Christmas is the time to take a break after a long stressful year and enjoy yourself.
Now having said that there will be some who have not succeeded, career-wise like they would have hoped for. Others who are urgently job searching may dread the thought of starting all over again in January. Whether you wish to progress within your present employment or are searching for a new opportunity, the one question that gets asked more than any other topic is the C.V.
The typical questions are;
- I don’t have a C.V., where do I start?
- I can’t think of anything to write?
- I don’t have anything of interest to say?
And the short answer to all of the above is yes you do; you just haven’t given it enough thought.
So, over the Christmas period, when time is on your side, you might want to consider how you will present your key information and prepare your CV for a New Year job hunt.
Frequently people will download lists of suggested or possible statements that would refer to work experience that would be typical for an accountant, an engineer, a supervisor or other.
These are fine but I strongly suggest when you see something that suits your background, don’t copy and paste. Just use the idea but re-write it in your own style and persona. If you run into difficulties, get advice.
So now back to the question of developing strong statements relevant to your past career.
Again and again I tell clients when starting to write your CV get your mindset right. Don’t say to yourself “I am going to write my CV”, think, I’m going to write my “brochure”.
Don’t ever forget that your CV is a selling document. It must sell your skills and experience to a potential employer and sell them fast.
A potential employer will not have any tolerance for wasted space or irrelevant information. Keep your information strictly relevant with no waffle or useless information. Also ensure no wasted space. If you have space to spare put something in it that may be in interest.
Frequently I see C.V.’s that start with;
_______________________
Curriculum Vitae
Name: Pat Jones
Address: 1 The Road
The Town
The County.
Telephone: 01-1234567
E-mail: yourname@email.com
________________________________
Instead I would suggest you try the following;
_________________________________
Ger Jones
1 The Road, The Town, The County.
Telephone: 01-1234567. E-mail: yourname@email.com
___________________________________
There is no need to write Curriculum Vitae at the top of the page. It’s obvious at a glance what it is. Name and address on two lines. The total space used is three lines only and not seven as in the first example.
This is only a very simple example of how you can reduce and eliminate useless space. By applying this thinking to your CV you may be able to reduce every paragraph written by half a line. That will probably amount to about a quarter of a page. That quarter saved can be used for even more concise information about your achievements.
And now search for interesting or relevant statements of your past experience. This can be hard to do but if you carry out a simple exercise that I suggest you might surprise yourself with the interesting career history that you can bring together.
It is my belief that CVs nearly always get written in a hurry and so are not as professional as they should be and more often than not, miss out lots and lots of key information from the past.
Take a page; draw a line down the middle making two halves. On the top of the left half write I DID and on the top of the right half write THE SKILL.
I stress this are only a trawling exercise for key information from your career, especially the bits and pieces you haven’t given much thought to. At first glance you may think this is a bit silly, but believe me almost everyone agrees that it produces surprising results given the time.
On your own, privately with no prompting from anyone and without reference to your existing CV, sit back and let your mind drift back to your first job and then slowly think through the years, the jobs you had, tasks you were involved in and anything that was in any way special or successful, write it down on the left side of the page: I did this – I did that etc.
All you need is a reminder not a whole paragraph. Soon you will find and recall all sorts of experiences, achievement, skills and attributes from past employment that you never give any thought to but could be very relevant and work related.
This is just a trawling exercise and later you can think these events through and extract the interesting parts for further comment. For now they are just reminders.
When the first column is complete go to the right side of the page and starting at the top, opposite your first ‘I DID’ add in the skill you possess that made the achievement work for you.
It could be;
I DID. SKILL
I secured the big order when the Boss was away Communication/Negotiation
You may soon notice that some of the same skills appears several times which will be proof-positive it is a true skill of yours. You should now have a list of achievements on the left side and a list of personal skills on the right.
With this page done, you will now have some good material to work on with several personal skills identified which is quite a hard thing to do. These skills will stand for you in both your CV and later on at interviews. You will probably find that the same four, five or six skills keep repeating which is proof-positive that they are true skills of yours and should be documented.
When doing a page in this fashion you will soon recall lots of experiences from the past, which you can then develop later and if at all possible put a measurable figure on the statement. Don’t just say you increased sales. Say you increased sales by 25%. Or better still by 25% in six months. You might just surprise yourself with all kind of detail you had forgotten about.
Having done this you can then at your leisure select, edit and document the good bits and dump the rest. Likewise with your skills.
Here you must use common sense, entering the interesting items under the headings of skills and experience.
In short the main topics on your C.V. could include:
First Page
Name and address and contact numbers.
A Profile
Skills
Achievements
Qualifications
Languages
Personal Details
Second page
Career History
Tags and codes
Having made theses suggestions I always add that there is no set rule for a CV layout. What looks good, reads well and makes sense in it’s layout, is fine.
Take your time, lots of time and get it right. When your CV is done put it away for a day or so and then review it as thought you were an employer. If you’re impressed, good. If not – you’re back to the drawing board. This is one item Santa cannot bring for you so give it plenty of time; you will thank yourself later.
Colm Cavey has over 24 years’ experience in helping people change careers and find the kind of job they want. Colm can review your CV, help you organise your job hunt and provide one to one interview and presentation coaching or all of those elements together in a full Career Change programme. To find out more about Colm you can contact him directly on 086-3017207 or via his company Professional Career Consulting