In Part 1 I focused writing about the importance (in my very personal opinion) that everybody who is serious about making a career in the hotel industry, should master the task, to create his or her first resume or CV personally and without the use of a resume or CV writer. The internet offers so many choices, resources that it should not be too difficult to create a resume without having to engage a resume writer. During my career I have used the services of a resume writer myself only twice and the result was, that I always went back and continued to use the format, I had created myself many years ago. It always served me well. I am happy to share my own personal resume with anyone of my clients. The only condition I set for them is simply, that they make the effort and write the content themselves. For most it has worked well. Always keep one thing in mind. The resume might get you an interview, but not necessarily a job.
Resume writing has become Big Business. There are just so many professional resume writers out there, that selecting one is overwhelming, confusing and time consuming. Some stand out and I can recommend some of them to You, as long you do not mind paying a handsome amount for it. Remember: quality costs ! However, as I have already pointed out, you should develop the ability to write your resume content first. The design and finetuning comes later. Even if You engage the services of a resume writer, You will have to provide them with the basic information which they will format with their respective resume software. One of the trick used by resume writers is, that they “design ” a resume with Power Point or a resume software, so, if you need to make a change, you have to come back to them. I find this almost unethical. You find these practices especially in the UK, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Not so much in the USA , Canada or Australia. At least there you get internationally used formats and standards. I personally keep my resume in a simple word docx and that´s it. I do not play around with too much formatting or designs. At the end of the day, 90% of the time the document passes through an ATS scan and that one is clearly not programmed to evaluate the beauty or elegance of your document, but rather on your profile description, work history and the so important keywords.
My own “successful” resume which I used the last 15 years still stands the test of time and it did not cost me a dime since I did it myself. But times have changed and if you want to upgrade your existing resume quickly, you should be ready to pay US$ 200. — to US$ 500.– for a quality resume. Look at it as an investment into your future. I recommend this only, when you reach a department head level. At that time, it can be a good idea to have someone reformatting your credentials however you must keep in mind: You pay and you know what you want.
The following is my personal resume content sheet, which I have used over the years. You will have to provide your own information to a professional resume writer anyway. and I recommend, that You prepare a content list in the following manner.
Your Name , City, Country e-mail: youremail@yourmail.com
_____________________________________________________
Profile – Objective
THIS PART IS IMPORTANT ! It is the first piece of information the respective reader will read. If you are at the beginning of your career keep it short but to the point. If you are advanced in your career this part will change and probably provide more information. However You should still try to provide crisp and compressed content about yourself.
Skills
Here You list your SKILLS: for example (sales skills, cooking skills, management skills, housekeeping skills, accounting skills, purchasing skills, restaurant mgmt. Skills, whatever applies to your particular situation and position you are seeking to obtain Again, you want to keep it short which becomes more challenging as you are advancing in your career. List 4-8 not more.
Professional Experience
Name of Hotel or company, Dubai, UAE 2015 – Present
Position
(Example only): Recruited to revitalize profitability for this XYZ owned hospitality company overseeing 18 (5-star) hotels with US$ ….. million in annual revenues. Initiated strategic repositioning plan,etc. (THIS IS ONLY AN EXAMPLE-YOU NEED TO FORMULATE YOUR OWN )
- Narrative of responsibilities and achievements, i.e. Profitabiity Improvement
- Narrative of responsibilities and achievements i.e. Service Quality Improvement
- Narrative of responsibilities and achievements i.e. Employee Satisfaction
_________________________________________________________________
Name of Hotel or company, Los Angeles, USA 2010 -2015
Position
Narrative of core responsibilities and activities of the position requirements. You find help in the job description if You have difficulties to start writing.
- Narrative of responsibilities and achievements
- Narrative of responsibilities and achievements (Here you reduce your text by one bullet point.
