One of our European job seekers once told me that it is illegal to request pictures or date of birth on the CV, because that borders on discrimination.
One of our European job seekers once told me that it is illegal to request pictures or date of birth on the CV, because that borders on discrimination. As much as we respect every professional foreign talent who is seeking job opportunities in China, we still need to be honest and present the truth about how the HR system works in China. Just keep in mind that, as headhunters, we want you to get hired more than anyone else, we are only trying to help, not trying to invade your privacy or be mean.
Image: thebalance.com
Put A Photo of Yourself on the CV
The purpose of sending out the CV is to get hired, or at least get to an interview. Based on that point, it is practically crucial to put a photo of yourself on your CV. Most Chinese companies wouldn’t even check those CVs without pictures; they go right into the shredder.
Yes, it is unfair, and it will make the employers miss a lot of qualified and worthy candidates.
The reason why the companies do that is because China is a country with the largest population in the world. There are so many people competing for job opportunities; ordinary jobs have thousands of applicants, bad jobs have hundreds. This is actually an uneven market and we have to adjust to the reality. And let’s face it, appearance is important and it does show a lot about the candidate.
Editing your CV specifically according to the job you have in mind is more helpful after a thorough research on the job requirements and the hiring company.
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Place the similar or related experience and qualifications first
Try to avoid or minimize the experience that is totally irrelevant, even if you think that it’s going to show that you are an interesting person or this experience will help with your job, it is what you can ‘occasionally’ mention during the interview, not make it the highlight on your CV.
As we mentioned above, there are so many candidates competing for one job, the HR wouldn’t have enough time to go through each CV completely. They would choose the ones that are concise and accurately matching the job requirements. Making efficient presentations to targeted audience is a very important survival skill required everywhere, not only in job seeking.
Image: RateMyPlacement.com
Specify your duties of your former jobs
List your skills and qualifications clearly in the most needed order according to the new job’s requirements. Fancy titles alone such as project coordinator, CEO etc. do not actually help with captivating the attention of the HR. They need to know exactly what you can do or what you are familiar with, whether they need to spend time to train the new comer or there will be difficulties in transition.
Image: RateMyPlacement.com
Make yourself stand out from the crowd
Everything mentioned above are just different ways of making your CV be noticed, what matters most is your ability, that is the real guarantee which will come all the way with your career. Being a professional, it is important to improve your ability and it is better to make your ability applicable.Although some of the advices above are kind of unreasonable or even rude in a way, but they come from experience and are the bitter reality.
Is the situation getting better? Yes! But changes take time, for both the employers and the candidates. It requires mutual understanding and cooperation; making an effort together would be the fastest way to get there.
Image: JobsDB.com