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How to Write a Resume for a Job:

Getting a job in Dubai is a challenging, multi-stage process. At some point, regardless of how well on the network and schmooze your way into people’s consciousness, someone in HR is going to want to look over your resume.

How to Write a Resume for a Job Your response? You should be able to hand your resume over confidently, smilingly, knowing that it’s been perfectly tailored to blast the HR personnel right between the eyes with a tightly focussed beam of excellence.

You want your potential employer to stop reading halfway through, put the resume down, and say ‘this is our employee. Get them on board, immediately!’.

  1. Why You Should Tailor Your Resume

Put yourself in the shoes of an employer. Remember that if they’ve advertised the position, they will have had dozens, if not hundreds, of applicants. They’re desperately hunting for reasons to throw out the resumes and whittle the applicants down to a handful which they can interview.

If you’re done your homework – and, after reading through the rest of the site, I know you will have – you’re probably not reaching out to employers that you haven’t spoken to first.

Remember that any positive contact with an employer means you’ve started to build a relationship with them. Having your name even in the back of someone’s mind means that they’re far more likely to recognize, feel warmly towards you, etc.

All of these slight advantages may not seem like much, but remember that employers need to whittle the list down somehow.

For the same reason, you should be careful with the cosmetic appearance of your resume. The slightest things can frustrate the HR staff. Unnecessary use of color. Low-quality printing. Outlandish fonts. Garish displays designed to reflect personality.

Many websites will suggest that these things are OK in certain circumstances. We can tell you, with years of experience in the Dubai HR environment, that these are not those circumstances. You want to appear professional, leaning towards conservative, justifiably proud of your achievements, but not boastful. Anything else will get your resume consigned to the recycling bin faster than you can blink.

How to Tailor Your Resume to any Job Posting
How to Tailor Your Resume to any Job Posting

Tailor Your Resume

Successfully writing your resume for a specific job means getting inside the head of the employer. Consider what they want. Use your common sense. Consider contacting them and asking to describe the job in more detail.

Listen to what’s being said and what’s not being said. Often by asking open questions, you can get the employers to reveal more about what they’re after. For example, if the last person left because they ‘weren’t a good fit’, then you can infer the company has a strong ethos and probably some principles that they want following very strongly.

Correspondingly, you could tailor your resume to highlight less innovation and more teamwork, excelling within the constraints of established systems, and so on.

  1. How to Tailor Your Resume to any Job Posting

Consider both positive and negative influences on the employer. All employers are after the same basics from their employees – a hard work ethic, capacity to follow orders intelligently, willingness to get along with others. Lower-level positions require more attention to detail and adherence to rules, upper-level positions require more leadership and there’s more scope for innovation.

Constantly strive for brevity and clarity in your resume. Don’t use big words to make what you did sound impressive. Especially with staff in Dubai, to whom English is often a second language, keep your writing simple and clear.

Look through each aspect of your resume. Your mission statement. The jobs you have worked, and in particular, the achievements in all of them. Your relevant education. Any awards or industry acknowledgments. References. You can see how each of those can be tailored to suit an employer?

Your mission statement can be changed to show how much you, basically, want to work in job X. Previous employers and roles can have relevant skills and achievements highlighted.

Your relevant education should take priority over irrelevant subjects and courses. Your references can be people who have worked for the company before, or in the same industry.

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