How to Write Strong Chinese and English Résumés

Introduction

I had been fairly lucky lately. Through a friend's introduction and referral, I returned to my public-health roots, although this time I joined the Real World team at a CRO company.

The role brings together almost everything I had learned across different fields: the SAS programming skills I developed in public health, my legal background, and all kinds of other interdisciplinary knowledge.

During my first few days on board, I found that I really liked the job. I also felt that, besides my own abilities and qualities being appreciated, luck and my friend's referral were major reasons I got the opportunity.

For the full interview process, you can refer to another article I wrote:

A Fantastical Journey: My IQVIA SAS Programmer Interview and Offer Experience

Because I was applying for a SAS programmer position, there was a SAS test, but the first round still included a normal basic interview process.

As I mentioned in the article above, however, my first-round interview ended very quickly, and honestly, they did not ask me many questions.

Most of the time was spent explaining the difference between a SAS programmer and a biostatistician.

Afterward, I asked the friend who has now become my wonderful coworker why the first round had gone so smoothly.

“Because your résumé was genuinely very well written. Many of the questions had already been answered in it.” That was my friend's answer.

When I thought about it, I really had spent a great deal of time researching and collecting information while writing my résumé. It was also Lunar New Year, and a wave of resignations and job changes usually follows the holiday.

So I decided to take this opportunity to turn the résumé-writing techniques I used at the time into an article for anyone who might need them.

To make the explanations below easier to follow, I am first sharing anonymized versions of the résumés I still use for different job applications, so you can compare them with the article as you read.

Chinese Résumé

English Résumé

You might say that putting my résumés online could reveal my personal information and let everyone figure out who “Wakame” really is.

I am not actually trying to hide it. The information on this site's ABOUT page already provides enough clues to piece together who I am in real life.

The name Wakame is like Tina, the name I use at work: to me, they are both simply stage names.

The résumés merely reveal more about my learning process and career planning. Personally, I do not think any of that needs to be kept secret.

What to Prepare Before Writing a Résumé

Writing a résumé does not begin the moment you open a program on your computer. Before you truly start writing, you need to prepare the necessary information so the rest of the process can go more smoothly.

You can treat the items below as a checklist for the period before you write your résumé and confirm, one by one, whether everything is ready.

A Sound Career Plan and Learning Journey

This is actually the single biggest key to writing a strong résumé.

Do you understand what the majors you studied, the fields you specialized in, the certifications you earned, and every job you took after graduation have meant in your life—and how they fit into the development of your career?

Do you truly know what you like, what you want, and what you are good at?

The ultimate purpose of a good résumé is to help the reader understand the path your life has taken and the expertise and qualities you may possess.

If you do not know whether you liked the subjects you studied, whether the certifications you earned meant anything to you, and every job was chosen casually without thoughtful planning,

or if you did not learn anything from any of the jobs you held after graduation,

then I am sorry to say that it will be difficult to write a résumé that catches anyone's eye. At best, it will be only a formal pile of visual formatting.

If you notice this problem before writing your résumé, I strongly recommend reconsidering what “work” means to you, what you want from life, and what you have learned up to this point.

Besides thinking it through on your own, you can also ask friends who are already working to help you clarify the issue.

I believe you will gain a great deal from the process : ).

Information About Yourself

Writing a résumé requires a great deal of information from your past, so I recommend preparing it in advance. Otherwise, you may have to stop halfway through writing to request documents at the last minute.

That can waste a great deal of time and give you a serious case of exhaustion-exhaustion syndrome.

Transcripts from Each Stage of Education

Generally, a job-search résumé only needs to include university-level education and above, or simply your highest degree.

For transcripts, I recommend obtaining a record for every semester of your undergraduate, master's, or doctoral study. If possible, also calculate your GPA and average grade, because you may need them later.

Once I decided to look for a job, I applied in advance for Chinese and English transcripts and semester rankings from both my university and graduate programs, just in case.

Certification Information

This category includes credentials issued by private organizations as well as professional licenses obtained through national examinations.

The information you should prepare with particular care includes the issuing organization, certificate number, date of issue, and expiration date.

We cannot attach copies of every certificate to a résumé as proof, so these details provide the basis a company can use for later verification.

Much of this information is useful not only when writing the résumé but also later during onboarding.

I have earned quite a few certifications in different fields, and I keep both the physical originals and the original electronic files. When writing a résumé, I can simply take them out and refer to them.

