Spencer Li

Tips for your Resume: How I Managed to Land a Job With the Big Boys

The point of a resume is to provide your future employer or headhunter a glimpse of your achievements and skill sets, and the purpose of this is to stand out sufficiently, so as to get an opportunity for an interview.

Resume-Tips

After looking through many resumes and talking to many employers, I have a pretty good idea of what they are looking out for, and what should be avoided in your resume. Here are some of my personal guidelines:

      • Keep your resume to ONE single-sided page. Employers have piles of resumes to look at. They will only spend a few seconds scanning your resume to decide if you are worth a shot. They do not have time to scan two pages.
      • Use a decent template. A resume with ugly formatting may get tossed away before getting read.
      • A photo is optional, but if you are including one, make sure it is a professionally taken portrait shot, and not one simply taken using your webcam.
      • Provide relevant data, but not more. Relevant data includes your name, address, mobile number and email address. Irrelevant data includes your birthday, height, weight, race/religion, horoscope, next-of-kin, favourite colour, etc
      • Have a professional-sounding email address. School email addresses are acceptable, but for personal email addresses, please use one that resembles your name, eg. john_tanxx@gmail.com, instead of something like cute_boi88@gmail.com. You get the idea.
      • Put in only the best stuff. Given the space limitations, and considering the few seconds of attention that will be given to your resume, you want to make sure they read the good stuff, so don’t dilute and bury it within other less important experiences. This is not an autobiography, so it is not necessary to write in every single experience you have been through. Write only what is relevant to the job, and things that will possible enable you to stand out. Hint: no one really cares about the medal you won in primary/secondary school.
      • Categorise your experiences. Common categories include “Education”, “Awards & Honours”, “Leadership & Activities”, “Professional Certifications”, “Skills & Interests”
      • Include the time periods for each work and education experience
      • After stating each work experience, include two or three bullet points of elaboration to give a brief description of what you did and what you achieved

If you have any additional tips to share, feel free to add them in the comments below.
Good luck! 😀

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Spencer Li

S&P 500 – Slow and Steady

S&P 500 - Slow and Steady

Following up from my last post, the S&P 500 has been halted within the uptrend channel, once again maintaining the integrity of the channel. While the sentiment of the uptrend is not exactly at the stage of exuberance, it is still strong nevertheless, creeping up slowly and steadily. This means that it has a good chance of heading for the next level of resistance.

This is a good example of the “trend play”, one of the seven setups which I will be covering in tomorrow’s free seminar. I will also be giving an outlook on the Singapore markets, so do drop by tomorrow after work if you’re free! https://synapsetrading.com/the-synapse-program/preview/ 

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Spencer Li

The Cheetah and the Trader – How to Go for the Kill

The cheetah, while the fastest animal on the African plain can outrun any of the prey it feasts upon, always chooses to go for the young, weak, or sick. Once identified, he attacks with laser-guided focus and effectiveness. It is only then that the kill is likely. This is the epitome of a professional trader. Be the cheetah.

 

The Cheetah and the Trader

 

Here are some common questions I get from people:
“Sometimes I can’t find good setups in the market, should I trade the less optimal setups or should I look for more different stocks to trade?”
“The setup I learnt from xxx course was working fine a few months back, but it doesn’t seem to be working now. Should I continue using it?”

 

So, how do we go for the kill?

As cheetah, we should always go for the easy trades. But quite often, for the newbie, the easy trades are staring them right in the face but they do not see them. This is because they are only familiar with a few simple setups (with simple rules/formula) that work best only under specific market conditions.

All these questions have a common theme. Traders who learn one or two simple setups think that they can trade successfully, but when the market changes, quite often the simple setup or system that they are using cannot adapt to the market, and becomes discarded.

Hence, a good trader cannot keep relying on the one same setup. Rather, he needs to know the basic form of a setup, so that from there, he can create a wide variety of different setups that are best suited to the current market situation. That is why we teach a variety of setups (and certain proven variations), leaving them the core skills to tweak setups to adapt to any market situation.

 

complete guide to investing and trading psychology cover

If you would like to learn more about trading psychology, also check out: “The Complete Guide to Investing & Trading Psychology”

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Spencer Li

Pre-elections QE3 Boost – How Sustainable?

Pre-elections QE3 Boost

Pre-elections QE3 Boost 2

For the past few weeks, I have been rather bearish on the US indices, expecting them to stop the ascend at their respective key resistance levels. However, a major news catalyst (QE3) has changed all that. With the new tweak in money supply, and the added confidence (real or perceived is debatable), we could continue to see the market drift upwards till the elections in November. There is also likely to be “words of encouragement” by the leaders to prod the market in the right direction.

Hence, the reversal could instead occur at the next resistance levels, which would more likely coincide with the end of the elections. This is not a forecast, merely a guess. At this point, I would look to buy on a weak pullback, or be ready to short if I see a sudden strong breakdown of the bulls.

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Spencer Li

German Constitutional Court Backs Bailout Fund

German Constitutional Court Backs Bailout Fund

There was some flurry earlier in the afternoon around 4pm when rumours when drifting of a rejection to the proposal, which cause an initial spike down in the EUR/USD. This spike would have made many people panic (even if for a second), and taken out most stops, including mine.

When the price whipped back a few minutes later, most people were still in shock and thus slow to react, or were too busy cursing their luck. I wasn’t sure about the news at that time, but I could see that the bulls had gained control and the bears were now trapped. I immediately went back long.

Looking at strong bullish sentiment over the past few days, it is very likely that most players are gunning for the psychological round number of 1.300, which we might hit by the end of this week.

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