CV Review

lol Other than creating a CV category, guess it will do

Be interested to hear of your results, I'm sure Mr Stavros will as well, as he's going into that market

Right, here is the upshot. Any advice gratefully and eagerly anticipated/appreciated.

The call lasted 54 minutes and was low pressure all the way through. Essentially telling me what an awful and old fashioned 'general' CV I have and that I am going about looking for work in completely the wrong manner.

I am now told that any jobs I see advertised will attract hundreds of appliocants and my CV will likely be rejected by software scanning (how impersonal) well before a real human being gets to see it

UK Careers Services UK Career Services :: Leading UK Career & Recruitment Consultants are the company that just called me. What they will do for me for a one-off payment of

400 nicker for a CV and some submissions seems a bit pricey to me. I'm always suspicious of big upfront fees. Are you paying for the CV or the submission service? I'd sooner pay

Thanks for your valuable input Steve. I just don't know quite what to do. I'm sure my CV is of the old sort and short on buzz words but I can see your point regarding a professional one.

I must think carefully.

Mike

HOW MUCH?!?

I liked this bit:
I suspect that it is of limited business value for their phone adviser to say to anyone "actually, your CV is looking pretty good, you probably don't need our services. Best of luck though." In fact I'll be surprised if they've ever told anyone that their CV wasn't awful.

I also think the "any advertised job will attract hundreds of applicants" bit is a little bit of stretchy truth.

True, a new clothing store in my home town advertised 20 shop-floor jobs, mostly part-time, and got 1,300 applicants. However that's a job with a really generic person specification. There are very few people who looked at that ad and thought "damn, I'm not qualified for that". So everyone - unemployed blue-collar workers looking for a new long-term job, unemployed white-collar workers looking for something to fill the gap, stay-at-home parents deciding that actually a second income would be a help, students wanting beer money, people looking to juggle several part-time jobs - everyone applied.

Your industry is rather more specific. So even if there are a hundred interested applicants - which I doubt - many of them will just be applying for every job they see, in the hope of getting employment by the law of averages rather than on merit. Certainly they won't all have the relevant experience and qualifications that you do. Realistically, yes, you're competing with others for each vacancy, but you are not competing against 'hundreds' of equal applicants.

I used to help people do their CVs (at no cost to them - social enterprise) and I saw some absolute nightmares. Spelling mistakes and poor formatting wasn't the half of it. I saw people who tried to handwrite it all on notepaper... people who presented ten pages and gave their school swimming certificate the same prominence as their degree... people who spent a line or two describing their duties in their last job followed by three paragraphs explaining why they left... people who stated on the CV that if they got the job they would need every Wednesday off to see their probation officer... so yeah, there's definitely a place for decent CV services out there, but I'm not convinced that you are in desperate need of them and I'm certainly not convinced about this

I'm reading and taking in every single word.

Thank you.

Mike

[QUOTE=VirtuallyMary;4415]I suspect that it is of limited business value for their phone adviser to say to anyone "actually, your CV is looking pretty good, you probably don't need our services. Best of luck though." In fact I'll be surprised if they've ever told anyone that their CV wasn't awful.[QUOTE]

Being in the CV writing, interview coaching, job search support business myself, I tell people when they've got a good CV which I can only improve marginally, I also offer a limited amount of free advice to help them make it even better. I'm sure I'm not the only practitioner who takes this approach.

People remember when you play fair with them so being ethical is actually good for business!

Preferred CV formats can be industry/sector specific, but from my 14 years experience in weeding through the ones that arrive on my desk:

Name, address and contact details (phone, mobile, email, professional blog/website if appropriate) at the top.

Don't add your blog if it's the chatty "Today I kicked the cat after 14 pints of Old Scrodgingtons" variety. Make sure your professional blog only links to things you're happy for an employer to view. Tighten up your Facebook security, for example.

Single "Key Skills" paragraph listing the sort of buzz words mentioned in the advert - so if it mentions an essential skill set, whether technical or managerial, add that in. Don't bother with phrases like "good timekeeping and attendance", it makes you look like a junior applicant. Mention maximum education level or professional qualifications/affiliations, but in broad terms. An NVQ5 can be redefined as "educated to degree level" for example. You can list the sectors you've worked in as well, or put those in a separate paragraph if there's too many. If your sector prefers experience, remember to put the phrase "X years experience as/in..." where appropriate.

Single "Achievements" paragraph listing quantifiable results, such as "project managed leading solution to tight timescales, achieving bonus payment for company" or "improved performance of XYZ widget by 30% delivering cost savings of X million to company". There's always something to put in this section, just make sure you can answer questions and justify your choices.

Single "Core Skills" paragraph, if not covered in sufficient detail in the "Key Skills" section. Techies get to put lots of esoteric skills here.

That's the sifting process satisfied, now onto real experience.

The remainder of the CV gets used for existing and previous jobs. Add sufficient detail for each job to show you're tailoring your CV to the job you're applying for.10 years history satisfies most sectors, including the FSA and security sectors. Anything older than 10 years can be listed just as job titles and companies worked for. If they want to know more, they'll ask at the interview.

Top level of education experience only. If you've got an MBA, you don't need to tell them about the 2.2 degree. If you've got NVQs/HNDs/ONCs etc, you don't need to list A/O levels or GCSEs. If you're involved in CPD (continued personal development), say so.

Try to think of something interesting for a one-line Interest/Hobbies list. It gives the interviewer a chance to see you as a real person. Try to avoid "Reading" or "Current Affairs", everyone puts those in. I put Morris Dancing and Dragonboating on my CVs. Mind you, nobody's asked for a demo yet...

Stick to a maximum of two pages for most jobs.

Always provide a covering letter that proves you've read the advert and have considered how you fit the role you're applying for.

Hope this helps.

Anna

Very well summed up by Anna (aka kleenezelady!)