I was told by someone to use the third person in my CV. That seems well weird to me, I don’t like it.

What do you reckon? Preferably people in the recruitment business or those who have gone through CVs. This is for IT contracting by the way.

I’d always expect the first person unless the cv was being submitted by an agency (and they tend to just send through whatever they’re given with the contact details removed).

So – maybe have 2 versions, one in the first person for stuff you apply for direct and one int he third person for agencies?

If you want the job, first person.
If you don’t, third will be fine.

I saw a mate’s CV once and he (Dave) had put “Dave is an excellent blah blah. Dave has these qualifications. Dave has the ability to…”

Jimmy thought, that sounds shite.

Way back when, in the dim and distant past when I worked in recruitment for a bit, I remember seeing so many disasters on CVs.

One that stuck in my mind leads on to a very good piece of advice – Think carefully about the email address you use for job hunting….

I say this, as a CV once landed on my desk for a girl who, while she looked on paper pretty good for the job, had an email address that made me think again. (Job was in a business that needed high levels of decorum…)

It was littlemissgstring69@whatevertheserverwas.com….

Neither, your CV should detail your acheivements. It is a document all about you so there is no need to say ‘I did this’. Of course it was you who did it, it is your CV.

Summary
* A proven ability to deliver increased sales value through a clear focus on the business value delivered to the client
* As comfortable discussing business strategy with the CEO as IT needs with technical staff
* Able to understand and translate between technical and business requirements leading to faster, smoother and more effective client engagements.
* History of collaborative working and setting up networks of partners

BigBikeBash – Member

Neither, your CV should detail your acheivements. It is a document all about you so there is no need to say ‘I did this’. Of course it was you who did it, it is your CV.

Summary
* A proven ability to deliver increased sales value through a clear focus on the business value delivered to the client
* As comfortable discussing business strategy with the CEO as IT needs with technical staff
* Able to understand and translate between technical and business requirements leading to faster, smoother and more effective client engagements.
* History of collaborative working and setting up networks of partners

Those are attributes, not achievements.

I’ve seen worse!

My mates was cringeworthy, along the lines of “Paul is a Dynamic, target driven, agressive, fast moving person with outstanding interpersnal skills always willing to go the extra mile, always looking to push boudaries!” etc.etc.

I almost p*ssed myself reading it, he’s as thick as pigsh*t too.

I’ve got sections talking about the jobs I did. It says ‘I did this, I did that’ (but better put). That seems to be what people want to know…..?

Yep – it is the summary of my attributes. The acheivements are detailed below as they need to include more detail than a simple bulleted list. Below is an example of an ability or attribute ‘Focussed Market Penetration’ with details of what I achieved using it.

Focussed Market Penetration

Identified the German market as under performing so focussed on the top companies in the key business verticals.

Moved the market from one low end client to near market dominance within the top companies displacing the main rival from the key accounts.

Personal involvement in securing deals with the top automotive manufacturer, top chemical company, top retailer and top bank within Germany

Hmm – might be different for IT. All people want to know is what skills you have, and examples of where you’ve used them. That’s skills in concrete terms ie Java, EJB, Hibernate etc. You’ve either used the technology or you haven’t.

I’m revising the “personal statement” I put on there when I was fresh out of uni and had no job experience. I need to tell people I’m a genius when it comes to design 🙂

molgrips – I suspect it is. I am in IT but at a level where I have to translate the CEO and CFO business needs and visions so that the technical people can understand it. I then have to translate the technical objections back into business language and mediate the ensuing fight.

Slight simplification but almost a real example I came across

CEO : I can’t read my email
Tech : The sever is 99.74% available
CEO : I can’t read my email
Tech : Network availability is high
CEO : I can’t read my email
Me to CEO : Why can’t you read your emails?
CEO : I am on a Mac and there is some problem with the browser
Me to Tech : What browsers do you support
Tech : Our corporate policy states all employees will run Microsft IE7
Me to Tech : Why won’t it run on a Mac though?
Tech : Our corporate policy states all employees will run Microsft IE7
Me to Tech : Yes but please explain why that stops it running on a Mac
Tech : I have put a bit of code in to stop anything other than IE7 working
Me to Tech : Why?
Tech : Because I can
Me to Tech : Remove it
Tech : No, it is against coporate policy
Me to CEO : There appears to be an issue with coporate policy, I suggest this change
CEO : It is changed
Me to Tech : Do it now
Tech : Okay
CEO to Me : Excellent work

BigBikeBash – Member

Yep – it is the summary of my attributes. The acheivements are detailed below as they need to include more detail than a simple bulleted list. Below is an example of an ability or attribute ‘Focussed Market Penetration’ with details of what I achieved using it.

Focussed Market Penetration

Identified the German market as under performing so focussed on the top companies in the key business verticals.

Moved the market from one low end client to near market dominance within the top companies displacing the main rival from the key accounts.

Personal involvement in securing deals with the top automotive manufacturer, top chemical company, top retailer and top bank within Germany

And what have you gained by missing out the word “I” from the first two? Now they’re grammatically incorrect.

