Can someone help me out with my CV?

I've read hundreds of CV's when recruiting, and compiled a few of my own over the years. My advice would be:

At the beginning put a profile of yourself in as this initial statement is what will capture their attention, something like:
Profile: "A young and energetic person with experience in xxxxxxx, with quaifications in xxxxx. Keen to take on a role where he can make a contribution and gain experience" Might sound like BS but at the end of the day your CV is an advert for yourself and the idea is to catch their attention and make them want to learn more about you.

Then put what you've been doing since leaving school, with most recent stuff first. Give yourself some license in stating your role and responsibiilties, but obviously don't lie about them.

If you do any voluntary stuff outside normal work that will go down very well as it indicates that you are not just in it for the money.

Then include a summary of your qualifications. Include any on-the-job training in your current job - these can be just as important and show that you want to continue to learn.

Then your personal details, D.O.B., driving licenses etc.

Finally include your hobbies and interests. If these involve taking a bit of lead (e.g. captain of football team, taking the lead in arranging rideouts etc.) include that as it shows a bit of initiative.

If you want the MS word template that I use you're welcome to it. Just PM me with your email address.

HTH Cheers Keith

As I have been working in the recruitment business for over 4 years now, I thought I'd drop a few comments which I hope will help you

Originally Posted by punyXpress

And it WILL be opened by the chick on reception before she bins it. You know who you have to impress.
Good Luck!

90% of recruiting nowadays is done electronically so a "receptionist" is not very likely to have anything to do with it

Originally Posted by lukemillar

People have different rules and even in different industries. For instance, I was taught to never make it longer than 1 page. I was also encouraged to remove anything that wasn't relevant - like having a clean driving licence! If you don't need to drive as part of the job, a potential employer won't care!

Majority of resourcing recruiters do on a daily basis is based on keyword searches, be it on a job-board or company's internal database. It is highly unlikely that you will be able to put enough keywords in a 1 page CV and as a result it has close to 0% chance of appearing in my search.
My advice is to put as much information as possible on your CV and not worry if it goes even to 3 pages long. I would even suggest going through job adverts for roles that interest you and look what wording is used in the requirement section of the advert and then make sure the same is used somewhere in the body of the CV which will increase the chance of your CV appearing in the search.
Just make sure that the most important info is clearly highlighted on the 1st page. Sections such as Profile, Key Skills and Main Achievements are the most important. Just by reading those I usually know whether I am interested in going through the rest of the CV.

Originally Posted by lukemillar

Problem with templates is they encourage you to put in all this stuff. Keep it brief but relevant.

Cannot agree with you there.. There are good and bad templates. The good ones will help you structure your CV so that the most important information is highlighted and easily accessible for us recruiters. I would strongly suggest using Performance CV format from www.alec.co.uk. Just make sure you do not copy entire phrases from templates /samples.

Originally Posted by lukemillar

One other thing which I have always done is use very schmick paper. From studying graphic design, I love paper. I'm not talking anything crazy, but there are some really nice papers out there, that have a good feel and ooze quality. So many employers have notice (and commented) that it caught their attention as soon as they picked it up.

I agree that using good quality paper will make your CV stand out. Problem is that in most situations your CV will reach the recruiter electronically. An "electronic equivalent" of this is to use a bit different font, e.g. Verdana or Century Gothic, as most people will go with Times New Roman or Arial. Don't use too small a font - I can't stress how annoying it is when people try to squeeze their CV in one page by using size 8 font - I will soon need reading glasses Some graphical elements (e.g. horizontal lines to separate different sections of your CV) can also help you make the CV stand out

Originally Posted by muffles

Depends what sort of job you are applying for, I think. We've been reviewing CVs for about 6 months for roles in our team (my company has put some quite strict rules on hiring at the mo hence the time!).
To be honest (and this is in the job spec) we are after 2 main technologies (oh, these are programmer roles btw) - Java and C#. There are other useful to have skills like Perl or Unix knowledge, but those are the main ones.