_________________________________________________________________
Previous Management Positions: 1995 – 2010
General Management and Food & Beverage Management Positions with Hilton Hotels, Waldorf=Astoria, Intercontinental Hotels, Moevenpick Hotels and Steigenberger Hotels in Berlin, New York City, Los Angeles, Dubai, San Juan Puerto Rico, Zürich)
__________________________________________________________________
Education ( my example – please edit with your own information)
- Your University: B.A. or M.B.A name, year, degree
- Your Highschoool , year, name
- Your Hotel- or Culinary School, year and city
- Apprenticeship, Internship or other practical experience, year and city
Selected Awards and Recognitions:
- Hilton Hotel Name – President’s Award, city, year
- Five Star Diamond Award , Hotel, City, year
- Hotel of the Year Award, IHCL Hotel , city, year
__________________________________________________________________
Reference: There is no need for you to provide a reference at this stage. The question for references will come up at a later stage.
Signature: It is up to You. A resume usually does not require a signature, however a CV is still signed in some countries.
__________________________________________________________________
The content template above is a simple guideline to structure and organize your information and content in a manner which serves You or the person who writes and designs your resume. You have to decide for yourself, if You will write yourself or if you hire the services of a resume writer. Looking around in the global market I observe, that it is almost the norm in the USA and Europe is to hire a resume writer. In many parts of Asia and Africa it is still a luxury many cannot afford. There are many templates available online.
You have 3 choices:
1. You do it yourself.
2. You decide to use a free online resume builder and still do most of the work yourself.
3. You decide to have a resume writer do the work for You. The challenge is to find the one, who is right for you and pay the price.
Whatever You decide, the basic work You will have to do yourself :
1. Structured content: use my guideline above – it is the easiest to generate the information for your resume or CV in an organized fashion. This work You have to do, no matter if You use a resume writing service or not.
2. Choose the right template: Do not “Over Design” your resume. They might look good but a professional recruiter or HR person will know instantly, if You wrote the resume yourself or somebody else. The style of your design must support easy reading and fast absorption of the content. Out of 100 resumes, I will be able everytime to see if the candidate wrote the CV personally or if it was done by a resume writer.
3. Choose the right resume writer (There are thousands of unqualified people just looking after your money !) : Important that the person is familiar with the hotel business and has written resumes or CVs preferably for international clients. A resume in the USA differs substantially from a CV required for a job application in Germany, the Middle East or India.
Here some useful links:
This company (resume.io) offers a free resume builder with limitless amount of information. There are actually many others but you should ot spent to much time in searching. I have done this for you already. With resume.io you do have a reliable company and solid info base to draw from. If you want to improve your resume writing skills, this is a good place and it is free. Make sure You bring enough time with You to read and study. Alternatively I do recommend a Canadian resume writer, Ms. Linda Raynier. You find her on Youtube and has a solid program to help you about creating a convincing resume and Cover Letter. She also offers the service to do it all for you but it comes at a price. She stands out in style, knowledge and expertise. I know some people who have used her services and all of them not only got good numbers of interviews but ultimately good jobs. The price starts at US$ 400.- but at least you will get quality work.
One more comment: There are many much cheaper writers out there but I have made the experience, that there is a lot of copy and paste and cookie cutter approach. Often these companies hire cheaper writers from other smaller companies or copy writers via other service platforms. A good example is an experienced, international manager with a good resume. All he wanted to do was, to improve and upgrade it. So, it was more a formatting issue than anything else. Trust me, this company made a mess out of an originally perfect resume, partially due to the fact, that the firm did not even make the effort to understand the job of this manager. So, be careful when using the hyped up specialists. Linda works with You directly and you will get excellent results. I am recommending her because of the feedback I have gotten from some of her clients. I am not in touch with her personally, nor do I get any form of comission.
Yet, it is still my personal conviction, that You should write your first resume or CV yourself and use the templates available to guide you. Once You have done your first resume yourself, you can still hire a writer to refine your document.. This is just my personal opinion I know, that writing yourself takes some time but it forces You to think about the position You want. It is also a time of reflection of where You are and where You want to go in your career. … and if You don´t have the answer, sent us your question.
Remember, its free.
Good luck on your journey !