Proof, Overviews, and Achievements for Education and Experience

Proof of education means your diploma. A company may ask for a copy when you report for work, so I recommend making copies in advance.

You should also note the dates when you entered and graduated from each program, because that information may be needed later.

Employment experience can be supported through references, so this belongs with the advance preparation for referees discussed later.

For summaries and major achievements from your education and work history, organize the notable things you did during each period and the general content of your work so résumé readers can understand your previous responsibilities.

Whenever possible, present achievements with numbers. A writer, for example, might use the SEO rankings of articles on a website as evidence, making the result much easier to grasp at a glance.

Besides making copies of each diploma, while preparing for national examinations I also organized my achievements at every stage—for example, a thesis award I received in graduate school and links to articles I had published—and collected the information in advance.

Referees' Contact Information and Advance Notice

As mentioned earlier, a former supervisor's recommendation can help substantiate your work experience.

Some companies also request references during recruitment, so I strongly recommend preparing them while writing your résumé.

Because HR may contact your referees by telephone or email, you need to notify them beforehand; otherwise, the call can be quite disruptive.

Most of my work experience was as a research assistant, so one referee was my master's adviser, who was also my instructor and employer, and the other was the adviser for my second master's degree.

I also prepared a former supervisor from my time as a research assistant at Academia Sinica as a backup, although I never needed to use that reference.

LinkedIn [Optional]

First, I do not think LinkedIn is essential when applying to local companies.

If you are applying to an international company, however, I recommend preparing your LinkedIn profile.

I already used LinkedIn, but because IQVIA was unquestionably an international company, I reviewed my profile again and checked details such as certification numbers and expiration dates.

It was basically a matter of entering the information I had collected earlier into LinkedIn.

My view of LinkedIn is that it is a basic résumé that also lets me add a few more professional friends.

I still keep most of my work and articles on this website, so LinkedIn is, at most, a platform that occasionally sends traffic to my personal site. I do not use it very often.

I ultimately did not include a LinkedIn link in this particular résumé submission either.

Still, I am providing my LinkedIn profile below for anyone who would like a reference.

LinkedIn Profile

Portaly [Optional]

If you have many portfolio pieces, a personal website, or several social-media channels, a gateway link like this can be quite useful.

The platform lets you create a personal page that gathers everything you have done in one place so people can find it quickly.

Because I stream, run an Instagram account, and produce a podcast, I use Portaly to collect some of my collaborations and results. I am sharing it below as a reference.

Wakame's Portaly

If you want to build this kind of personal gateway, you can simply search Google for Portaly. It offers different pricing plans; because I already have a personal website, I find the free plan entirely sufficient for now.

For an ordinary job search, however, I think Portaly is completely unnecessary unless you want to demonstrate the performance of your social-media work.

You can decide whether it makes sense for your own situation.

Information About the Position and Company You Want

One of the most important things to do before writing a résumé is to understand the position and company you are applying to.

It is like selling a product: you must understand who your audience is before you can write advertising copy aimed at that audience.

Oh, and I think writing a résumé really is selling a product. The difference is that the product today is “you,” while the interviewer or your future boss is the consumer.

Understanding the position and company is not only something you need to show in your résumé; it is also likely to come up in later interviews. Preparing in advance is therefore essential.

When I was preparing my résumé and interview for IQVIA, I conducted roughly the following research, which I am sharing for reference.

For the SAS programmer position, I researched the differences between SAS programming and general biostatistical analysis, the approximate salary range, the content and structure of the work, and even how the duties of SAS programmers differed among companies.

For IQVIA itself, besides learning about clinical trials and the CRO industry as a whole, I looked into how IQVIA differed from other CROs, the issues its Real World team focused on, and the company's future vision.

Thanks to the friend who referred me, I also unexpectedly learned about the interview stages I might face, whether the person interviewing me would become my line manager, and whether that person was from overseas.

My friend's explanations also gave me a general idea of the problems a SAS programmer handled within the team, allowing me to predict the likely direction of the SAS test with reasonable accuracy.

I also had a general sense of the work arrangement—fixed or flexible hours, remote work or office attendance—and the personalities of the people I might work with before writing the résumé and attending the interview.

Does that sound like too much preparation?

I do not think so at all. The more you prepare, the better you can determine whether the job suits you, and the better your chances of obtaining it.

