How not to write your Curriculum Vitae
As you can imagine from nearly two decades of CVs crossing my desk, I’ve seen a lot of hogwash written in the name of ‘selling myself’. Unfortunately, despite what you might expect, the amount of genuinely hilarious I’ve received can be counted on one hand, and in most cases they are of questionable provenance. Just the one I got from a Russian “security professional” who believed his employment chances as a local government accountant would increase if he typed “I’m not afraid to die for my employer” was too weird not to have. he been created by a bored rec with more ingenuity than active roles to recruit.
That being said, the number of poorly constructed, written or conceived CVs must number in the tens of thousands, and the most alarming thing is that they are getting worse.
If you lie on your CV, don’t bother to use a spell checker, or decide to use your personal email address, you don’t deserve to get your dream job and are likely to remain a government statistic. However, the reality is that most candidates’ CV mistakes are not that elementary, and are usually misguided attempts to ‘stand out’, which actually results in being screened.
The first of these is undoubtedly the result of perceptions of modern contracting practice. Many candidates, particularly in technical disciplines like engineering or IT, assume that all companies and recruiters rely entirely on “analytics” technology and don’t actually read the CV. This results in comprehensive lists of every process or package they’ve ever worked with, trained on, heard about, or read about job specs. This doesn’t do the candidate any favors, especially when that CV finds its way to an in-house hiring manager looking to test candidates on ‘softer’ skills and competencies. Candidates just don’t get hired.
The next counterproductive attempt to sell yourself is the candidate’s photograph. If you’ve been blessed with the Jude Law/Natalie Portman look and feel and are working in a sales/account management/marketing role that requires face-to-face contact, this won’t actively hurt your app. However, in my experience, IT, finance, HR, and the vast majority of professional jobs go to the person with the most attractive resume, not the image. When this is added to the fact that people who look like models and movie stars end up looking like models and movie stars, it means that, in most cases, most professional people, at best, they will look “normal”. If this was the impression you were looking to achieve, go to ‘Photo-me’. If not, keep your photo, your 80s haircut and the ‘should have gone to Specsavers’ frames on your CV. They can be a nice surprise for the interview.
Most resumes are too long. HR and recruiting professionals are busy people and therefore your CV should reflect all your selling points and nothing else. But what to cut? You may be advised to remove hobbies or first jobs from your CV, both of which may have merit. That said, I personally like to get the full picture, and a few (not embarrassing) quizzes to break the interview ice and a recap of early work to provide context doesn’t hurt. What needs to be removed is the ‘bragging box’ preferred by at least 50% of candidates at the beginning of their CV. God only knows how this first started to happen and even more mysterious is why it still proliferates, but there are no good reasons to and many not to. Here are my top 5 reasons NOT to write an executive summary (always annoyingly italicized): –
1. It’s usually a total fabrication and so you’ll get sucked in when a bored MD who hasn’t read the rest of the CV says, ‘I notice, Mr. Smith, that you describe yourself as assertive, strategically minded and ambitious. . How will that help you fry French fries?’
2. It’s usually just a list of management buzzwords that won’t tell the customer anything other than you read “Who took my fromage frais?” eight years ago.
3. You take up space where you could draw attention to your genuine skill set, tailored to the job at hand. What happened to the cover letter?
4. Nobody ever reads them. I really, really promise that aside from the unfortunate scenarios outlined above, NO ONE EVER READ THEM. Even the clever analytics technology used by recruiting companies can’t read adjectives!
5. People are so interested in including all the ‘correct’ words, that all these things read the same. If you can send me your current CV, with Executive Summary and it does not contain at least 5 of the following 10 words or phrases, then I will be really impressed.
Strategic, Driven, Proven Track Record of Success, Business Enablement, Blue Sky Thinking, Dynamic, Diverse, Business, Thought Leadership, Vision
So, in essence, while a CV should include all of your selling points, your cause will also be served by not including all the irrelevant common sense that diverts attention from your core capabilities. Art is as much about what to leave out as what to include. Dynamic, can do it, business winner with 937 IT packs and a face only a (nearsighted) mother could love doesn’t need to apply.