this blog, I will be breaking down the importance of having a well written and comprehensive resume as well as assessing these resumes from an international recruiter’s perspective.

Most recruiters and hiring companies tend to say they prefer a one-to-two-page resume because it is easier to read, and they can usually determine fairly quickly if the candidates’ resume they are assessing, is suited for the advertised position. This is true, however, knowing what should be included in your resume when applying to jobs abroad is where the importance lies.

Including information such as hobbies, awards, achievements and interests is not required on your resume. These are topics that can be spoken about in the interview stages or once the position applied for has been secured.

Following a simple format when writing your resume is the most effective. Be sure to include your personal details, a professional summary, employment history and educational qualifications.

Having a well written and detailed resume when applying for jobs abroad is not only important to the hiring company, but also for the purposes of applying for a visa. When applying for a skilled visa, part of the documents required is a detailed resume explaining all duties and responsibilities, education, tenure at current and previous companies and your credentials. This is required to determine if the position you are applying for matches up with your previous experience.

It generally takes recruiters approximately 1-3 minutes to scan over a resume to determine if the candidate will be shortlisted or not. Most recruiters browse over resumes looking for keywords and position titles that their client has mentioned they are looking for. Therefore, it is imperative to include brands, tools, components and more that you have worked on.

With that being said, if the resume is not well written, candidates are usually asked to re-write their resumes if the recruiter believes the candidate may be a good fit.

When it comes to interviewing international candidates, their experience, education and visa eligibility needs to be considered. One can meet all the requirements for a position, but if they do not meet one or more of the visa requirements, they will not be able to work in Australia.

Being the International Recruitment Coordinator at Dizon and Associates International, it is part of my job to screen, shortlist and interview international candidates for vacant positions with our clients. During this process, I need to identify and determine whether the candidates meet the requirements of the position they are applying for, as well as ensuring they are eligible to apply for a skilled visa.

Our interviews are structured to ensure international candidates meet both vacant position and visa requirements.

During the interview process, all information is gathered and documented and a profile build is created. The profile build contains all relevant information on the candidate being interviewed such as their experience, education, brands or tools they have worked with or on as well as questions based on whether they would meet the visa requirements or not.

Lastly, once the candidate has been interviewed, a profile build has been curated and their resume is well written, they are then put forward to our clients who have listed their vacancy with us. A decision is then made by our client whether they would like to interview the candidate.