Recruiting in China

The thought of writing a resume fills many people with dread. However, all you need is a plan that covers both lay out and content. CareerOne's website editor and Ask Kate columnist, Kate Southam passes on the advice from the experts.

The plan below should help you produce a resume that is easy to read and packed with facts employers want to know.

Contact details
Centre contact details at the top of the page. Include name, address, phone number, mobile and email. Make sure your name and phone/email contacts are on each page just in case the pages get separated after being printed out in hard copy. Only use professional-sounding email addresses. Emails used by couples or zany nicknames like evilpixie@ should be replaced. This is a marketing document promoting you so use some variation of your name.

Birth date and marital status
You are not legally obliged to include either detail. Including marital status in this day and age just looks plain weird to me. As for age, MANY recruiters advise against it - there is just too much age prejudice out there. However, if you think displaying your birth date would be an advantage to you, then go ahead.

Lay out
Again, this is really open to debate but the best advice I've heard is "keep it simple". Font style should be easy to read like 11 point Times New Roman or Arial. I've noticed many candidates use a table format but I find this wastes a lot of space and is hard to follow and ugly. Centring contact details and your Career history or Career summary (see next section) is fine and then placing the other information flush left.

Bold for headings is easier to read than bold and underline (overkill). Use dot points if you want, but just the one type. I have seen resumes with a variety of dot points. Also avoid colours. The content of the resume is the most important thing.

Summarising your strengths upfront

You can do this two ways, either via a list of Key Strengths represented as dot points or by creating a section under a heading like Career Profile.

Key Strengths

Based on my conversations with recruitment consultants, a key strengths area represented with dot points is the popular option. The aim of the section is to give the person reading your resume a quick snapshot of what you have to offer in the hope they instantly place you in the short list pile.

To maximise the opportunity

For example:

High level computer skills including Excel, Word and Powerpoint.
Five years experience in customer service both face to face and phone based.
And you fill in the rest. As a guide, six points is good but there is no real rule. Another tip, be specific. I see a lot of "Excellent Communication Skills" but what does that mean?

Excellent written and verbal communication skills acquired via study and customer service work.
Career Profile, Career Overview, Career Summary, Career Objective?

Many people start a resume with a Career Objective. I think this is fine for school leavers or recent uni grads. For the rest of us, a career overview or Career Overview might be better. Employers want to know what you are going to do for them. Putting your expectation of your next employer in the first line of your resume could be off putting. By all means conclude with a career objective eg - "While currently a product manager, my career goal is to move into general management".

A Career Overview should provide the reader with a quick preview of what he or she will find in your resume. It should be a few sentences and written as one paragraph. It should include a smattering of your professional, academic and industry training. Some personal attributes are optional. As stated, your career goal could serve as the last sentence.

For example:

Career Overview

A sales management professional with seven years' experience in the media industry, I have worked on newspaper, web and television products. I have a proven track record of developing new business and motivating a team to consistently exceed targets. I've recently completed a Masters of Business Administration and am now seeking a new professional challenge.

By the way, the example above is totally made up, but you get what I mean.

Also, avoid airy, fairy statements. Ian Napier of Flexiforce says that if a sentence doesn't contain factual information, ditch it.

For example, Ian has seen more than a few candidates describe their career goal as "to utilise my skills in a professional environment for the mutual benefit of myself and employer".

"I hate that line," Ian says. "Where is this sentence coming from? It is stating the obvious and tells me nothing."

Professional history

Outline your career history in reverse chronological order.

The structure to follow for each role is:

Job title, employer, dates
What you did, for whom and when.

Description of employer
This is appropriate for those coming from overseas or in cases where the company might be largely unknown. Organisations like IBM, News Limited, Suncorp or the big banks, to name a few examples, will need no explanation.

I read a resume from a candidate with fabulous IT experience gained while working for the largest children's hospital in India but he didn't say that. The hospital name, without that description, might not ring any bells with an IT hiring manager in Australia.

Responsibilities
People make the mistake of believing the more responsibilities listed the better. Include only the key things you were "responsible for" (accountable for). Don't list every single thing you did. I have seen CVs where people include: "Attended a weekly team meeting". So what? "Chairing" the weekly team meeting is a responsibility. See the difference?

Achievements (up to three per job is good).
This is where you list the things that you did that you were not paid to do. Items would include staff awards, special commendations, suggestions you put forward, scoped out or helped to implement that led to cost savings or an increase in revenue, access to new clients, higher levels of customer service, time efficiencies and so on.

Please note meeting a target is not an achievement - it's doing what you are paid to do. Exceeding a monthly target by an average of 30 per cent with a top result of 56 percent is an achievement.

Achievements show potential hirers what you are made of - and what they can expect you will do for them.

Indent your achievements by one tab on your resume to make them stand out.