So the reason I mention that is because I have had to go through many CVs, and I am so sick of it that all I really want is a piece of paper that says Java, C# or both, and a break down of the experience that simply has company & time there, so I can see the total number of years experience, and at what type of company. It's very few words, I honestly don't care about all the other waffle as I'll find that out in the first interview if it's relevant.

So my advice would be to find out what you can about what this company is after and keep it so utterly utterly simple that they could look at it and go "Ah! Shelf stacking! Perfect!" or similar... (not implying you are a shelf stacker, just an example )

I understand your frustration after doing it for 6 months - try doing it daily for 4 years Yet I cannot fully agree with you. It is important for the CV to be easy to read and the most relevant information needs to be easily located, so as I've mentioned above, good structure is essential. However, from a candidate point of view, his CV will be seen by 100s of recruiters both agency and internal and the details you might consider irrelevant, might be sought by others. You're in a not so common situation where your company placed and ad or ads in the papers/online and now you're buried under a pile of CVs you need to screen. Most resourcing is nowadays done proactively, where an agency or company's internal recruiter will search CV's on various databases. From my experience more people get their jobs having been found on a database (jobsite, monster, totaljobs, etc) rather than having applied themselves. That's why it's so important to have the relevant information on the CV as otherwise most searches will not pick it up. In case of your vacancy, a typical recruiter would log onto jobsite (or simillar) and will start a keyword search on Java and C+ (probably also limited to 20 mile radius and CVs added within last week) and within a few second will have 50 hits out of which most will be relevant.

Seggons, what I would suggest is write a detailed CV, making sure you have a good profile and most relevant info on the front page. Than place it on as many job boards as possible. Jobsite.co.uk, monster.co.uk and totaljobs.co.uk are just a few worth your time. It is also important to renew (repost) your CV every week as most recruiters will look for CVs added in last week.
All this websites will also allow you to set up an email job notifications which will save you lots of time as interesting jobs will come to you rather than you having to spend hours browsing.

Hope the above helps. If you have any further questions, drop me a PM and I will try to help

Cheers
martin

Seggons, plenty of good advice already posted on what to put in. I'll make my contribution by telling you what makes me bin any CV I'm reading...

1. Spelling and grammatical errors - bin straight away, no iffs, buts or maybes. That just says one thing: You're lazy and/or thick.

2. Jargon speak - "... I proved an invaluable asset to the organisation by taking sole responsibility and accountability for ensuring optimal sales opportunity for strategic sales projects" aka "... I kept the shelves full of Kit-Kats 'cause they were on sale..." hmmm - bin it.

3. Gaps in the CV. Doesn't matter if you weren't working, put the dates in there and explain what you were doing. I'm not looking for a puzzle. If it isn't obvious, I can't be bothered working it out. Bin it.

4. Big, thick paragraphs. Keep it to the point. Tailor it to suit your employer's needs. Accentuate the positive. Omit the negative. Wordy CVs go to the bottom of the pile - and I'll probably fill my interview slots before I get to the bottom of the pile.

Good luck! If you want me to read through it and feedback, just PM me, I'm bored today.

Covering letter.

Simply put, sending CV to companys they can sometimes think you're just flooding everywhere with them.

A personalised covering letter at least shows some interest to be with that firm

Thanks everyone for all your input, especially martianskippy. Thanks for taking the time to write that lengthy post. The problem I have is I don't have a diploma with 50 qualifications. I did my GCSE's, didn't do well and have only had one job so it's far from out standing so I'm trying to make it look better if nothing else.

Originally Posted by Seggons

Thanks everyone for all your input, especially martianskippy. Thanks for taking the time to write that lengthy post. The problem I have is I don't have a diploma with 50 qualifications. I did my GCSE's, didn't do well and have only had one job so it's far from out standing so I'm trying to make it look better if nothing else.