Preparation also helps you target what the employer wants more accurately in your résumé and demonstrate your enthusiasm and readiness during the interview.

Some of the information above, however, is only available when you have a friend willing to refer you.

So if a friend is willing to give you a referral, hold on to their leg and never let go!

Choosing a Résumé Layout and the Software to Create It

If you really do not want to think about résumé layout, I recommend simply using Canva.

I am an amateur illustrator and am comfortable with Adobe tools such as Illustrator. Canva's templates are also fairly fixed and did not necessarily suit my needs, so I did not use it.

A résumé does not require complex artwork, so there was no need to use Procreate or Illustrator either. In the end, I chose PowerPoint.

Why PowerPoint instead of Word? PowerPoint provides more freedom when arranging blocks of content. Word is sometimes constrained by paragraph structure, and images can easily shift out of place.

For documents that require substantial layout work, I therefore prefer PowerPoint.

You do not need to invent a layout from scratch either.

If there is homework to copy, copy it—so I always recommend searching Google.

Whenever I handle something unfamiliar, my first step is usually to search Google for a solution instead of immediately asking someone for help. That is simply my habit.

Searching combinations such as “Chinese résumé examples” or “English résumé design” on Google will turn up some excellent templates.

Because résumé layouts mostly use geometric shapes, you can combine shapes through PowerPoint's Insert → Shapes menu to build the layout you want. It does not need to copy a template exactly; getting it into a polished, convincing form is enough.

The important thing when examining a template is to ask: “How are résumés that people generally consider good written? Where is each piece of information placed, and why does this template look good?”

After you have made résumés for a while, these principles essentially become part of your own judgment.

As an aside, if you use PowerPoint, you can go to Design → Customize → Slide Size and set the slide dimensions to A4.

After choosing a layout, I do not copy the colors of the résumé template exactly. I choose colors based on the company and field.

For a large company, a more traditional industry, or a conservative corporate culture, I try to present the résumé in grayscale.

Conversely, for a smaller company or a startup-oriented industry, I use brighter colors and may even adopt bold contrasting colors for the résumé.

Once I understand those considerations, I go to Color Hunt to choose a suitable palette and then adjust it to the résumé template selected earlier.

Of course, visual product design is one of my weaker areas, so I would not apply for jobs in that field. For my purposes, handling colors this way is barely adequate.

If you are applying for work in the visual arts, this approach to résumé color would not be sufficient, and I want to make that clear.

Many tutorials also recommend using the same colors as the company's logo for your résumé.

That idea can work, but I do not necessarily refer only to the logo. More precisely, I also consider the colors and atmosphere of the company's office.

When applying to IQVIA, I noted that its logo was primarily white and blue, but the office itself did not use only those colors. Some floors were grayscale, while others included green.

There was even some furniture and decoration in very vivid colors.

Blue and white are also used very frequently on résumés and, to me, do not attract much attention. For the Chinese résumé, I ultimately chose my birthday representative color, which I call “Wakame green.”

You can read more about birthday colors below.

Japanese Birthday Representative Colors

For the English résumé, I used charcoal gray to create a moderately professional impression, giving the two résumés distinct styles.

Techniques Shared by Chinese and English Résumés

Some people say an English résumé is simply a Chinese résumé translated into English. That statement is both right and wrong.

For me, the Chinese and English résumés are intended to present somewhat different content and differ in their level of detail.

Both are ultimately based on your own life experience, however, so they share many principles and points that require attention.

I will first discuss the writing techniques and cautions shared by the two types of résumé.

Think from the Résumé Reader's Perspective

This is the highest-level principle in all résumé writing. Many of the shared considerations discussed later grow out of it.

A résumé exists to market you. Thinking about the audience means considering, from the résumé reader's perspective, how the document should be presented and what mistakes you should avoid.

You must clearly understand what kind of person and qualities the position requires, then demonstrate those qualities through the résumé so the reader feels that you truly fit the position.

Another aspect is making the résumé easy to read—for example, avoiding too many pages or text that is too small. I will discuss those points later.

Write a Different Résumé for Different Positions

This follows from the point above: different positions need different kinds of people and expect to see different content in a résumé.

It should therefore be obvious that one résumé cannot possibly cover every job opening.

If a résumé meets the needs of every possible audience, it probably cannot persuade any particular audience.

That does not mean you must state directly on the résumé which position it targets. This was something my friend reminded me about.