Example of a professional history item using the above lay out (again, purely made up):

Customer services manager, A-1 Clothing Care Service, October 1999 - present day

About A-1:
First opened for business in November 1999, the company provides a national telephone and email consumer service to the end users of its 35 fashion retail or design clients.

Responsibilities:
Manage a team of 30 call centre agents who advise consumers on garment care, product updates and where to purchase particular garments.

Update and distribute new research to call centre agents; manage technology suppliers.

Plan and project manage technology and service improvements.

Achievements:

Recruited, trained and established a start up team that was fully operational within a month - one week ahead of schedule
Introduced technical efficiencies that resulted in an improved customer response time of 150 percent.
Worked with the sales team to create new products and services that resulted in a 40 percent increase in our customer base in 2004-2005.
Named Employee of the Year 2004
Follow this format for at least your last two to three jobs.

Education and Training
Start with your highest qualification first. Unless you are fresh out of school, leave your secondary school history out.

Education and Training section can cover university, TAFE training, industry courses, in-house courses, and any other professional training.

Professional Memberships
Include only those relevant to your career as well as an indication of how active you are in the organisation.

Referees
References/Referees come at the end. Names and phone numbers (not mobiles) are the most acceptable presentation. Add a sentence: "Written references available upon request" if you wish.

Hobbies and interests
I have heard mixed views about the wisdom of including a "Hobbies and Interests" section. If you want to include it, place it before Referees.

Some career experts warn that the section could work against you if the reader dislikes or is threatened by the activities you list.

How long should my resume be?
For school leavers and those that have been in the workforce for a few years, two pages is fine but for everyone else three to five pages is advised.

That is the advice from career experts like Amanda McCarthy of Brisbane who is currently writing Resumes for Dummies and from Geelong-based business consultant Steve Gray.

Both warn that hiring managers and recruiters want to see how your career has developed as well as some detail of your achievements, both what they were and how they added value to the business.

However, experts advising mature candidates say don't go back more than 10 years on your resume. You can include a paragraph under the heading "Other professional experience" if you want so you can mention earlier work of particular interest or relevance. Or you can provide a full summary of your professional history. You can end with the sentence: "Full resume available upon request."

My last word
The structure above provides the potential employer with the information that he or she wants - in the correct order - to help them make the decision to interview or not.

No one gets a job based on the resume alone. The purpose of the resume is to get the interview, no more, no less. Send further questions about resumes to me via the Ask Kate link.

The Job Fair for foreigners, to be held in Beijing on April 14, 2007, is in its planning stage. This year¡¯s Job Fair was held in the Swissotel Beijing (HongKong Macau Center) and plans are underway to reserve the hotel again for next year¡¯s fair.

Chinajob.com, as the host of the first four job fairs, will continue to sponsor the fifth event especially for foreign teachers and professionals in April. More than 60 educational organizations and companies from all across China and several hundred foreign teachers and professionals are expected to attend the event. Job seekers and employers will be able to have direct talks with each other and the job offer packages of the employers will be ¡°on the table¡± for both employers and employees to study and discuss and even sign contracts. Of course, Chinajob.com will be available at the fair to answer questions about regulations and laws for foreigners in China.

The year 2007 will also find Chinajob.com recruiting for teachers to attend classes on ¡°2007 TEFL in China Certificate Training¡± in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province. Foreigners who are teachers in China and who are interested in teaching English are the primary students. Teachers with more than five years¡¯ teaching experience in China will be recruited for the job of instructing other foreign teachers on how to teach English in Chinese schools and universities.

The Chinajob.com Job Fair for Foreigners is the place for you if you are looking for a position or thinking about changing your career goals during your stay in China.

This Job Fair for Foreigners 2007 is supported by the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs.

Contact: Eric Liu

E-mail: jobfair@safea.gov.cn

Tel. 010-6846 8025 68948899 ext. 50246

Fax. 010-6846 8006

Shenzhen, an economic engine in south China's Guangdong Province, realized 237.4 billion U.S. dollars in foreign trade last year, a growth of 29.8 percent over the year-earlier level.

Local customs sources said Monday that this is the first time the city ranked first among major Chinese cities in terms of external trade.

The total trade volume included 136.1 billion U.S. dollars in export value, up 34 percent, and 101.3 billion U.S. dollars in import value, up 24.6 percent.

The exports, making up 14 percent of China's total, placed Shenzhen first among major cities for 14 consecutive years.

In 2006, Shenzhen sold abroad 69.62 billion U.S. dollars worth of new- and high-tech products, or 40 percent of the city's total, and bought from overseas 59.5 billion U.S. dollars worth of such products, or 50 percent of the total.

The exports of new- and high-tech products were 32.3 percent higher than the year-earlier level, while the imports, up 27.5 percent, the customs sources added.

