[Closed] Anyone here secured a new job recently? CV help needed

Max pages depends on how long you've been working for and how many different jobs you've had, but really two pages should be enough for anyone, three absolute tops. There are exceptions where careers involve publishing lots of research, in which case more pages will be needed.

No need for a photo, no need for your date of birth - they can't legally ask you how old you are as part of the recruitment process. Likewise you don't technically need to put down dates of employment and they can't technically ask you, but that would be a harder one to explain to an ill informed line recruiter (i.e. not HR).

You need one CV for EACH JOB you apply for, even if it's only slightly different. Customise it according to the job spec so that it highlights your skills and capabilities accordingly. Sophisticated recruiters now care nothing for experience, they care about capabilities. Experience was always used as a poor proxy for capabilities in the past and age legislation now means that you can't simply rely on the fact that you've done the job for ten years therefore you must be good at it. I know it seems counter intuitive, but there are plenty of examples that prove this is the case.

Spend some time really getting to grips with what your skills and capabilities really are. Think laterally about the work you've done and the skills you've developed as a result and then highlights these.

Your career highlights should focus very specifically and concisely on what it is that you did and what you achieved. Be as specific as you can e.g. 'Lead a team of peers to win a £1m contract with a new client'; 'Reorganised the machine shop to achieve 20% improvement of productivity and 15% reduction in error rate'.

References are available on request, but if you have really solid ones put them in. They are pretty much worthless from a previous employer anyway as no one will want to say anything bad about you for fear of liable (or is it slander?), whichever one is spoken.

Type faces/fonts etc are really up to you. I prefer a Serif font like Times, Garamond. All newspapers, books, magazines etc are printed using a serif font (serifs are the little tails and trailers on letters like 'T') as these are easier for the eye to read. A slightly smaller font size with slightly wider line and paragraph spacing will look better than a big type face packed too close together.

No one cares that you like riding mountain bikes and reading books so if you're trying to cut your CV down, this is the place to do it. Likewise, no one care that you got a C in GCSE English. All you need to say is 10 GCSEs all above C including Maths and English; 3 A-Levels in.... etc.

I used to work in an outplacement company, which specialised in helping people through redundancy so hopefully this should be sound advice.

geetee, many thanks - really helpful!

[i]Sophisticated recruiters now care nothing for experience[/i]

If it's an IT or technical job - I think communicating your experience counts for a lot.
Communicating your capability can often look like BS.

It can, which is why you have to back it up with concrete examples of things you did. A CV is only there to get you an interview anyway, and a sophisticated recruiter will know how to corroborate your story via interview techniques, i.e. using behavioural event methods, which is a grand way of saying 'tell me about a time when you had to.... what did you do....what were the results?'

Experience is not an end in itself, it was always just used as a proxy to infer capability but we can now measure that capability pretty well, even what we call behavioural capabilities as opposed to technical capabilities such as IT skills, which can sound flakey but they can be measured. For instance, you can measure someone's ability to foster collaboration within a team, or communicate effectively, build consensus, develope strategy etc. It's quite labour intensive and you need people who are trained in industrial/organisational psychology (which all you IT types will probably think is BS :wink:) but it's actually driven by statistics and careful measurement methodologies.

Anyway, all this is way off the topic of what a CV should be like!

Spend some time really getting to grips with what your skills and capabilities really are. Think laterally about the work you've done and the skills you've developed as a result and then highlights these.

This is very important as I've had 5 interviews so far and it took the first 3 to realise that I needed to prepare properly for the "Capability" part of the interview. 😕

martyntr, can you give a hyperthetical example?

❗

SP Hypothetical - sorry.

tyger - most of the questions I get asked being a retail manager (well a redundant one at least) are related to my sector.

Examples would be....

- How do you delegate to your team?
- How do you communicate performance & expectations (targets etc) to your team?
- What do you do to motivate your team?
- How do you motivate yourself?
- What procedures do you have in place for staff training?
- How have you improved staff training?
- How do you ensure that your store is commercial?
- What would your aim be for the first 6 months?
- How do you plan & organise your day?
- How do you ensure that high levels of customer service are given at all times?
- How do you train your team to give good customer service?
- How do you manage deliveries?
- How would you describe your management style?
- Are there any areas that you feel "company X" are failing on as a company and how would improve these?
- How do you ensure your customers keep coming back?
- Who are "Company X’s competitors?
- How would you manage external and internal stock loss?

Well, these are the ones I've prepared with examples that I can relate them to from my previous roles..

Thank you - all open questions too!

And while I have a number of 2 page CV's (depending on the role etc) its very difficult to actually get +25 years experience (esp when its specific technical/application) down on so few pages.

Mostly agencies/clients came back with 'we need x experience'.

I can though recommend a CV professional writer, I did this a couple of years ago.

I just lost a job and am job hunting too. I used outplacement consultancy assistance provided by my ex employer, it is very useful as I haven't had a CV, applied for a job, or had an interview for 20+ years.

geetee1972's advice pretty much agrees with what I was given. 2 pages max, lots of white space, clearly laid out & easy to read. Don't worry about fitting everything in, its just to get them interested enough to interview you.

Your hobbies etc 2 lines max unless its relevant, and concentrate on what you contribute (club positions, organising, volunteering etc).

When you get the interview, know your CV inside out & have stories for all the points in it.

Mine summarised 30+ years in 2 sides and got me the interview I wanted, which has got me a second interview...

Good luck! (unless you're going for the same job as me...:-))

no colours, no photo, no hobbies, put 'references on request'

keep it simple, work epxerience first, then education, put a 'personal profile' at the very top.

This is what the Jobcetre advises
http://www.jobcentreguide.co.uk/cv-resume-advice/19/cv-resume-advice

But it does depend on what your experience is and what the specific job is that you are applying for; a general one size fits all CV is not always best.
There are plenty of useful books about, that you can get at your local library.
Tom Jackson, The Perfect CV etc.
If you Email a CV to an employer (or agency) then it might not be read by a human; it might be checked by a computer program for the right buzz-words (keywords), and only then read by some-one if it does have the right buzz-words.
Looking on www.jobsite.co.uk will give you some idea of the latest phrases and buzz-words etc for each job type.
If using jobsite leave the location box blank and just use the keyword box.