Different teams within the same company might see your résumé and become interested in you. Naming one specific position on the document could close off those other possibilities.

When I applied to IQVIA, I had observed that people on the Real World team generally came from interdisciplinary backgrounds. They needed strong logic, storytelling and communication skills, as well as a certain degree of innovative thinking.

When I listened to my friend talk about work, the team sounded wild and fun XD, so I confidently displayed all of my interdisciplinary knowledge on the résumé.

Usually, to avoid being told that I am “not specialized in a particular field” or “unable to settle down,” I hide more than 50 percent of what I do and include only the content relevant to the job I want.

In the end, my interdisciplinary qualities were precisely what the team appreciated, which genuinely made me feel that this job was very likely meant for me.

I did not anticipate that my résumé would later reach the SAS programmer team, however, so I had not included GitHub to demonstrate some of the SAS code I had written. That was a little unfortunate.

Page Count, Font Size, and Line Spacing

HR staff and your future manager generally have very limited time, so I strongly recommend keeping a résumé to no more than three A4 pages.

For that reason, apart from making your own name larger, I keep all other text at no more than 12 points and have even used 8-point type.

In the English résumé shared above, most of my text is 10 points, with only my name set at 28 points. On the Chinese résumé, my name is only 20 points, and most other text is below 10 points.

“Wouldn't that text be too small?” you may ask.

In my view, most résumés are now submitted online. When you have an electronic file exported from PowerPoint to PDF, HR and managers usually read it directly on a device and rarely print it.

If the type is genuinely too small to read, they can simply zoom in.

Because it is an electronically produced résumé, enlarging it does not cause a resolution problem. There is really no need to use 16- or 18-point text merely to make everything readable at its original scale.

Increasing the font size and creating many more pages may instead make the document frustrating to read.

For the same reason, I think moderate line spacing is enough.

I lay out my résumé in PowerPoint and position every line separately, so line spacing is not an issue for me.

If you write your résumé in Word, I would suggest line spacing of about 1.15 or 1.25. Do not use double or triple spacing, which can also be very frustrating.

Use Charts and Hierarchy to Tell a Good Story

If I had to name one quality every job requires, it would undoubtedly be an organized train of thought and a logical way of presenting information.

I think you can demonstrate those qualities in a résumé by using different kinds of charts and a clear hierarchy.

For example, you can use a timeline for education and work experience, or relationship diagrams to improve readability when presenting knowledge across different skill areas.

Different font sizes, weights, and even italics can distinguish headings from body text. Besides making the layout more attractive, they help the reader identify the key points clearly.

Traditional table fields can also create hierarchy, but I think entries such as “University: National Taiwan University” and “Graduation: Year XX” look extremely unattractive in a plain table.

I avoid tables whenever possible. When one is unavoidable, I try removing the borders or designing the formatting so the table looks better.

Later, in the section on Chinese résumés, I will use my own résumé to explain in detail how this can be done.

Do Not Highlight the Highlights

This is also something I repeatedly warn students about when they prepare application portfolios.

When reading other people's résumés, I still see applicants trying to mark particular text as important by using bold, underlining, or different colors and sizes.

Besides making the layout look terrible, this can make readers impatient. A manager who truly reads résumés can identify a person's qualities from the education and experience presented in the text; you do not need to highlight items to tell them where to look.

If a job requires you to mark the important points this way before the reader can find the information they want, are you sure you really want that job and that manager?

You Do Not Need to Attach Photos as Proof

If someone truly wants to know whether doing something gave you the corresponding ability, they can assess it during an individual interview. There is no need to attach photographs or copies merely to prove yourself.

Some people treat a résumé like an admissions portfolio. The idea makes a little sense, but the two are completely different in this respect.

Admissions portfolios often include photographs not to prove that someone truly did something, but because the applicant has limited life experience and needs images to fill the pages.

On a résumé, however, you have already graduated and entered the workforce. With a strict page limit, it is inappropriate to use photographs merely to fill space.

If you still need to fill space, I would rather you reduce the number of pages than expand the document just to add pictures.

How to Choose and Prepare the Photo on a Résumé

For a résumé photo, choose a half-length portrait with a plain background whenever possible.

You can wear a suit or other formal clothing for the photograph. Women may also want to wear a little makeup so they look more energetic.

If you do not have a professional portrait, consider having an ID-style photograph taken. Do not use an ordinary snapshot; it looks extremely unprofessional.

