Original Thread: So how do you spruce up your resume??
davidli2k
Having a well planned out resume(curriculum vitae) sure can be the deciding factor on whether you get that dream job of yours which you have been dying to get or just stick with the crappy job you have hated for years....so what's the most important thing to put into the resume:
1) Your personal background?
2) Your educational background? (Your endless degrees/diplomas/Phds etc??)
3) Your work experiences??
4) Your objectives and goals??

My company at present is looking for someone to fill up the position as the warehouse/stock/inventories manager and we sure had a lot of promising prospects. Well, I was under the impression that a resume would be much rather the same throughout the world, but I got a shock when I saw the resume that one needs to fill out here in Taiwan.

Basically, in Taiwan, one can buy a resume form (these are small cards with some info printed on them). The applicants need to fill out these forms when they come to the interview. They don't even need to prepare their own resume (talk about convenience). These are some of the info I saw on the resume cards (I saw them out of curiousity!!)

1) Your name (This is common on all resumes)
2) Your Age/birthdate/sex (Common)
3) Your Green Card/Passport number (A little uncommon....in fact, one shouldn't give away one's passport number so easily)
4) Your Address..local and permanent (Common)
5) Tel number..House and mobile...  (Common)
6) Blood type (very strange.....why do they even wanna know what blood type we are???Are they gonna ask us to go donate blood for the boss in case he ever met with an accident or something??)...I asked my boss why blood type is needed on a resume and she answered that Chinese ppl will know one's character through their respective blood types or vice versa. A type "O" blood is considered a nice guy with stability and this was what they usually look for when they need to hire someone ...a type "AB" is a very uncommon blood type and she says that these guys/gals are very flirtituous and not good employees and would leave the company in a month's time.....I told her I was AB and she said "Oh!!..I never realized that for the past 1 and a half years that you were with us!!! "
7) Mode of transportaion - MRT/Bus/Taxi/Car/Bike  ...(I wonder why they need this info for??)
8) Driver's Licence - For Cars or bikes (Again, why they wanna know this info??)
9) Educational background (At last, something useful reqd.)
10) Married or unmarried?? (I guess they are looking for ppl who are married and have a settled down life.....so what about all those graduates who are still unemployed??)
11) How many sons or daughters?? (Yea, as if this is important)
12) Family's background...Father's name and occupation, mother's name and occupation, sibling's names and occupations (yea, if they are as good as you, maybe we will hire your whole family!!!)
13) Work experience (The most important thing of the whole resume and it is right down in the bottom of the form!!....I guess they dont wanna know your work experience if you already have an "O" blood type )
14) Your desired salary (And if you put down a huge amount in 6 figures, you will be shown the door immediately)

So this was what I found out that all the applicants had to fill when they go looking for jobs. After interviewing all the applicants, my boss will come to us at the end of the day with those resume forms in her hands and discuss with us who should be hired...."Hmm.....this girl is too dark and ugly..I dont think I will hire her.....hmmm...this girl is O.K...she talks with a smile and she smells nice.....Hmmm..this one's like 180 cms tall..she is like a giant.guess I will dump her..she shouldn't be here in the first place, she should be modelling...this one has a lot of pimples...this one's an AB negative.....a definite no-no....this one's good...she has a degree in accounting and is from Kaoshuing...."

So in the end, she throws all the "bad" resumes in the bin and just puts 3 on her table for the call backs...she just made her decisions by looking at their appearances and the way they talk and their blood type.....and all the time I just stood there looking in amazement at their folly. Luckily when I applied for the job, I brought my own resume in English (which they couldn't read)and I didn't give my blood type

Here's a bottoms up for the Taiwanese....and btw, the girls my boss hired....already 2 of them have left in one day ..so much for her "O" blood type predictions!!!!

edwardchiu
In Canada, we'd call this profiling "discriminatory." [:(!] They must have quite sophisticated criminal profiling research in Taiwan. [:-?] "Suspect is a male, 175 cm tall, has blood type 0, married with three children, rides the MRT often, sometimes cycles, and may have one or both parents in civil service." [:p]

roger
What is her qualification to be a HR personalle? It just prooves that looks matters, atleast a presentable one, and smile often and speak softly.

davidli2k
quote:
They must have quite sophisticated criminal profiling research in Taiwan. "Suspect is a male, 175 cm tall, has blood type 0, married with three children, rides the MRT often, sometimes cycles, and may have one or both parents in civil service
Haaa haaa Ed!!That was really hilarious!! [=))]...I think Taiwanese companies have a better criminal profiling system than the FBI and CIA combined!!! Kudos to them..[=D>]..
quote:
It just prooves that looks matters, atleast a presentable one, and smile often and speak softly
Rog, you are quite rite....looks DOES matter ....yesterday a girl came for an interview and Oh man..she actually looked like a guy [:-SS]...she was dressed like a guy, speaks like a guy and even has a hairdo like a guy's....we dumped her asap..[xx(]...we dont want lesbians in our company...at least that is wat our boss thinks...