December 7, 2022, by Noor Syuhada
7th Resume Competition: Let’s Congratulate the Winners!
In a blink of an eye, our Resume Competition has entered its 7th year! How fast time flies and now we have wrapped up the event successfully.
This competition is part of the Careers Advisory Service’s initiatives to to raise students’ awareness on effective resume writing and groom our talents becoming outstanding in the future world of work, reflecting positive impression from the first step of job hunting. This year, we have received more than 190 resume submissions which consists of student participation in 3 categories: Category 1 (Foundation, Year 1, Year 2), Category 2 (Year 3, Year 4) and Category 3 (Postgraduates).
The resume submission took place from 8th October to 12th November, which is spanning for 5 weeks. The award ceremony was carried out on the 30th of November 2022 where the final winners were selected on the same day by the industry experts. Additionally, the judges were impressed with the quality of our talents and their resumes, where they shared their insider insights, and the attendees got the chance to network with them as well.
One of the winners, Bushra Naqashbandi who won in Category 3 (Postgraduates) shared that, “I have joined a lot of careers events and was eager to join the Resume Competition as a mean to improve my resume for the job hunting purpose in future. I may not sure whether to join academia or industry, however, the feedbacks by the judges are insightful and may help me to be equip myself better”.
List of Winners
Heartiest congratulations to all winners!
The winners had been chosen by the esteemed judges from renowned companies:
- Navinesh Rao Ramakrishnan (Nesh), Senior Talent Acquisition Partner, Experian Malaysia
- Nadiah Anor, Talent Acquisition Partner, Experian Malaysia
- Norfitrah Norizan, People Team, Employer Branding, Shopee Malaysia
- Pauline Ngh, Talent Acquisition Business Partner, OTIS Malaysia
Sincerest gratitude to the judges for spending their precious time to pick out the final winners and sharing their expertise during the award ceremony.
Some key takeaways from the judges’ sharing
- Cover all the basic information and do’s perfectly. Ensure that all the basic information such as name, phone number, email address and location, are included in a resume. Avoid including personal information such as marital status, religion and gender to eliminate biasness and discrimination. Additionally, the career objective is suggested to be straightforward and customized, and the font size used is readable and pleasing to the eyes so that it can gain the interest of the recruiters and lower the chances of your resume to be rejected.
- Say no to COPY and PASTE method. It is crucial to reflect what you have done and specifically put down the points in a resume. Avoid copy and paste the job descriptions to showcase your skills and experience since it doesn’t reflect your true effort and bigger picture of what you have really accomplished. It is essential to go through the job descriptions, however find the keywords that reflect what the recruiters seek in a candidate and utilise them to customize the content in your resume. Tip for final year students: You may not have that much experience to highlight compared to those who have been working for few years, hence you can include your internship experience and/or final year project (FYP) to show your accomplishments.
- Storytelling. Use your own words to show your experience and aspiration, instead of using generic sentences that you can easily find in any websites. The format can be subjective since there are some who may prefer bullet points, some are into paragraphs, however, ensure that your storytelling (especially your word choice!) can reflect who you are, what you have done, and the person you aspire to be. Oh, yes.. please note that this is not only applicable for resume or CV, but also for cover letter. Personalisation is the key!
- Show your passion and capabilities beyond the CGPA/ grade. The recruiters would love to see what a candidate is passionate and capable of doing, other than studying. Hence, it would be great to have a candidate who involves in activities outside the academia. If you have tons of experience in extracurricular activities or involvement in volunteering activities outside the university, improve your marketability by including them. Please note that it is sufficient to highlight only some of them, especially the relevant ones. For instance, about 2 to 4, if the remaining space in your resume allows it.
- No experience? No excuse, there’s a will there’s a way! Take time to learn some soft skills, e.g. digital skills, that can act as leverage in this era of digitisation. Instead of highlighting experience in a resume, you can shift towards highlighting your skills enhancement as part of your potential.
- CV for Postgraduates, especially PhD students. The format of a CV for postgraduates (PG) is different compared to the undergraduates (UG), where PG mainly highlights your research experience in your CV. If a PhD student looking for an industry job, include of what you have gained throughout your PhD journey, like elaborating about your project on how you can bring improvement or new technology to the industry. However, please note that an industry resume is only 2 pages so optimize the page wisely! [Note: A resume consists of maximum 2 pages while a CV can be more than 2 pages which usually used to apply for job in academic setting.]
Last but not least, congratulations again to all winners. Thank you to everyone who supported us throughout the competition and stay tuned to our upcoming events next year!
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