URUMQI -- China will set up three Confucius Institutes in central and west Asia this year to satisfy the growing demand for Mandarin, China's official language.

Preparations for the three institutes in Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are well underway, said Wang Lili, director of the Foreign Affairs office of Education Department in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

The Education Department, which was authorized to set up Confucius institutes in neighbouring countries, will cooperate with the education authorities of the three countries to complete the project, Wang said.

"Starting March 1, we will begin recruiting volunteer teachers in Xinjiang and train them in Chinese language teaching methods," she said.

Wang attributed the surging demand for Mandarin learning in central and west Asia to the growing economic and trade exchanges between China and its neighbouring countries.

"Confucius institutes will not only meet the demand to learn Chinese but also help people better understand China," she added.

Confucius institutes are non-profit schools specializing in Chinese language education and cultural communication. They have become an important means of expanding Chinese teaching abroad and stepping up understanding between China and rest of the world.

The world's first Confucius Institute opened in Seoul in 2004.

The first group of 25 Confucius institutes around the world were officially acknowledged by the Chinese government in July 2005 and the number has now increased to 123 in 49 countries and regions.

According to plans of the Office of Chinese Language Council International (OCLCI), China will have 500 Confucius institutes by the end of 2010.

Confucius (551 BC-479 BC) is one of the most famous thinkers, educators and philosophers in Chinese and world history. He revolutionized education in China 2,500 years ago by making it accessible to commoners.

CHINESE personal-computer giant Lenovo Group Ltd said it plans to enter the consumer market in the United States within the next two years.

"You'll see us getting into consumer business," William Amelio, Lenovo's chief executive officer, said in an interview with Bloomberg News. "We've demonstrated success in China and India, and there's no question we should have the same success in other developed markets."

Amelio, speaking on Saturday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, said acquisitions were "way down my priority list."

Lenovo became the world's third-biggest personal computer maker when it bought the PC unit of International Business Machines Corp in May 2005.

"In China we cover consumers up to large enterprises with a full line," he said. "Abroad, what we bought is primarily large accounts and government. Now we can fill in that space."

THE Chinese economy grew 10.7 percent in 2006 - the biggest increase in 10 years, even as the nation's financial leaders tried to rein in excessive growth.

Their efforts did appear to have some effect in the last quarter, however, as the blistering pace tailed off slightly with a decline in fixed-asset investment.

Gross domestic product mounted to 20.94 trillion yuan (US$2.7 trillion) in the world's fourth-largest economy last year, driven by overseas sales, investment and booming domestic consumption, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday.

Yearly growth exceeded the 10.4 percent gain in 2005, the bureau said. But after GDP peaked at 11.5 percent in second-quarter 2006, the rate of increase tailed off to 10.4 percent in the last three months.

"A combination of policies to rein in lending and control land use helped prevent the economy from expanding faster," Xie Fuzhan, chief of the National Bureau of Statistics, said in Beijing.

Among the economy's major components, the manufacturing sector grew the most last year, surging 12.5 percent to 10.2 trillion yuan. It was followed by the service industry, which advanced 10.3 percent to 8.27 trillion yuan. Agriculture rose five percent to 2.47 trillion yuan.

The country's macroeconomic controls finally began to gain traction. Fixed-asset spending rose 24 percent to 10.99 trillion yuan overall, slowing from the 29.8 percent in the first half and 25.7 percent in 2005. Investment in the nation's urban fixed assets climbed to 9.35 trillion yuan, up 24.5 percent from a year earlier, compared with a 27.2 percent on year gain in 2005.

"Investment growth showed visible deceleration, which could be partially attributed to policy tightening in the second half of 2006," said Liang Hong, an economist in the global investment research division of Goldman Sachs.

"The central bank will likely maintain a tightening bias during the first quarter this year to prevent a rush in bank loan approvals."

The central bank has stepped up land controls to make project approvals harder to come by, hiked interest rates and raised banks' reserve requirements to curb credit and cool off an investment boom that has left the country with too much production capacity and idle factories.

Among other economic barometers, inflation last year stood at 1.5 percent, buffeted by a sudden increase of 2.8 percent in December as grain costs surged.

Still, the growth rate in consumer prices was smaller than the 1.8 percent in 2005.

Retail sales jumped 13.7 percent in 2006 to 7.64 trillion yuan, up from the 12.9 percent gain a year earlier as the government cut taxes, raised minimum wages and increased spending to improve education, welfare and health care.

Disposable incomes among the nation's city dwellers advanced 12.1 percent to 11,759 yuan while those in rural regions climbed 10.2 percent to 3,587 yuan.

Foreign trade jumped 23.8 percent to US$1.76 trillion, yielding a record surplus of US$177.5 billion, up from the US$102 billion in 2005.