BBB – That sounds like the kind of job I’d like actually.

druidh – all he has to do is remove the full stop then they become phrases rather than sentences and don’t need proper sentence form 🙂

Think carefully about the email address you use for job hunting….

I’ve sent a lot of uni applications back to students to have their email address changed. HorseShagger@ for someone applying for vetinary science, lusty34DD@ for a primary teacher…

Focussed Market Penetration

Identified the German market as under performing so focussed on the top companies in the key business verticals.

Moved the market from one low end client to near market dominance within the top companies displacing the main rival from the key accounts.

Personal involvement in securing deals with the top automotive manufacturer, top chemical company, top retailer and top bank within Germany

That possibly makes sense if you’re in sales, or only applying for jobs where MBA jargon will be easy for people to understand. The third para is clear what it means, but the first two? The ‘key business verticals’, what the heck is that? The second paragraph – ‘moved the market’, that’s more MBAese, how about ‘Grew our market share from one small client to gain market dominance within the top companies, displacing our main rival from these key accounts’. In English, but should also make sense to MBAs. The benefit of using English is that your CV often has to go through people who don’t understand marketing / business jargon (or programming jargon in my case), so it means you have more chance of getting past the first round of filtering.

Personally, I just write plain clear English, and it does have I in it. Third person CVs are weird, and just look like you got someone else to write them. If there is anywhere where I is appropriate, it’s on your CV for sure.

Joe

I is appropriate

Mate, it’s “I am” not “I is”. Grammar like that won’t get you a job anywhere.

Kids today, eh 🙄

BBB – That sounds like the kind of job I’d like actually.

Me too actually. What’s your job title? How did you get there (did you start in the techier side of things?)

Joe – I agree about the jargon but it is the language normally used. Sometimes you need to sacrifice what you believe is good practice to acheive the end you want.

BTW if anyone is interested in a pre-sales technical It consultant, just let me know. I can send you my CV in Market Speak or English, just let me know which you prefer.

My dad received a CV which in the other qualities section had “I have steely blue eyes and own a porsche”. Another had stapled to it a copy of every doctors note for the last 5 years.

A hotelier friend once received a job application written on the back of a sealed envelope, complete with coffee mug stains.

Something along the lines of
‘Do you have a vacancy for a night porter? I have my own uniform. I look like a spanish Pierce Brosnan. A gypsy once told me I would win the lottery, do you have a syndicate?’

Quality. He was employed, naturally.

As an IT consultant my company sends out a company CV for me which is in the 3rd person. I just copy this for sending to agencies if looking for work myself – I’d hope that they’d get me to change it if it was a bad thing.

ourkidsam – I am a Pre-Sales consultant. Started techy (programmer) and evolved as my eloquant and persuasive manner came to the fore. I wouldn’t bother trying it right at the moment as there are no damn jobs!

I’m programming at the moment – and in a good position so I’m not looking to move yet. Useful to know for the future though, cheers!

Student -> Programmer -> Analyst -> Team Leader -> Development Manager -> BI Consultant -> Pre-Sales Consultant -> homeless tramp

I’m getting loads of calls from agents, but no interviews. I’m thinking that people are waiting to get projects signed off in the new financial year, so hopefully next week I’ll get interviews…

molgrips – same boat. IBM, Compuware and similar are all promising a headcount number released next week

“Focused” only has one “s” in it.

Does the first or third person make any difference if the CV is well written and your achievements and responsibilities are properly summarised?

IBM bought ILOG, the company that makes the software I’m an expert in. ILOG want to employ me but have red tape issues what with the takeover and all. So I’m glad it’s not just me.

veedubba- depends whether you’re speaking English or American.
BBB- is Qliktech looking at the moment? The BI people near Leamington?

Qliktech have my CV. I did an assessment of their Qlikview software a few years ago. They have quite nice offices from what I remember.

veedubba – which ever way you write focused/focussed someone will object. I think either spelling is acceptable in formal English with focussed used to signify that you took selected a group and then concentrated your attention on them whereas focused implies simply looked at with more clarity. A subtle and informal distinction that can be argued sucessfully either way.

I’ve never seen “focussed” used before.

A quick search shows that both have the same meaning regardless of which side of the Atlantic you’re sitting.

Pendantry on my part as I’m rather bored.

Same absolute meaning, just a slightly different inference in my opinion.

It should be 1st person.

Don’t expect many people to read your CV.

Make sure the key words you need to promote are repeated as many times as possible. This is how agents’ word search software picks up how relevant you are to the position they have on offer.

If you want a job, network with people. Forget posting a CV online or applying online – it’s largely a waste of time.

WCA – are you on LinkedIn? I use it a lot for sales prospecting, but others use it for networking / finding work. I’ll invite you if not.

Forget posting a CV online or applying online – it’s largely a waste of time

Applying online is how it works in IT.

Moses – Check me out : http://www.linkedin.com/in/nickclarksouthampton

Do you want to be my friend?