I place the photograph in the upper-left corner of the résumé and use a circular mask rather than retaining its original square frame. The circular mask makes the photograph feel livelier.

Put Other Information in Attachments and Present It Appropriately

The method differs according to the field. Unless the employer requests a printed portfolio, most résumés should present as much information as possible in as few pages as possible.

I am an amateur writer, so most of my work and professional material is text, with only a small amount of imagery. I put the relevant content directly on my personal website and provide a QR code.

It would be impossible to print all of that as a physical portfolio. The résumé would become a burden, and the reader might not want to examine everything anyway.

Choosing an appropriate platform and method of presentation is therefore essential.

Whether the presentation method is commonly used in the field can also signal whether you are “one of us.”

When I once applied for a digital-marketing job, for example, I directly included QR codes for my personal website, Instagram account, and Facebook page.

For front-end web-development work, I also included my CodePen, GitHub, and links to earlier website projects.

These are all resources that are fine to ignore but available if the reader is interested. I recommend providing QR-code links directly in the résumé instead of printing everything on paper.

Of course, as mentioned earlier, if the employer requests a printed portfolio, you must print one.

In that situation, I recommend laying it out in InDesign and printing it as a bound booklet, which will look more polished.

Techniques for Writing a Chinese Résumé

The next section focuses more specifically on Chinese résumés.

Before applying to IQVIA, I had never imagined that I would work for an international company, so I knew nothing about the differences between English and Chinese résumés.

Every résumé I had was in Chinese; I did not have an English version.

Later, because the interviewing manager was from overseas, I forced myself to understand the audiences for Chinese and English résumés and the content each needed to present. I then separated them into broadly different presentations.

Because a Chinese résumé is aimed at managers in Asia, I thought they were quite likely to view my frequent moves across fields as a lack of specialization or stability. I therefore needed to explain my career choices and planning in greater detail.

My Chinese résumé consequently presents more detailed information.

Layout Considerations

A Chinese résumé contains mostly Chinese characters, which already have a certain visual complexity. I therefore choose layouts built primarily from geometric shapes and avoid complex or elaborate background patterns.

Because I wanted the Chinese résumé to present a great deal of content, I eventually removed most decorative geometric shapes as well, retaining only backgrounds behind headings or rectangular color blocks to distinguish sections.

Choosing Fonts

The font depends on the style you want your résumé to convey.

My Chinese résumé needed to explain the reasons and planning behind my interdisciplinary path, which could feel tedious to readers. I therefore wanted the colors and fonts to create a livelier impression.

For the entire Chinese résumé, I used a rounded typeface from the DynaFont family.

I personally find DFKai-SB and PMingLiU unattractive. If you want something slightly formal without paying for a font, I recommend a typeface such as Microsoft JhengHei.

Through a fortunate coincidence, I bought Cream Font while I still qualified for student pricing, so when I want a formal look, I choose Cream Font as the primary typeface.

Personal Information

If the company does not have a dedicated candidate system for applications, the personal information shown on the résumé is how HR can contact you.

I therefore place it in the upper-left corner where it can be found at a glance.

I also group the photograph and name toward the upper left so the reader can immediately see whose résumé it is.

For personal information, a date of birth, address, contact telephone number, and email address are sufficient.

I have seen people include their zodiac sign and blood type. If a manager really wants to know whether your signs are compatible, they can already determine the sun sign from your birthday.

But if someone seriously wants to assess astrological compatibility, the sun sign from a birth date is not enough. They also need the time of birth to calculate a full natal chart before claiming to understand you through astrology.

A zodiac sign is therefore truly unnecessary information on a résumé. Even if you include it, the information is incomplete, so why not leave it out?

The same reasoning applies to blood type. Research does not definitively establish that every blood type corresponds to particular personality traits, so it is another item that does not necessarily belong on a résumé.

Please allow me a small promotional insertion here: I discussed this topic briefly on my own podcast.

[Think or Sink] EP. 2 — Wake Up! You Don't Have a Little Sister!

Education and Work Experience

Most people separate education from work experience. Because I often held other jobs while studying, however, it was difficult to divide the two completely.

I therefore presented them on a timeline, which makes the overall path easier to understand.

When applying to a CRO such as IQVIA, I probably should not have included my cram-school experience. Without it, however, the résumé could make it look as though I had not held a full-time job for twelve years, leading people to wonder whether I had no work experience and had only been studying.

