Seven Things in Resume that Caught My Attention

One random weekend, I was bored and decided to drop my resume to Human Resources (HR) email of Market Research Firm in Indonesia. I did my research and found roughly about 15 firms, then I deposited my resume to those 15 firms. The following week, I received interview and/or test invitation from 3 different firms. By percentage, it is 20% successful rate of resume screening. Well, 20% is not really a great number, but 3 different invitations in a week could be a major problem for someone who already working like me.

I would say that my resume is not really that great, but it is sufficient enough to catch some people attentions to, at least, give me a chance for interview and/or test.

Before I continue, I would say that this post personally from my experiences and personal judgement,  because I do not have any training background in HR or resume coaching.

Yup, this time I would like to explore a topic that important to everyone who recently graduated: RESUME!

I have seen a lot of different kind of resumes, from the bad to the good one (in my personal opinion). Due to my track record and randomness in joining hiring process from different companies, I know that my resume is acceptable. Due to this as well, some of my friends asked me to check their resume or requested my resume instead. In my opinion, there are some mistakes that I've seen from resumes that I checked. Following are the list that really caught my attention whenever I checked a resume or perhaps let's pretend that I am an HR.

1. Longer than 2 pages resume
If you have 10-15 years working experiences, it is fine to have longer than 2 pages resume (in my opinion), but if you are just graduated from your bachelor degree, my first reaction will be: WHAT THE HELL DID YOU PUT IN YOUR RESUME?!

2. Nice layout attracts me ...
I define nice layout from the flow of the resume and how you make a full-use of those (2 pages) space.

I have seen too may resumes with so many spaces. This is one of the reasons why some people have a resume longer than 2 pages. On top of that, some people do not know which one to put first after education part: working experiences, co-curricular/leadership experiences,  achievements, or skills. From my personal opinion, put the one that you really want to talk most and more first. I have seen a few resumes that put achievements first after the education part, meanwhile in my resume I put achievements as my 4th part. Whichever you choose to put first, make sure it is really something that can catch attention of others when they screen it.

3. ... but relevant content makes me "stay" longer
There are some people who put every single thing from their life into their resume. That will be a total disaster (in my opinion)! Why would you put if you are a member of organization A, B, C, D, while at the same time you are the head division of organization E, F, G. These kind of listing-everything-resume is another reason why some resumes could hit more than 2 pages. In my personal opinion, it reflects that you can't really focus your energy on something that you really want to do. It is better if you focus on the latter, elaborate and highlight more of your experiences and achievements instead.

4. One-two liner for every points you put
Write concisely for the job and title descriptions or achievements is important. Such a long-winded text in resume rarely impress people, unless it is a paragraph/story.

5. Play with one or two other colours
By default, the font of your resume will be in black. It is no harm to add another colour for your font, to make your point, highlight, or hierarchy of header and sub-header clearer. As long your resume does not look like a rainbow. My favorite colour for this case will be Blue.

6. Availability period
You do not want to go for interview and/or test which the position need to filled immediately, while you need to give one-month notice to your current employer, do you? If you already put, and you get a call, it means they can wait for one-month notice period, don't they?

7. A (nice formal) picture of you
Most of the time when I went for job interview, the picture in my resume will be something that lightened the nervous situation. The interviewers normally will say "you look different from picture". Well, at least from my experiences, it indicates that they read your resume beforehand, which is good.

So, is there anything that caught your attention whenever screen a resume? or do you even agree with me on above points?

Job Interviewers, Please Do Not Ask Me These Questions!

Countless recruitment process, that's what I have experienced for the past year since I graduated from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, is exhausting, sometimes. The majority part of the recruitment process is interview, everyone will admit it. Meanwhile there is a set of questions that interviewers need to ask the candidate, but in perspective of candidate, there are some most-hated questions when if they have a choice, they rather not to answer it. For me, following are the list, but I am not really sure whether I have done it right in answering these questions.



1. Why Should I Hire You?
Only the employers will know the best answer to this question, because they have seen other candidates, meanwhile the candidates only know about themselves. Whenever I encountered this kind of question, I was very tempted to actually to ask the interviewers, why did you actually call me for this interview? Did anything  on my resume catch your attention for this job?

2. Where do you see yourself in five years time?
Seriously, it is not business plan when I need to plan five years projection about the business. If business is quite unpredictable, don't you think life is more unpredictable? Alright, perhaps as a candidate I can have future plan, but I do not have any ideas what's coming in my life, do I? My favorite and a must answer to this question is "I have a plan to pursue higher degree in five to seven years time i.e. MBA, but prior to it I need to acquire as much experiences as I could". Yet, the interviewer will give that not-satisfied-face, most of the time.

