80:20 Performance Solutions Ltd

Notes and Points of Interest

It is more likely that your CV will be scanned quickly than scrutinised; some jobs attract literally hundreds of applicants. The purpose of your CV is to get you an interview by making it as easy as possible for an employer to see that you have relevant skills and qualifications.

The decision making process is, if not entirely an unconscious process, one that relies heavily on intuition. That is, the employers that read your CV will be quickly weighing up what you can offer and developing a gut sense of YES or NO about you. Make it as easy as possible for them to recognise as much relevance as possible and the YES is more likely.

Contact Details

Ensure that your contact details are up to date and if possible include a mobile phone number as well as your home number. An e-mail address is likely to be a favoured means of corresponding with you for many employers and nearly every agency. Even if you e-mail an application still put the e-mail address on your CV

Covering Letters

Some employers read covering letters some don't, your CV may be received by one person and passed to another, there is no guarantee the covering letter will be passed along too. It is important to put anything of relevance in the CV, do not rely on a covering letter to convey relevant information other than your interest in the job.

Style

Use standard fonts and formatting, your CV is a professional document. Not everyone thinks bubble writing looks good and some people will think it unprofessional. By all means use your CV to make a personal statement about your own tastes but remember not everyone will share those tastes.

Technology

It isn't just recruitment consultancies that use software to read CV's, many employers are turning to technology to ease the burden of recruitment. This means that your CV may be filed on a database before someone actually reads it. The database is used to identify appropriate applicants and does so by ‘indexing' relevant keywords. Your CV will only be detected if those keywords appear. It is essential to use standard terminology when expressing the field in which you work and the techniques and skills you apply in your job.

Length of CV

Whilst there is no actual written rule about how long your CV should be it is commonly accepted that two pages will often suffice. Perhaps for those with more experience three pages. The ability to accurately abstract relevant information is an important skill - insisting you can't limit your CV to a reasonable length is admitting you don't have this skill.

Order of Information

Ideally the most relevant detail goes at the front of your CV. If you have relevant industry experience then that will be of more interest to the employer than your education. If you have a Personal Profile on your CV then that must serve to identify you as relevant in some way.

Chronology

When listing experience and / or education always start with the most recent first, what you are currently doing or have most recently done is of more interest than what you were doing ten years ago.

Extended Industrial Placements

Although also part of your studies your industrial placement is part of your work history and is probably best presented in that section. With a relevant year in industry your work experience will go ahead of education, even if you only graduated last month.

Dates

Include the month in the dates on your CV rather than just the year. Jan 2006 - Dec 2007 is clearly a 2 year period, whereas 2006 to 2007 may only have been a 2 month period. If you leave this information out

Making up for a lack of experience

If you have very limited or no industry experience at all then you have to make the most of what you have. Practical hands on experience in, for example, the laboratory is generally of more interest to an employer than time spent sat in a lecture theatre. If you have used instrumentation in projects or practical classes ensure it is listed on your CV. Stating the make and model of the instruments may help, if nothing else it shows you were paying attention.

Grades

Academic recognition often hinges on performance over just a few days of exams. Sometimes grades can be a little disappointing, they are not actually of interest to every employer and when missing, questions are not always asked. However those employers placing emphasis on grades are likely to assume the worst when they are missing from your CV.

Gaps through time spent travelling

Taking time out to travel is quite a popular option, either immediately after University or as a career break. It is a good idea to state clearly that this is what you did, a brief statement about where you went and why you chose to do this helps present the decision as a positive choice.

Gaps in employment

There are numerous circumstances that lead to gaps in employment. Provided an employer can understand why this happened it isn't necessarily going to be perceived as a bad thing. If the gap is for a significant period of time it is very important to demonstrate evidence of having done something constructive. This may be education, travel or simply undertaking some form of personal or family project. Lengthy periods spent doing nothing are not attractive on a CV.