Looking for a new job as mine may or may not cease to exist shortly and with a young family to look after I need to maximise my chances.

I have not done a new CV for a while and I know lots of people will have different opinions etc but just a bit stuck staring at the screen at the moment…

I’m 23 and have had 3 full time jobs the longest of which was over 3 years, so there is not a massive amount to write about. I have an old one which I updated and am not sure on the formatting (was helped by a neighbour when I was 18 to work this out for the current one, just asking the most successful person I knew and figured they knew what they were doing!).

Intro section- Would you just provide a list/summary of your skills? or personalise this to the current application? or leave that for the cover note?

Then When writing the details of previous jobs would you use a bullet pointed struture,

EG “Communication Skills – [insert summary of skills used for this role under this heading]”

or just write a few paragraphs of an overall summary of the role?

Thanks for any help as I know some of you are in positions where you might be interviewing someone like me so the feedback is much appreciated.

Long time since I’ve done a conventional CV, but remember this being a very well recommended site.

http://www.businessballs.com/curriculum.htm

send me an e-mail [ in profile] and i will send you some information

The unhelpful answer is “it depends” (which is why you get a lot of conflicting advice).

The first things presented should be the most important / relevant; whether that’s your skillset, experience or qualifications would depend on both your personal strengths and the type of role you’re going for.

Tailoring each CV per-role is very good advice, though personally I could never be buggered to do so.

Get the basic structure and content down, then worry about making it look pretty.

If anyone mandates how many pages it must be, stab them in the face.

Get it proof-read. Basic typos are a sure-fire way of getting your CV binned when an employer has several hundred to thin down from.

Thanks for tips having a read of that link now, junkyard YGM.

Do people really care about hobbies etc as get mentioned on a lot of those templates?

Can’t see “likes riding bikes and talking on forums with bearded-Ale-drinking-log-burner-enthusiasts” making much of a difference unless the hobby is related to the job?

I hope your LinkedIn profile is also up to date…

Don’t like to disagree with Cougar, but three pages max used to be the norm.

My CV is key skills followed by soft skills followed by work experience and then interests at the end. Some on here have criticised it but it seems to work for me…

Good luck! The market’s picking up.

If anyone mandates how many pages it must be, stab them in the face.

Yes do 6 pages then mention your excellent communication skills 😉

Two is the norm as it is about the attention span of someoen reading hundreds

More may be ok if you are very senior or have a wealth of experience[ hence why cougars is so long- you do mention STW under hobbies dont yah 😉 } but at 23 with three jobs anything above two pages would be excessive.

The Profile is the only bit that you can expect to be read and this should make it clear what skills and experience you have to offer

How you order the rest is really your choice

My two penneth (and I get to read and re-write a lot in my job!)…

2 pages max – my attention span rarely lasts past page 1 anyway!
Be clear about what you did – this is harder than it sounds, but I read dozens and dozens of CVs which say “I worked on project X”, or simply list the projects they’ve worked on. Make sure you’re clear about what you did on the project, what differences you made etc. Try and include achievements, successes etc.
And definitely work hard on the profile – that is the bit that makes people want to read on.

And for me, drop the hobbies bit – I hate it! What happens if the person reading your CV is a horserider with a pathological hatred from mtbers after her horse got spooked last week?? Whatever you put down, there is someone who thinks the opposite! I once binned a pretty good CV because the lad was into “mobile phones and fashion”…

I can’t remember where I read it or who told me but I was under the impression that on average people spend very little time reading a CV and just scan through it, I think it was under a minute. So make sure the important facts stand out, keep the formatting clean and simple and keep it concise.

Agree on leaving the hobbies out unless they are directly applicable to the role. Getting to know each other is best left for the interview.

Be careful if you put in details of your hobbies. Some will look more risky and injury prone than others. Your otherwise good CV may be discounted if your lifestyle looks like it would result in a lot of Monday mornings off sick or frequent trips to A&E.

Make sure you match it to the key requirements of the role.

I’ve watched a couple of managers going through a stack of ~50 applications. The person they wanted had to be experienced with SQL, any CV that didn’t clearly mention SQL was discarded. The few that did were then looked at in more detail.

