UKH

At the moment I have my CV is currently laid out like this:

Personal details,
Personal statement
Skills
Employment History
Education
References

I'm Considering moving from a small financial firm in a larger firm.

I haven't updated my CV in a while, I would welcome and advice and any tips?
What you like to see on a CV

In reply to goldmember:

Personally, I don't see the point in a personal statement. My CV is ordered as follows:

Personal details,
Buzz word bingo skills (I am in IT so matching buzzwords to the job spec is key)
Employment History
Education
Hobbies and interests

No need to put references in unless crucial to your sector. If an agent sees them, it is just an invitation to give your current employer pain.

A CV is just an advert to get an interview so if the CV matches the job ad, you are probably going to get a telephone interview at the least.

Good luck.

In reply to goldmember:
Last year I went through (voluntary) redundancy and we had several workshops about getting new work including what to put on your CV and how to lay it out. Some of the input in the sessions was from people in the company I was leaving at how they looked at CVs.

Basically you've got about 30 seconds of reading time to get your message across, if you haven't got their attention by then the rest of the CV doesn't get read. CV layouts change slightly between professions and industries but I'd have a masthead of Name and contact details then a bulleted list of your core skills (should be ordered and relevant to the post you are applying for) and number of years in the industry. The above might be all that gets read! Then employment history; education; references (max two unless more are requested) finally personal statement if it augments or ties things together. A covering letter might get read by the HR department before the CV is passed on to the individual recruiter.

A recruiter is going to look at your CV and go: This is Joe Bloggs, he's got skills X, Y & Z but we need Y, Z & X, he's a degree in X and worked in our business for xx years, Hmm, let's put him in the maybes. If you waffle then you are going in to the reject pile.

In reply to ByEek:

Pretty much the same structure as mine (I develop manufacturing systems for drugs).

Personal details
A quick summary of skills, including some of the "softer" stuff.
Employment History
Education
Hobbies and interests

In reply to Bob:

thanks Bob.

So at the minute on my Skill section:

Skills
A - few line example
b - few line example


any good?

In reply to goldmember:

I work in a large financial organisation (big 4), and I've moved between 2 of the big 4 a year ago. IMO, the shorter and punchier you can make your CV the better - anything longer than 2 pages aint going to get read, and you need to get the key skills relevant to the role (buzzwords!) on the front page.

In reply to Pewtle:

thank you.

Could you give me a blast of the current in vogue buzz words to see if i'm meeting them on mine please?

In reply to goldmember:

I'd have something like:

A: Led implementation and integration of HMRC reg 67.b in to existing system
B: Worked on integrating systems after takeover of ABC.co
etc.

That sort of thing. Really short and to the point. Make it interesting, 90% of most jobs are mundane and everyone in the industry will know what they are so if you've done anything out of the ordinary (not rob a bank!) and it's relevant include it. Big Brucie Bonus points if you've worked on a standards or legislative body within the industry:

D. Am a technical observer for the Financial Regulatory Authority.

(I've no idea of the various financial standards bodies but you get the idea)

In reply to goldmember:

As mentioned above people spend very little time reading a CV so you need to make it really punchy.

* Name + contact details at the top
* Relevant work experience (highlighting skills, tailored to the job you're applying for. Bulleted list of the key things you did in the role, keep the sentences short and sweet!)
* Education
* Small section on interests, hobbies etc, good to highlight anything particularly impressive you have done. Being a climbing forum you should hopefully be able to put something quite interesting here!

Exactly 1 page unless you have 15+ years of relevant experience and you're going for a very senior role, then you can stretch to 2 if you feel it is necessary.

Ditch the personal statement, that's what a cover letter is for and you're using up valuable space to say exactly the same things as everyone else!

At the moment my CV is two pages.

I suppose i could drop the statement and condense things a bit.

Is it the done thing to put skills in a table ?

In reply to Doughnut:

Most recruiters don't want to know about your hobbies.

In reply to goldmember:

What's the point in hobbies and interests unless they are relevant to the job?

I may put scout leader if I wanted to demonstrate leadership/organisation but I wouldn't put climbing. If the person reading isn't a climber they are hardly going to say "blow me down with a feather, this person climbs, I'm so impressed. Wow!" But hey might say, "this person is too much of a risk taker."

