When you write A CV it is, of course, a good idea to include qualifications.   But too many people misunderstand this and think that it means you should include details of all your education right back to primary school. 

As with all aspects of writing your CV, before including anything, you should ask yourself ‘will that make a difference to the employer’s decision-making process?’.    In other words, since we all went to school, unless yours was in some way different or intresting, don’t bother to include it. 

Qualifications are a different matter.  If you are a graduate then the name of the establishment where you gained your degree is  relevant because it was they who awarded the qualification.   ‘A’ levels on the other hand are awarded by an external body so the school or college is not necessarily relevant.

Educational qualifications are simply your ‘jumping off point’ but, in my view, training courses are much more relevant   As your career progresses it is likely that this type of qualification will have enabled you to develop your skills and expand your knowledge base.  

The golden rule in CV writing is to identify what is relevant so that you make your CV user friendly and fit for the purpose for which it is intended - to enable you to be successful in your job hunt. 

When you write your CV you make it user-friendly for sending via e-mail and storing on a database.   Here are a few good tips
•    write your CV using a standard font, that way you can be sure that the receiving computer will also have the same font loaded
•    it gives a very bad impression is your e-mail address is silly or suggestive - make sure yours is businesslike
•    be careful to read the requirements for CV submissions  most sites require either a Word or a PDF format
•    make sure that your CV doesn’t include images, grids or animations otherwise the database may not be able to read your file

The first thing that should appear on a properly written CV after the name and contact details is a Profile.   This should be your introduction it should say why you are the best candidate for a job.   It needs to be focussed on demonstable achievements throughout your career as well as transferable skills and competencies.  It should be an overview of the whole CV and as such it can’t be written before you have the rest of the information sorted out.   

The best way to show your career history when writing a CV is to show the jobs in reverse chronological order (ie the most recent comes first).   But that isn’t the way your life happened.   Now we know that it is not necessary to go back more than about ten years when writing a CV, but what I would advise in the first instance is that you go right back to the beginning and list all the jobs you have had ever since you left school or University.   When you have done that you can decide where you will start the detailed Career History.  However, I would usually advise that earlier jobs should not be omitted altogether but should simply be listed.   This will enable you to demonstrate your career progression which is a very important factor when writing a CV.    

So to summarise, when writing a CV it is much easier if you write your Profile last and you put down your career history in the order in which it happened.   So why not do as I do - I assure you writing a CV is much easier if you start at the bottom of page 2 and work towards the top of page 1.   It makes it much easier to focus the brain.   You might like to put in your paragraph headings first just to give the draft pages some structure, but the first section that I always complete is REFERENCES available upon request.   At least I’ve made a meaningful start so I can get on with the task of CV writing in a way that helps me to feel organised in my mind.

 What do you mean by that?   I am frequently surprised that people don’t know the answer to that question.  

It actually falls into two categories

Senior Managers who are still formatting their CVs in a way that is more suitable for graduates for example by putting education before Career History or who describe their CAREER HISTORY as EMPLOYMENT or even WORK EXPERIENCE.   Many Senior Managers also include inappropriate descriptions which they should have outgrown.   They may for example say that they are ’punctual’ or describe other personal attributes which are more appropriate for a school leaver. 

At the other end of the spectrum there are graduates or people who are just starting out who ‘big-up’ their achievements.   Believe it or not I actually had a graduate who had only done part time and holiday work  who described himself as a ‘manager’   The problem with this is that there is nowhere to go.   How can you aspire to career developent if you have arrived at management level even before you’ve started?

There is a popular misconception that when creating an effective CV, content is what it is all about. I would like to explode that myth and here’s why -

We all know, and goodness knows, I’ve said it many times, that a CV is a marketing tool for use in a very competitive marketplace.   Every time a job vacancy is advertised there are likely to be around 200 applicants.   Every one of these applicants will submit a CV for consideration.   So pity the poor person who has to read them all!

Read the rest of this entry »

Sounds good, doesn’t it.   So what happens when you apply for a free CV assessment.

Well, obviously it depends upon the individual firm, but there is no doubt about it the ‘free’ assessment is a very powerful marketing tool.    Beware of CV Writing firms that promise that one of their representatives will ring you with your free CV assessment.  What is actually happening is that they are sending the CV Writers on their books details of people asking for free CV assessments.  The CV Writer is then required to make a sales call, usually at their own expense, to try to ‘convert’ you or sell you the full blown CV Writing service.   It is obviously in the interests of the CV writer to do this - they don’t get work any other way.

So when you apply for a free assessment, nine times out of ten your name will be passed on as a sales lead.   OK if you are prepared for this but don’t get caught unawares by somebody who is simply trying to sell you something.