If there’s something that’s likely to be a deal breaker then make sure someone scanning over your CV can find it quickly and easily.

My 2 Euros worth..

I used to do outplacement and career coaching for a job before moving to Germany so I have helped quite a few folk… and for CV length, the longest I helped prepare was 13 pages. Completely appropriate for the role being prepped for in academia and had its own style and layout, as have those I did for folk looking for jobs in other countries.

Different styles do different jobs for different reasons… depends if your looking for career change or career advancement. As Cougar said, proof read, spelling, font and point size should all be sorted.

fire me across a mail from my profile details and I can send you some stuff through…

Include the basic facts and skills pertinent to the position, but also make sure the written paragraphs focus on achievements rather than description.
e.g.
instead of
“I was responsible for managing a team of 5”
put
“After being put in charge of a team of 5, that team delivered…
or
My work enabled the company to…
With our involvement, the client was able to…

Do people really care about hobbies etc as get mentioned on a lot of those templates?

It depends. I work in IT and recruit occasionally. I dont like “I like to read, go to the cinema and build computer networks in my spare time”

I would rather hear “I like to MTB, Run, paraglide” not every one but you get my gist. far too many people are “one dimensional” in IT

Do people really care about hobbies etc as get mentioned on a lot of those templates?

There’s no right answer to this, because the question you’re asking is “will the individual employer want to see it?” – who knows. Personally, I always liked to see it as it as it added a bit of interest, rather than having a CV like an RPG character sheet archetype. Plus it’s an aide memoir, I’m more likely to remember the “mountain biker” or the “movie buff” than “generic CV number 37”. If a candidate didn’t list interests, I’d wonder whether they had any.

As others have said though, some employers hate it. So ultimately it’s a bit of a lottery. If you’ve got interesting interests, or if you’ve not much else to say about yourself, then it’s probably more worthwhile than if you’re steeped in academia, have years and experience and spend your spare time cataloguing your sock drawer.

Don’t like to disagree with Cougar, but three pages max used to be the norm.

Disagree away, I could easily be wrong.

I don’t think there was ever a “norm”, just “accepted wisdom” which varied from person to person. I’ve often heard “no more than two pages” trotted out as an immutable rule. If you stop and think about it for a moment though it has to be nonsense; a two (or even one) page CV might be fine if you’re applying for your first ever job working part time shelf stacking at ASDA, but would be laughable if you’re applying to be the new CTO at IBM.

I’ve seen a CV where the candidate’s tried desperately to attain this mythical ideal by having 5mm margins, leaving no white space between paragraphs, and producing the entire thing in Flyspec 3. Had he left it to run it to three pages or even four it might not have gone in the bin unread.

Be concise and get to the point, and the CV is as long as it needs to be. If you’re 23, with respect I’d hazard that it’s unlikely to run to more than two pages anyway.

Good luck. The interests thing is interesting!! As an employer doing lots of recruitment in the past, I always looked at that to see (1) is this someone with whom I have something in common with and (2) would I want to spend most of the hours if the day in their company and vv. there is a point when a lot of stuff is taken for granted, so it’s the one or two things that are different that catch my eye and make me want to interview someone.

I recently was advised to take my interests off my CV by a HH who was twenty years my junior. What she misses is that my peers at my age tend to have similar hobbies (mad sports etc) and I would say that my interests have come up in 85-90% of cases and in a positive way eg how do you train for an ultra, or a IM triathlon or are 29ers really better etc Lycra clad sports aside, I would avoid frivolous interests though!!

Yes, to tailoring. V imp IMO
Yes, to typo advice etc

Best of British!!!!

Thanks for all the tips been sent some useful info. 🙂

Will have to spend a while doing different versions probably as will be applying for similar roles but also putting my hat in the ring for other things while I’m at it…

Page wise 2 should be fine, could fit it on one before but would be pushing it for 3 jobs worth of stuff.

Anyone with any jobs available for a hardworking 23 year old let me know 😉

Where?

Anywhere for the right job… Lived in one place my whole life until now.