How to “Canadian-ize” Your Resumé

Choosing the proper resumé format to complement your education and skills will help to set you apart in your job search. International students have the added challenge of adapting their resumé to Canadian standards. Luckily, there are many resources for Canadian and international students to take advantage of online and in person.

When a recruiter looks at your resumé, they should get an accurate and concise picture of all your skills/qualifications, education, certifications, work experience, volunteer experience, awards and memberships. If any of these sections aren’t applicable, you can omit them from your resumé.

There are many different ways to write a resumé, but always remember to customize it. A common mistake that international students make is emphasizing previous occupations and skills, while forgetting to tailor the details to the position they’re applying for. In other cases, some may omit their international experience altogether, thinking that it is irrelevant.

Michelle LaBarre-Blouin, a mentorship facilitator at the Ottawa Community Immigrant Services Organization (OCISO), recommends placing all of your skills, knowledge and experience in a master resumé and then picking out the jobs and responsibilities that are relevant to the position you are applying to. “This will help to prioritize and summarize their past experience, remove extraneous information and focus on only those areas that will get the attention of the recruiter,” she says.

Diallo Hassimiou, a resource centre advisor from Employment Services at the YMCA-YWCA in Ottawa, leads a series of employment and resumé workshops including a few at OCISO. He says that apart from personal information and the terms used to describe work experience, international resumés are similar to Canadian ones.

“In Switzerland, it’s natural to use the word ‘controller.’ That word is viewed negatively here,” he says. “We prefer to use ‘supervising’ and ‘overseeing.’ ” He explains that the focus of his workshops tends to be changing these types of words and determining how to properly express them.

Making the transition to the Canadian resumé format can be difficult for some new Canadians, LaBarre-Blouin explains. “Their greatest challenge is to summarize their experience in short bullet points and to eliminate all those things that are not necessarily relevant or important. Many feel that they are losing the intricacy of their responsibilities from previous jobs,” she says.

It can also be difficult to convince job seekers about the new resumé standards if they have never had an issue finding a job in their home country, says Hassimiou: “They are very proud of their resumé.”

Although some international recruiters may want applicants to provide a curriculum vitae that has detailed information about experiences and other related qualifications, a Canadian resumé should never exceed two pages.

TYPES OF RESUMÉS

There are many different resumé formats to choose from that can highlight your skills, depending on where you are in your career:

• Functional: Commonly used by recent graduates who have minimal work experience, are transitioning into another career, or have gaps in their work history. Skills and experience are prominently placed.
• Chronological: Highlights education and work experience by listing it in reverse chronological order with the most recent first. It is often used when a job seeker has related work experience and education. This allows the recruiter to get a better understanding of their experience.
• Chrono-functional or Hybrid: Combines the skills and experience section from a functional format with the details of a work experience section found in a chronological format.

Hassimiou says that he focuses on the functional resumé style during his workshops because it allows international job seekers to showcase their transferable skills and prevents recruiters from focusing on any gaps. “Their experience is not necessarily related to the job they want, so functional is best,” he says. For people who have 10 to 15 years of steady experience, Hassimiou advises using the chronological format.

COMMON MISTAKES

Including personal information, your photo and references. Adding information about your age, gender, religion, race, Social Insurance Number (SIN) and marital status may be the norm in some countries, but in Canada this is a major “no-no” based on privacy, equality and discrimination laws. Michelle Cameron, an international student advisor from the International Education Centre at Algonquin College, says that if students were to provide their sex, religion or other personal information, an employer might not be able to hire them.

Being too persistent. Many students are eager to find a position, but sometimes persistence can also come off as desperation, Cameron explains. She recommends that students “respect the process.” Sometimes a student may say, “I have applied every day and I’m not hearing back.” She explains that this can showcase they are not following the hiring process, which makes them look pushy or disrespectful.

Another common mistake is placing work experience in chronological order, starting off with survival jobs that are not related to the jobs they are seeking, LaBarre-Blouin says.

Hassimiou’s recommendation to students: “If you want to find your job, not necessarily quickly—if you don’t want a long turnaround time—go to employment centres, resumé workshops (or look at resumé samples) to adapt your own resumé… Every university or college has resumé samples and different employment-related workshops.” Remember, a resumé takes time, so give yourself a few hours to edit and reflect on what you have written.

RESUMÉ DOS:

• Include an objective or profile statement. Summarize who you are in a few short sentences and let the employer know what type of position you’re interested in. It sets the tone for the rest of the resumé. A profile statement is similar, but more focused on your “personal brand” and your skills.

• Focus on skills. Include a range of personal, technical and computer skills if you do not have a lot of relevant work experience.

• Include your education after your skills section, unless it is not your most recent accomplishment. In that case, it can go further down.

• Place your experience in reverse chronological order. Include your previous job title, followed by the employer and location. Then list your big projects and tasks.
• Use industry terminology, but write out acronyms.
• Place contact information in the header of each page.

RESUMÉ DON’TS:

• Lack information about a previous work experience. It’s a good idea to describe a task by mentioning a positive and/or quantifiable result.

• Add colour or graphics. For certain resumés that are geared towards very visually creative occupations such as graphic design, having a more unique style of resumé is ideal, but you don’t want to draw too much attention away from the content.

• Use too many different font styles and sizes. Stick with one font style throughout your resumé and use larger font sizes for areas like your name or headings of each section.

• Place references at the end of the resumé. Have references ready in a separate document and indicate, “References Available Upon Request.”

• Send a generic resumé. Employers can tell when you haven’t tried to add keywords from their job description or tailor your resumé to the job you’re applying for.

If you don’t know where to start, book an appointment with an employment counsellor or coach at your local career centre. They can provide a critique of your resumé and give suggestions on how to place it into a Canadian format.

Have a question about writing your resumé? Tweet it to @Career_Options and we’ll help you out!