Although it was unrelated, I included it to show that I had continued working and that the role included some management responsibilities.

It was, after all, a full-time job that had continued to the present and was also my earliest job, so it inevitably appeared in a prominent position.

During onboarding, the manager for Taiwan even specifically asked whether I was still working at the cram school, Orz. I hope I can finally remove that experience from future résumés.

Because this was a job-search résumé, I included only the major achievements from each stage of education.

For a master's degree, for example, I listed only the thesis title and a general description of the research, plus any thesis award.

I did not necessarily include every course I had taken. I did not consider that information very important, and even when I worked hard on class reports and performed well, that is not given much weight in Asia.

I therefore placed independent classroom research later in the Skills and Knowledge section.

A timeline helps the reader build a picture of your life in their mind and see clearly what you did and achieved at each point.

If a master's thesis was published as an article or had a link, I did not place it on the timeline. I created a separate Related Publications section with QR codes for interested readers.

Knowledge, Skills, and Related Achievements

I needed this additional page because my career planning and skill development are very complex.

Education and work experience alone cannot reveal my entire skill tree, because I learned many skills and areas of knowledge elsewhere and they do not appear directly in my formal education or career history.

I also wanted to explain to HR and managers that I was not jumping randomly between fields without direction. I had followed a map throughout the interdisciplinary journey.

I therefore placed public-health issues at the center and divided the skill tree into “identifying problems” and “solving problems.”

My original purpose in studying marketing knowledge and techniques—including website building, video editing, and SEO—was also to promote relevant knowledge and technology.

Well, that is absolutely not how I use those skills now, but I cannot help it; that part was beyond my control XDDDD.

Whenever certifications were available in a relevant field, I tried to earn them. For the three ISO systems, for example, I obtained an ISO 45001 lead-auditor credential and internal-auditor credentials for each system.

To show that my skills all revolved around public-health issues, I included independent research from different fields as evidence that I really had been developing the skill tree according to my original plan.

In law, for example, my independent research examined occupational injuries as a public-health issue, while my biostatistics research focused on diabetes.

I originally built my personal website to host technical articles about ISO 45001; only later did it grow to contain articles on all kinds of subjects.

This returns us to one point: “Whether you have deliberately planned your learning journey will determine how rich your résumé can be.”

Links to Related Publications

I included only work that had been formally submitted for publication. Although I had also contributed to platforms such as PanSci, I listed only work relevant to the company I was applying to.

The QR codes led to my master's and doctoral theses or to journal pages for published articles.

Of course, if a reader wanted to buy them, I would not object XD. I kept electronic copies of the original manuscripts and could provide them if HR or a manager was interested.

While writing the résumé, I reread all of these submitted articles and independent studies so I would not be caught unprepared if they came up during an interview.

Referees

I decide whom to list as a referee based on the job I am applying for.

These two people were the advisers for my two master's degrees. The public-health adviser had also been my undergraduate mentor and my supervisor when I worked as a project assistant. Based on my...understanding of them, I was sure they would say good things about me XD.

I do not always notify both referees before submitting an application. HR generally informs the applicant before contacting references, so I wait for that notice before telling them.

I Did Not Write an Autobiography

After laying out my education, experience, and skills, I felt that I had already explained almost everything I had done since university.

The structure and presentation of the skill tree also revealed most of my personality, so I did not write a separate autobiography to explain my personal qualities.

I did not discuss my family or siblings either, because I do not think that information matters in a job search.

I also wanted to leave a little unsaid so people would still want to invite me to an interview and talk.

Techniques for Writing an English Résumé

For the English résumé, I assumed that people from other countries might not view frequent interdisciplinary movement quite so negatively (where did that confidence come from?). After asking my friend for advice, I decided to keep it concise and present only the information instead of explaining as much as I did in Chinese.

Most of the English résumé is therefore presented in bullet points, although I actually think that is what an ordinary résumé should look like.

For me, the Chinese and English résumés consequently look completely different. At first glance, the Chinese version almost looks as though I were applying to be a social-media editor or to join a startup, Orz.

The English version essentially says, “Here is everything I can do. Find the information you want yourself!”

On closer examination, the Chinese and English résumés do not actually differ in content; only the presentation is different.

Because cultures differ, however, I strengthened several elements in the English résumé compared with the Chinese version.