I'm in a similar position. I only did GCSE's, than an apprenticeship as a chef and have only ever worked in catering, which I now hate with a passion, so ATM I'm applying for any old cleaning/arcade attendant/whatever job to bring me in money. I have been looking for a year now, apply for jobs every day and most of the time don't even receive acknowledgement of my application. My C.V. looks nice, but there's nothing there of any real use to anyone. I have kept an easy link to this page so I can use all the advice to re-do the C.V.

Originally Posted by martianskippy

Majority of resourcing recruiters do on a daily basis is based on keyword searches, be it on a job-board or company's internal database. It is highly unlikely that you will be able to put enough keywords in a 1 page CV and as a result it has close to 0% chance of appearing in my search.
My advice is to put as much information as possible on your CV and not worry if it goes even to 3 pages long. I would even suggest going through job adverts for roles that interest you and look what wording is used in the requirement section of the advert and then make sure the same is used somewhere in the body of the CV which will increase the chance of your CV appearing in the search.

Cannot agree with you there.. There are good and bad templates. The good ones will help you structure your CV so that the most important information is highlighted and easily accessible for us recruiters. I would strongly suggest using Performance CV format from www.alec.co.uk. Just make sure you do not copy entire phrases from templates /samples.

Hence why I said - different industries, different rules! If I followed your rules, then my CV probably wouldn't have been selected on a few occasions when it mattered!

I don't think one size fits all with CV's.

Originally Posted by carternd

So if you have no previous experience you'se shafted then! D'oh! ATM I could go for shelf stacking. It pays, and doesn't require you to fry your own brain for the sake of someone else's income.

For the job I'm talking about, afraid so lol. Internally, we have a minimum of 10 years relevant experience for the level that the job is at.

Originally Posted by martianskippy

I understand your frustration after doing it for 6 months - try doing it daily for 4 years Yet I cannot fully agree with you. It is important for the CV to be easy to read and the most relevant information needs to be easily located, so as I've mentioned above, good structure is essential. However, from a candidate point of view, his CV will be seen by 100s of recruiters both agency and internal and the details you might consider irrelevant, might be sought by others. You're in a not so common situation where your company placed and ad or ads in the papers/online and now you're buried under a pile of CVs you need to screen. Most resourcing is nowadays done proactively, where an agency or company's internal recruiter will search CV's on various databases. From my experience more people get their jobs having been found on a database (jobsite, monster, totaljobs, etc) rather than having applied themselves. That's why it's so important to have the relevant information on the CV as otherwise most searches will not pick it up. In case of your vacancy, a typical recruiter would log onto jobsite (or simillar) and will start a keyword search on Java and C+ (probably also limited to 20 mile radius and CVs added within last week) and within a few second will have 50 hits out of which most will be relevant.

It sounds like you have more/better experience than I, and importantly advice tailored better for the OP; I guess to add my comments anyway, I know what you are saying but:
a) the majority of our CVs come from recruiters & having joined myself via a recruiter, I'd expect the recruiter to tailor the CV specifically to what the company is after (we're very clear on what we want).
b) I'd be happy to have more on the CV, just organised *below* what I wanna see so if I think the CV looks interesting, I can look.

Btw the reason I don't read much on the CV is because it's been fairly fruitless in terms of gauging skill levels, etc. Nearly all CVs sound great and we don't find out the truth about skills until we bring people in (we start with a phone interview and even in that aren't able to dig deep enough).

I employ 11 people.

I look for people who have something different about them as I assume that everyone can use bog standard MS Office applications and was captain of the rugby team (so many lies...). I have just hired a female assistant solicitor. It would be untrue to say that her interests were irrelevant because the first one was 'Motorbikes' and so that immediately caught my eye. Emma owns 2 Katanas, one of which she has rebuilt. At interview she came across really well, good confident performance, but I couldn't wait to steer the convo around to bikes