I can’t believe it took me so long to find out that Awkwafina got her own show on Comedy Central called “Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens”! Why didn’t anyone tell me this sooner?

These 10 episodes are so refreshing, funny, and yes, very awkward! But exactly what I needed to get a good laugh in. Life in 2020 is just way too stressful. Everyone should try to cram in as much laughter as possible.

It also does a great job of representing the diversity of Asian Americans in the most quirky and adorable way. Who would think that a Comedy Central attempt at recreating a Kpop drama episode would be so funny!

So in case, you’re just like me and slow to discovering this, I’m going to try to nudge you to watch it as well. Here’s a trailer of the show! 😛

Writing Awkwafina’s Resume & Lessons I Learned

Now that I got to indulge in all the fun stuff, I really should try to make this blog a little more educational. In order to brush up on my resume-writing skills, I decided to challenge myself and turn Awkwafina’s achievements into a resume.

I’ve done this before in a previous blog post where I wrote out the resume for Blackpink’s Lisa Manoban. And I had a lot of fun! Make sure you check it out!

And like Lisa’s blog, I don’t know Awkwafina personally so I had to rely on her Wikipedia page. But it is a good place to start!

Lesson 1: Figure Out What You’re Actually Doing

I don’t know about you guys, but sometimes I have the tendency to get carried away and try to cram in as many achievements as possible into a resume.

But that’s when I realized that a resume is not just a collection of all your skills and achievements. That’s only 50% of what a resume is. A resume is a display of your achievements for a specific purpose.

In other words, it’s not a document that’s intended to display all of your skills and achievements, just the ones that are relevant to the scholarship/internship/job that you’re applying for.

You can think of a resume like this. It is a small, curated exhibition of a few of your accomplishments to tell a very specific story about yourself. It should have a clear focus and should immediately show the reader why you should be considered for the position.

So before you even get writing, make sure you figure out what your resume is actually intended to do. In Awkwafina’s case, I decided to customize her resume as if she is applying for an Asian American Film Scholarship. This will help give this resume a bit more focus and direction.

Lesson 2: To Summary Or Not To Summary

One of the biggest considerations I have, whenever I write a resume, is whether I should include a resume summary or not. And the reason why I struggle so much with resume summaries is because I have really mixed feelings about them.

Resume Summary Pros

If you meet one of more of these criteria, I think you should definitely consider adding a resume summary at the top of you resume.

• Consistent Threads: You have really strong and consistent threads throughout your entire resume that shows a clear trajectory of where you’ve been and where you want to go.
• Stand-out Achievements: You have achievements that are so significant and relevant to the scholarship/job that you’re applying for that highlighting them will be a game-changer in your application.
• High Demand Skills: You have highly sought-after skills that will give you an edge in your application.

Resume Summary Cons

But if you don’t fit these criteria, I think you might be better off skipping a resume summary. Here are my reasons:

• Optional: This section is completely optional. It’s not expected and it doesn’t hurt you if you don’t include one.
• Limited Space: Real estate on your resume is extremely valuable. If your resume summary isn’t going to significantly boost your resume then including one is literally just a waste of space on your already-tight 1-page limit. Save the space for something else that’s more impactful.
• Risk of Making You Look Mediocre: If your resume summary is basically the same as all the other things listed on the rest of your resume, it can make your resume look really mediocre. Instead of associating you with the accomplishments that span a full-page, the reader may just associate your achievements to just the small paragraph in your summary.

So I would think carefully about whether or not you would like to include a resume summary. It’s kind of one of those tools that if you use it properly on the right occasion, it’ll give you a major boost. Otherwise, it may harm you more than it’ll help you.

In Awkwafina’s case, I think it will be really advantageous to include one for two reasons.

Reason #1:

Awkwafina has some really consistent threads throughout her entire film and television career: she is constantly pushing the boundaries for the representation of Asian American women.

Reason #2

If she is applying for an Asian American film scholarship, she has some outstanding achievements that are not only relevant to the scholarship but can demonstrate the scale of her impact and accomplishments.

Lesson 3: Quality Over Quantity

One of the most difficult but important things you can do to improve your resume is to fight the urge to cram in as many things as possible onto your resume because more is not necessarily better.

Think of yourself like Blake Shelton, the Country Music Legend/Judge on The Voice, or Monica Aldama, the head coach of the Navarro College cheerleading team.

No matter how many good and deserving candidates you have, at the end of the day, you only have so many spots. And you have to be able to make tough decisions about what to include and what to discard on your 1-page canvas. DO NOT WASTE VALUABLE REAL ESTATE.

Ideally, you want to focus on 3-4 memorable achievements tied to credible or well-known sources instead of listing out 10 achievements that are really obscure.

The other issue with listing out 10 forgettable achievements is that it’ll also take away all the space you have to explain the significance of each of them.

Aim for quality over quantity!

Lesson 4: When in Doubt, Bask in Someone Else’s Spotlight

Don’t get me wrong, Awkwafina is a really accomplished actor, rapper, and comedian. But even with her, there are some “weaknesses” in her portfolio.

For example, even though she is best known as an actress, she has only starred in two projects: The Farewell and Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens. For all the other films that she’s been in, she took on largely supporting roles.

And that’s not a big deal. I mean we all start somewhere! But how can we try to hide these weaknesses and make her look as impressive as possible on paper?

One of the best and easiest ways to do this is to divert the focus away from her individual accomplishments to the overall success of the project. Doing this can allow her to share in the success even if her individual contributions aren’t the most prominent.

Another way to do this is to leverage the brand names or prestige of other people or organizations to help add weight to her accomplishments. This works particularly well if you can find a way to associate with people or brands that are well known.

Lesson 5: Use Strong But Accurate Verbs

So in Resume Writing 101, one of the first things that you’re taught is to start your statements with strong, active verbs. This standard practice for all resumes.

But what I want to emphasize today is that it’s not only important to use strong, active verbs,
you want to use verbs that also accurate. But sometimes those come into conflict with each other.

For example, in Awkwafina’s case, since she played a supporting role in several films, she can’t use really strong verbs like “starred in,” “lead,” or “spearheaded,” we need to find the next best verbs that are still relatively strong but more accurately describes the role that Awkwafina played.

Here are some examples of the substitute words that I used:

Starred in vs. Featured in
Lead vs. Contributed
Spearheaded vs. Supported Created vs. Collaborated  

In cases like these, you just have to get really creative about coming up with ways to best describe your role and accomplishments.

But lucky for you, there are a lot of tools out there that can help make this easier for you. If this is challenging for you, I highly recommend you check out resume.io.

It has an automated built-in system that can come up with pre-written suggestions about how you can write your own resume. In other words, they can help you generate a stellar resume automatically.

Putting It All-Together

Run it Through Grammarly Before You Submit It!

Beautify It On Canva If You Want

I hope you had just as much fun reading this as I did researching and writing this! And hopefully, this helped teach you something too!

Make sure you leave a comment below on any questions you may have or a suggestion for the next celebrity you’ll like me to write about!

Ciao for now!
Leslie

Sources:
“Awkwafina-CasiMoss-Photography” by casi.moss.photo is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0