The discussion below therefore covers only the parts that differ from the Chinese résumé; I will not repeat the overlapping material.

There are also established ways to express items such as educational qualifications and addresses. I researched how to write my own qualifications in English and quietly borrowed my friend's English résumé for reference before producing mine.

An English résumé is important when applying to an international company. Besides demonstrating some English ability during the interview, you can copy and paste the information when completing the company's internal systems during onboarding.

Layout and Fonts

I used a primarily grayscale layout for the English résumé and found a professional template that, in my opinion, left a little too much white space.

Although I did not need to explain every detail, I still had a great deal of content = =. The design could not be too elaborate, so I removed many geometric shapes.

For the font, the traditional choice probably would have been Times New Roman, but I had paid for Cream Font and felt it would be a waste not to use it here.

I therefore used Cream Font for all of the English text.

Personal Information

The address must be written in English, and the mobile number must use the +886 country code. Those are the basics.

Because the English résumé did not need to present the skill tree in the same way as the Chinese version, yet education and experience alone could not reveal all my abilities, I added Language and Skills to the personal-information section.

I listed every skill I had and used parentheses underneath to provide details.

Profile

Because the English résumé did not present the same narrative context, my personal qualities might not have been obvious. I therefore added a Profile section.

I opened with the original wording of my favorite quotation and guiding principle, the Red Queen hypothesis, and briefly explained my interdisciplinary outlook.

I later found that this kind of guiding quotation or motto works well with people from other countries and can become a key question through which they understand someone.

One of the HR assignments I completed after onboarding included a similar question, so I strongly recommend including something like this on an English résumé.

Education

Without unrelated work experiences mixed in, the education section was presented as a simple timeline.

I spent quite a bit of time researching how to render my schools and degrees in English and learned a few new things along the way XD.

My friend's résumé included a GPA for every stage of education. I was in a hurry when applying and had not yet obtained all the transcripts needed to calculate mine, so I did not include them, Orz.

If you have time, I strongly recommend including them.

Publications

Here I included only articles published in journals. I did not specially label journals and articles that were already in English, but I did label the Chinese-language items.

Certifications

This section simply listed all my certifications, certificate numbers, and issue dates in bullet form.

Considering the information you may later need to enter during onboarding, I recommend including the issuing organization and expiration date as well.

Employment History

I admit that I simply translated the Chinese content into English here, including the title, major achievements, and responsibilities for every position.

I arranged the entries from oldest to newest, but later realized that newest to oldest might be better. Readers can decide which presentation works best for them.

When describing achievements and responsibilities, I hesitated for a long time over what subject to use.

I ultimately chose the third person and used my English name throughout, as though I were telling someone else's story.

Internships

At first, I thought experiences from so long ago could be omitted. Then I remembered that I had interned at a government agency, which could demonstrate some ability to work with public institutions and might benefit an application to a CRO.

Even though it had happened more than ten years earlier, I still included it XDDD.

I also placed the articles and research produced during the internship in this section.

Independent Research

Because independent classroom research receives particular attention overseas, I created this section for the articles and research produced in each course.

I also identified the course and school for every item.

I originally wanted to explain what each independent study covered, but doing so pushed the résumé onto a fourth page and split one section across two pages, which was extremely irritating. I deleted all of those explanations.

Conclusion

IQVIA was my first CRO in the private sector and also the first company to which I had submitted a truly formal résumé application.

I think the later interviews went so smoothly largely because the résumé content was strong, so I am sharing my entire résumé-writing experience here for readers who are deeply troubled by how to write one.

There are, of course, countless industries. The résumé content I share today may apply only to certain fields and cannot serve as a universal standard.

You still need to adjust it appropriately for different industries to improve your chances of receiving a good offer.

I have always felt that submitting résumés and interviewing are like looking for a suitable partner. Candidates are not the only ones seeking a good company; companies also want people who suit them. It is a two-way process.

A résumé is an initial way for a company to understand you, while an interview determines whether the two sides suit each other and could work happily together in the future.

If your résumé cannot present you as someone the reader would really like to talk to, there is a strong chance you will not even receive an interview opportunity.

Failing to receive an interview—or reaching the end of the process without receiving an offer—does not mean you are inadequate. It simply means that you and the company were not a good match.

How did this suddenly start sounding so much like a relationship??

In any case, I hope this article helps the people who need it and that every reader finds the right job.