Or otherwise, if they are a climber themselves they might think "hmph, I'm the climber in this organisation thankyou. If I employ this person my weekly tales of adventure will suddenly be less interesting to Jenny in accounts."

Just stick to relevant stuff.

In reply to The New NickB:

Hmm, I need to practice brevity if I am to get ahead in this world.

In reply to goldmember:

Feel free to PM me with what role you are looking at, obviously different skills for different roles, might be able to help (also might not if it's something i've got no idea about, like tax!).

Cheers

In reply to Bob:

A



Agreed. The key skills section allows the reader to decide if it is worth spending an additional 20 seconds reading your employment history which will contain most of the detail.

In reply to goldmember:

Your PM went to an old email address associated with this account. I'll respond when I get home tonight.

In reply to Bob:

thanks very kind of you Bob.

Thanks could you reply too gerryelliott(AT)live.co.uk

In reply to The New NickB:

Agreed, hobbies are only likely to be of much interest if they demonstrate a skill relevant to the job....

In reply to Doughnut: I'd keep a very short (2-3 line) personal statement in there. Cover letters a)rarely get read at all; b) don't get passed on with the CV normally. It gives the person reading it a flavour of who you are and what you're looking for.

If you've been working for more than 10 years, put education at the bottom - it's not nearly as relevant as your work experience.

Hobbies - I'm open as to whether they're on or not - but don't try to make yourself seem more exciting by lying about them. I see climbing on so many CVs, and naturally want to talk to people about it, only to find that they went climbing once ten years ago... at which point I give them a serious grilling on their CV.

(By the way, I'm a recruiter).

In reply to Carolyn:

Sorry to disagree - and I've sat on both sides of the desk. Interests are about the only thing that give the 'real' you away.

Having been a hirer in a Corporate and now running my own business, I'll keep this brief - because that's what the Op needs to do.

Seeing a million generic, thesaurus driven CV's when one drops on my desk says 'climber', I take another look. The guy / girl must therefore have tenacity, drive, determination, able to brave hardship and a screw loose and so will fit into my organization nicely.

In reply to goldmember:

.....just for clarity my business is not recruitment, I'm just giving a real world take on it.

the poster above is clearly a pro and is right when they say don't make it up. Though the sadistic side of me enjoys it when that happens.

In reply to DefenderKen:
I've looked at the odd CV for the small-to-middling tech firm that I work for. We aren't going to employ someone who doesn't fit the job description just because they've got some interesting hobbies, but we'll probably be more positively inclined towards someone if they give the impression of having some sort of personality - after all, we're going to have to talk to them as well as just get work out of them. Also, to an extent, someone who does exciting stuff with their spare time is probably going to have a bit more drive and initiative than someone whose interests extend to Eastenders and Strictly.

In reply to goldmember:

Keep it brief, never more than one page. And the first sentence is crucial. It has to grab attention. As someone who has had to plough through 60/70 CV's over a weekend, that is what gets noticed, as well as relevant skills for the post. And no spelling howlers, remember spellcheck is not infallible.

In reply to DefenderKen:


Most recruiters are not climbers, so won't react the same and may well interpret climber negatively, they may be climbers and think I'm not paying someone to spend their day on UKC

Mainly they will just think it is not relevant.

I was once interviewed for a job by Brian Cookson, was offered it, but decided not to take it. At no time did I mention that I did a bit of cycling. The job had nothing to do with cycling, but for those who don't know Brian Cookson is now the President of UCI.

In reply to goldmember:

Go on the future learn website. They do free short courses thru unis. They are doing a 3week cv & application writing course soon

In reply to DefenderKen:


To an extent. When it extends to telling me what Scout Badges you got 20 years ago (I'm not joking....) I don't think it's terribly relevant. Neither does "I enjoy listening to music" add much.

In reply to Carolyn:

i suppose the guideline would be that interests should be included if they are current and, well, interesting

In reply to Carolyn:

Absolutely true, current and relevant to the job applied for - even if you have to think laterally and apply sport or hobby based skills to the role involved.

People like to quote a ton of skills they have, but I want to hear an example of such - that's where a 'real life' experience rather than the normal work based stuff can demonstrate your ability with more style.

In reply to Carolyn:

or, the one I saw a lot; "Enjoy socialising"

In reply to Dave Perry:

Which now should be 'Enjoy Facebooking'

reject, next please.....