CANADIAN NEWCOMER 9

How to: Your Resume & Cover Letter

8 min readJun 14, 2020

Don’t repeat my mistakes!

Are you Canada-friendly? Or still using an old resume from your previous country?

When I moved here in late-2019, I made sure that I had an up-to-date resume before leaving Japan, that I thought would be “fine”. Unfortunately, I quickly learned that the format I brought with me was not ok for Canadian HR or recruiters!

All entries in this series are available at the following links:

I had forgotten a lesson I learned when I moved to Japan back in 2005; when I was a jobseeker in Tokyo, I of course found out the local preferred format, and then wrote my resume in that style. And in Japanese, of course. So while I brought an English resume with me to Canada, it was of course a Japanese-style resume!

So, you should do the same thing. When you are a job-seeker in Canada, and ask 20 people for advice on your resume, you are likely to get back 20 different answers. It is up to you to sift through the feedback, and apply/use what you choose to. I am not going to give you feedback on your resume today; rather I will just introduce the standard resume format in Canada is, and you can follow if you choose to.

Additionally, I learned about the importance of a cover letter here in Canada. It is often not mandatory in the hiring process to have a cover letter when you apply. But, rather than look at it as optional extra work, think instead that if you make the effort to attach one, then your package will be more complete vs somebody who ‘took a shortcut’ and didn’t write one. It also gives you an opportunity to expand on something relevant in your resume; it is one more attempt to gain the interest of the recruiter or hiring manager. So make sure you take the opportunity!

Resumes in Canada

The Canadian format of a resume is quite easy to find with a quick Google search. Rather than rehash this or this or this or this, I would like to add advice or tips that can help you stand out.

Do

No “I/me/we” personalisation. Write in the 1st person. No pronouns.
Put a link to your LinkedIn profile at your personal details. Make sure you have also shortened your LinkedIn homepage URL
Indicate the town or city you live in, so people can tell that you are localised, but you don’t need a full address
Recommended order of sections:
- Career Summary or Career Objective
- Professional Experience
- Education
- Certifications/Licenses
- Volunteer Work
Make sure that your job experience is summed up simply. Try to have 3 bullet points for each entry in your work experience section
When you write about work, deal with numbers and facts as much as possible. Say “Saved $3m dollars in 2017 fiscal year as Operations Manager” rather than “I contributed to the top cost savings of my department when I was in charge from 2016–2018”
Thoughts differ about the length of resume. Most readers will give your resume 10 seconds or less as a scan, and read on if they are interested. So for newcomers it is recommended to stick to 1–2 pages

Photo by Startup Stock Photos from Pexels

The main 2 types of resume are chronological and functional.
- Chronological simply means “time-based”, and is the familiar format organized by your work history, going back in time (most recent position first).
- Functional is better for recent grads and younger newcomers. You list up projects or skills rather than job positions you have had, to demonstrate what you can do/have learned, despite having less experience, or employment gaps
Write about timing (start/end-date of jobs) as Month/Year. Don’t put day in there as well. i.e. APR 2012 — MAY 2014 is good, but 10th Apr 2012–31st May 2014 is not
Volunteer experience is beneficial to list, if you have space for it. Consider it as a job just like your professional career, and list up to 3 bullet points about what you did
Your recent experience counts the most for the reader. If your work experience is more than 10yrs old, it is ok to consolidate the entries, simply list up by year, rather than month/year (i.e. 2007–2013), and have just 1–2 bullet points for those entries
If you are currently unemployed and the gap is growing since your last position, make sure you can answer the question “What have you been doing since you last worked?”. Try to stay ‘present’ by doing online training courses, professional development, contract/freelance work, volunteering, etc

Don’t

No SIN number, or other sensitive personal information (nationality, gender, age, immigration status, visa status, marital status, religion or politics)
No head-shots or photos
No full home address
No references at the end. If you need to provide references, the company will ask you for them directly
No hobbies or interests
No salary expectations
No hyperlinks/URLs
Don’t list up language skills unless they were specified in the job description
Don’t hide employment gaps. It is ok to put a short note saying e.g. May 2017-May 2018 ‘Family Leave’, or ‘Relocation to Canada’, or Professional Development/Training’…Explain it simply in 1–2 sentences
No list of job duties or tasks. Focus on actions and state the results
No typos, no incorrect contact details are correct, no personal email addresses from your college days (i.e. use Joe.Random@gmail.com and not BeerBro@hotmail.com or something)
No wall of text. Make sure you follow recommended formats, simplify the text, and leave some white space for the reader

Extras
- I find it useful to refer to past resumes when I am writing my latest version. I found there is often an extra detail or two that I forgot about, and can add back into the latest edition to punch it up
- Refer to the job description of your current/previous role when you are trying to write about it at first. It will help guide you as you remember the responsibilities you had in the beginning

Master Resume

When you apply for jobs it is good to have a targeted resume, specific to the position. It can be hard to think of writing a new resume for every application, so instead I recommend you to develop a “Master” resume, where you list up as many details as possible. In other words, every job you had, several bullet points for each, go back as many years as you can remember. Put in as much information as you can, write about your various job titles and responsibilities. For education, add all the details of your projects, training courses and licenses that you can remember. Did you win any awards? Recognised in any media? Put it all in.

When you want to apply to a job, scan through the master and pick out the relevant points and drop them into a tailored resume. Here and here are good references for how to develop your Master Resume

The Cover Letter

As mentioned above, instead of considering a cover letter as optional or extra work, consider it is part of a complete application package. Not only does it make your effort stand out more to the reader, but again, it gives you an extra chance to expand on something relevant from your resume/profile. Think of it as one extra opportunity to gain the interest of the hiring manager. Don’t miss the opportunity!

Suggested templates for a cover letter are here and here.

Make sure your first impression is a good one with the following tips:

Tell your story, but not your life story! You have one page; focus on how you meet their needs,and what you would bring to the job
Don’t mention your visa or immigration status, or other personal information (follow the same rules as for the resume, mentioned in the previous section)
This is where they can read more than what is in the resume. Don’t copy-paste from the resume; use the opportunity to write about a project or skill that is relevant to the job posting/ad.
Refer to the job title/code that you are applying for
Using a format/template is ok if you are applying to several jobs. But customize each letter, and BE CAREFUL with names, addresses, and job references. Make sure they are correct
Thank the reader for their time and consideration

Summing Up

Hopefully these tips, and do’s/don’ts will help you master the art of writing your resume and cover letter, and being so amazing that the reader will have to call you and find out more in an interview. Good luck!

Who Am I?

Hello, I am Garry. Nice to meet you. Here is my LinkedIn profile. After 15yrs living in Japan, I moved to Canada in late 2019. Since I got here, I have learned a lot from friends, great mentors and advisors, pre- and post-arrival services, and good old-fashioned internet research! I would like to expand on those points and share more, to help you on your journey here in Canada.

Also earlier this year I talked about some of these things in a LinkedIn article, and in a webinar with NewCanadians, I discussed with some smart people about the newcomer’s job search and the impacts of COVID-19. Please check them out!