Free resume template

Remember, recruiters rarely spend more than 10 seconds glancing through your resume before you end up in the ‘yes’ pile or the ‘no’ pile.

As such, your resume needs to make it instantly obvious to a recruiter and hiring manager that you belong to the ‘yes’ pile of applications.

Picking the right template is a great start.

Feel free to download this sample resume and make the necessary adjustments to make it yours. A few reasons that make this resume a solid template for you to showcase your skills and achievements:

1. The simple layout and clean, no-frills font and formatting. Smart formatting helps you maximize precious space for high-impact content, and enables Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS)s to extract the most relevant and useful details from your resume.
2. Make it ridiculously easy for anyone to connect and reach out. Any recruiter can quickly find your contact details, or check you out on professional networking or public sites that showcase your body of work.
3. Balance out the white space versus black space (words) to make it fast and easy for anyone to read it and understand it in a split second.
4. Pay attention to length of resume. 1-2 pages is a good rule of thumb in Asia regardless of where you are in your career. Having a 5-page resume merely shows you don’t know how to prioritize by emphasizing in a concise way your most essential and relevant skills / impact for a job application.
5. Show, rather than tell, how good you are. This sample resume highlights the impact, results, and achievements the candidate has had in each of his previous jobs. A good structure to keep in mind as you flesh out your accomplishments is this: Achieved x, by doing y, as measured or evidenced by z.
6. Use powerful action verbs. Make use of high-impact verbs that pack a solid punch: grew, developed, initiated, led, established, negotiated, persuaded, implemented, drove, solved, etc. Stay away from weak or passive action verbs such as participated in, helped, supported, part of, wrote, spoke, handled, oversaw, the list goes on.
7. Forget about the career objective. Unless looking for a radical shift in career direction (even so, show rather than tell your audience that: by highlighting relevant coursework or independent projects), don’t waste space stating your career interests and aspirations. It should be obvious from the job you are submitting an application for.
8. Highlight interesting side projects, hobbies, and interests. These can function as a good talking point with your interviewer/s. Extra points for you if you both share a similar interests. Check out this guide for good rules of thumb when deciding which of your 15 hobbies and projects to list in your resume.