So are free assessments ever worth having?  The answer is yes, sometimes.   If a CV Writing firm is promising to reply to you via e-mail then you are in a much better position than if they are replying by ‘phone.   You are not being put on the spot and you can judge for yourself whether what they are telling you is worth while.   Indeed this can be a very good opportunity for you to assess the quality of a CV Writing firm.  If what they are saying makes sense and you can tell that they know what they are talking about, you can at least know that they will provide a genuine professional CV writing service that is worth paying for. 

I’ve never been a smoker myself so I don’t have the problem, but I do have great sympathy with those who are addicted.  Presumably there is nicotine in cigarette smoke whether it is actively or passively received.  Nicotine should be recognised as a drug and treated just like any other.  The law of addiction states “administration of a drug to an addict will cause re-establishment of chemical dependence upon the addictive substance”.   So unless I am mistaken, this “administration of the drug” will apply to cigarette smoke whether it be actively or passively received.  This must have had a severe affect and made it much more difficult for people trying to quit.

How could a person who had been struggling all week to manage without a cigarette enjoy an evening at the pub where they would be exposed to passive smoking? 

Apart from the obvious benefits to everyone’s health, it seems to me that this new ban will have a very important ‘knock-on’ effect, cutting the number of new smokers and helping existing smokers to give up – which can only be a good thing for everybody’s health – not to mention wealth.   

Peter

27 June 2007

I was browsing the web and came across a website dedicated to bullying in the workplace.   It was fascinating to learn from this site that

‘half the population are bullied’ most people only realise it when they read this page."

Now this seems strange to me - if they don’t know they are being bullied then one might assume it is not causing them a problem - that is, until they read ‘this page’.   

I am certainly not one to condone bullying in any shape or form but I do believe that it is often a matter of perception or even misunderstanding.  People who would otherwise be comfortable in a particular situation should not be encouraged to imagine that they are displaying weakness and are putting up with something unacceptable.  

‘What is bullying?’  now that is a very interesting question.   We all have different personalities both in what we give out and how we react to other people.   What, for example, do you make of Sir Alan Sugar’s relationship with his ‘Apprentices’ in the TV programme?  To some Sir Alan’s attitude might certainly appear to be bullying.  

I personally think that everyone has to learn from people who have more experience than themselves and this can sometimes be mistaken for bullying.   If a particular employer or senior manager has an unfortunate way of delivering feedback then that is not necessarily bullying.   Surely it all comes down to the question - what is the intention of the ‘bully’.   Do they even realise that what they consider to be positive feedback is being misunderstood?   

I do recognise that bullying exists and that everything possible should be done to eliminate it.  I believe that many people do need help and moral support in standing up for themselves in the workplace and learning to avoid harassment.    However, the particular website I was looking at doesn’t appear to have much advice about how to tackle bullying and what action to take.   I looked around this site for a long time trying to find such advice but unfortunately without success. 

Now a site which gave helpful advice on how to tell the difference between management styles, how to understand whether you are really the victim of bullying and how you should react and what support is available to you.   That would be very helpful. 

But surely a site dedicated to persuading people that they are being bullied when they themselves were blissfully unaware of it - that has got to be counter-productive at every level.

Peter

It seems that in October 2007 there will be further changes in employment law which will mean that British workers’ overall holiday entitlement will increase from 20 days to 24, rising to 28 days by autumn 2008. Surprisingly, although we in the UK have less holiday entitlement than our European neighbours it seems that we are known for having the longest hours and the lowest productivity in Europe.      

As I understand it, the main reason for the change is in 1999 the UK did as little as they could to comply with the European directive.   This meant that although the law said that employees were entitled to four weeks holiday, many employers included public holidays in that entitlement.  This new legislation means that each employee is entitled to four full weeks plus public holidays.  

Whichever way we look at it, this seems an awful lot of holiday to me, being one of the self-employed, but in fact we lag far behind other European Countries such as France which gives workers 36 days, Italy with 32, and Germany with 29.

Peter

In the light of the new legislation which came into force last October, a prospective employer is no longer allowed to demand to be given details of your age.

So should you include your date of birth in your CV?   The simple answer is that, as with all CV writing, there are no hard and fast rules, so it is entirely up to you.   By all means include it if you think it wold be helpful to either the prospective employer or your application.   There are bound to be other dates in your CV so it would probably be fairly easy to work out your age from other information supplied, but if you want to leave out reference to your date of birth, that’s perfectly OK.

For a long time now age has never been included in US style Resumes so It is inevitable that with the passage of time it will become increasingly less fashionable to include date of birth.   Eventually I am convinced that we shall follow the US market as we always do.  

Peter