Through Other Eyes

Planning Your Career

These sites help you think better about your own interest and skills and how they relate to your future career - a very useful step in your job application process.

Ten Steps to Planning Your Career - General advice on how to choose a career and how to reach your career goal.
Job Search Info - This site is specially developed for fresh graduates who, even more so than other jobseekers, need to differentiate themselves in a very crowded job market.

Understanding Industries and Companies

Search the company web site and your Career Center first. You can also search databases of newspapers and magazines for the latest happenings in an industry or a company. The following are some other useful links on the internet.

Profiles of Hong Kong Industries - Overviews of Hong Kong's manufacturing and service industries from the Trade Development Council.
Monster.com.hk - Look inside the Career Center of this site to get career information relevant to the local context. Useful features include: job seeker resources, company profiles, industry profiles and a discussion forum hosted by Monster.com experts.
Wet Feet - This site has an extensive list of career and industry profiles from an international perspective.
Search Engine - A keyword search (e.g. "Hong Kong construction industry") with one of the many powerful search engines (e.g. Google) can help you locate very specific and in-depth information about an industry or a specific career.

Developing Job-Seeking Skills

It's useful to read about job-seeking skills. It's even better if you can work through tasks and exercises and watch or listen to audio/video clips to develop your skills gradually. Many of the sites listed below allow you to take this further step. Look for the sites marked with an "*" and explore.

Interview Skills (HK)

Interviewing (HKU) - The site contains video clips showing students in interviews. The on-line practice will improve your understanding of interviews and sharpen your awareness of language that's appropriate for the situation.
Job Interview Package (CUHK) - Listen to 8 interview situations and follow the questions to think about the strategies needed to tackle the situation.
Job Interview Skills (HKUST) - A comprehensive package that covers every aspect of job interviews. Contains interactive tasks that you can try out and get feedback on.
Interviewing Tips (HKUST) - A brief information sheet about what you should do before, during and after an interview. Includes examples of questions that you may ask at an interview.
Group Discussion Tips (HKUST) - The Do's and Don'ts tips will help you understand what employers want from candidates in a group discussion.
Interviewing techniques (HKU) - Useful notes to help you know your interviewers.

Interview Skills (Outside HK)

On-campus Interview Success - A very thorough guide that focuses on the campus interview, brought to you by the College Grad Job Hunter Site.
Interview questions and answers - Lots of advice about common and tough questions you may face in interviews. This is a commercial site but the information on the site is useful.

Application Letter and Resume Writing Skills (HK)

Resume Writing Skills (HKUST) - A very detailed guide to resume writing. Explains fundamental questions like content and format very clearly. There are tasks that you can work through and get feedback on.
Application Letter Writing Skills (HKUST) - a detailed guide that helps you think about the opening, body and ending of the cover letter with the help of many examples. Also contains language exercises on tenses, prepositions and common mistakes.
Job Search Communication Package (CUHK) - Part I quizzes you about cover letter writing. Part II shows you how to improve the style of 3 letter samples.
Resumes (HKU) - Read the notes and examine 4 sample resumes and comments to learn about resumes. Work through the on-line exercises to gain additional practice.
Letters (HKU) - Read the notes and make use of the 2 sample letters to learn about format and style.

Application Letter and Resume Writing Skills (Outside HK)

Application Letters - You will find writing guidelines and 3 student examples of application letters on this site. The letters are given in full and then parts of the letters are discussed in great detail. The site is from East Carolina University of the United States and so you will need to make adjustments to the local situation.
Application Letter Writing - Advice on application letter writing brought to you by the On-line Writing Lab of Purdue University.
Resume Writing - Advice on resume writing brought to you by the On-line Writing Lab of Purdue University.
Application Letter Writing - Guidelines for cover letter writing and letter samples from Rensselaer Polytechnic, USA.
Resume Writing - Resume writing guidelines from Rensselaer Polytechnic, USA.

Career Services of Local Institutions

CityU: Student Development Services
CUHK: Office of Student Affairs
HKBU: Office of Student Affairs
HKU: Careers Education and Placement Center
HKUST: Career Center
Lingnan: Student Services Center
OUHK: Student Affairs Office
PolyU: Student Affairs Office

Centers for Self-Access Learning in Local Institutions

These centers contain rich resources related to job-seeking skills as well as for general language improvement.

CityU: Self-Access Center
CUHK: Independent Learning Center
HKBU: Multimedia Learning Center
HKU: Language Resource Center
HKUST: Language Commons
Lingnan: Self-Access Center
PolyU: Center for Independent Language Learning