3. What is your greatest achievement?
As a person who do not really like to brag about what I have done, instead let others do whatever they want when they learn about it, it is not an easy question for me. The answers that I gave to this question were varied. But from my observation so far, interviewers would love to hear something that really showing what you are really good at, but survival skill in life is not in the list. In my opinion, employers should concern more about the potential, instead of the past achievements. So instead asking, what do you think about our business? Anything that can be improved?

4. What is your expected salary?
It is the least-hated among the hated questions. Well, I know it is really a standard question for any job interviews around the globe (at least from my experiences who were interviewed from most all the continents so far). Well, bench-marking to the market price is the standard thing everyone will do. But normally I will add it up together with the transportation cost, cab fare on daily basis for going to office and going back home. Although at the end, it is still negotiable price. Although it is a common practice, there are some employers who surprised with the quoted price. For this kind of employers, I always wanted to tell them "why don't you give me number on how much you can afford to pay me, instead?"

So, this list is mine. Any more questions, people?

Gema Gita Mahardika: Showing Nowadays Kids Situation and What They Missed Out

It was the first time in my life that I could not tell whether the crying kid sound is from audience seat is part of performance or not

That's what came up in my mind during the show.

Gema Gita Mahardika is a musical drama that I watched last night. It was performed by students from Sekolah Otonom Sanggar Anak Akar, as part of their annual carnival and also "crowd-funding" for their new school location.

The conflict that was raised during the show is pretty simple and for sure everyone at this era can relate with it. It was as simple as whether (Mr.) Technology and (Mrs.) Online will give a positive or negative effects to everyone life, particularly to kids. But it could be elaborated further towards the issue if there are no kids at all who want to continue to be farmers, which in this show, the issue was told, but was not elaborated further.

The whole package of dance, music, props, and cute acting by them will give enjoyable experiences to audience itself. From my own opinion who did not have any stage-art performance education background, I would say that their music arrangement, which was directed by Andrie Virgo Setiawan and Albertus Danang Wiratmoko, is exceptionally good, because it gives an additional "soul" to the songs. But there are still some areas that could be improved, such as stage blocking, sound system issue, and story development, which I felt kind of flat (no climax moment) during the show.

This show is also good for parents who want to introduce their kids to Indonesia's culture, because there were a little bit here and there of culture from Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, Maluku, and Papua. Also, it could be a platform to learn a "real songs" for the kids, not like the songs that available now for kids to listen to.

It was such a nostalgia moment for me when I watched this show, because there were my childhood songs, childhood games, and the understandable feeling of being performers in the stage.

If you want to catch the show, there are other two more available slots for today, 2nd March 2013, at 2pm and 8pm. Oh forgot to mention that the show is held in Pusat Perfileman Haji Usmar Ismail, Kuningan, Jakarta.

Following are some videos that I took during the show.

My Four New Favorite Eating Places in Jakarta [FoodBlog]

Maybe not everyone knows that I have moved back to Indonesia since late November 2012 for good (I think), but I am just gonna update about my food-life for the past two months. Below are the list of food-chains or restaurants from the least expensive to the most expensive that I just tried once in my life, but I am gonna go back again anytime soon, because all of them were scored pretty good based on my taste bud.

1. D' Cost Quick

After they established a fairly good name in F&B industry in Indonesia past few years, D' Cost Group decided to open their new type of food-chain, namely D' Cost Quick. To be honest, I never tried D' Cost Seafood Restaurant before, but when I tried D' Cost Quick in Pasar Festival, Kuningan, I was surprised with the price that relatively less expensive, about 12-22k IDR (~1.4-2.4 USD) per portion even for neighborhood mall and nice taste. Like usual, I tried something with weird name: Mie Cumi Saos Bangbang. Another plus is that they provide dine-in customers with free-flow tea, so drink as much as you want, just be responsible.

2. Salero House
Trying to have "chick" decoration, this eating place caught my friend attention, because we seldom see any Padang Restaurant with this kind of interior design. Moreover, the menu list is all about Padang, even you could find pasta ala Padang style here. I was curious about how the taste of Martabak ala Salero and I was surprised how they changed the filling of it with beef rendang and for me it tastes great! In case you wanna give it a visit, it is in Kota Kasablanka.

3. Caprese Restaurant, Pizzeria & Bar

Also located in Kota Kasablanka, similar with Salero House, this place has a good food and nice staff with great ambiance (or maybe because me and my friends came after lunch hour passed). So far I have tried their pizza, lasagna, and pasta, which in my opinion those three are good.

4. Gyu-Kaku
For this, I should have said thank you to my friend, Dinda, who organized our new years eve gathering in this place, Gyu-Kaku (Pacific Place), otherwise I would not know how good this place is. Gyu-Kaku is Japanese BBQ Restaurant, but the one that I want to highlight is actually their desserts. I tried Coffee Pudding.