8 important details for your CV

January is a peak time for workers to consider
seeking out a new job, with back-to-work blues
driving many of us to start polishing up our CVs.
But is your resumé letting you down? According to
research carried out by recruitment firm Michael
Page, there's often a pronounced divide between
what jobseekers think is important in a CV, and what
employers are looking for.
A survey of 2,000 members of the public and 480
recruiters, conducted by Mortar London for Michael
Page, has compared what each group thinks is vital.
According to the research findings, jobseekers tend
to underestimate how important it is to list on your
CV every role you've had within a company. "It gives a
clearer indication of how your career progressed
within that organisation," Michael Page says.
[READ: The best employers to work for in the UK]
Many people fail to give enough emphasis on
detailing their achievements: "To stand out from
other candidates, it's important to be clear on how
you contributed and where you added value while in
previous roles."
Another common mistake is failing to adopt a
professional tone: "You're being hired as a
professional, you should show you can present
yourself as one."
For a comprehensive view of the survey's findings,
Michael Page has put together the following
infographic:
Eight bad habits to avoid in your CV
Rebecca Burn-Callander recently collected some
insider tips from recruiters on question-and-answer
site Quora to stop your resume failing the “first
glance” test.
1. The wild goose chase
Employers want to see your current role at the top of
your CV to work out what skills you’ve been using
most recently.
Many candidates attempt to order their CVs so that
the role that is most relevant to the job they are
applying for appears on top but this is confusing and
annoying, according to Quora posters .
“I'm generally trying to figure out what this person's
current status is and why they might even be
interested in a new role,” says one. “Is there a career
progression? Do they have increasing levels of
responsibility?”
If you are currently working in a field that is
unrelated to the profession you want to pursue, don’t
try to hide it. Explain why you made the move and
what skills you are leaning in your current job that
could be useful in your new position.
Lee McQueen, a former Apprentice winner, famously
lied on his CV, claiming he studied for two years at a
university, when in fact, he was only there for four
months.
If there are gaps in your CV, don’t try to cover them
up either.
“I don't mind gaps so long as there's a sufficient
explanation,” says a recruiter. “Oh, you took three
years off to raise your children? Fine by me, and
might I add, I bow down. You tried your hand at
starting your own company and failed miserably?
Very impressive! Gap sufficiently explained.
“Whatever it is, just say it. It's the absence of an
explanation that makes me wonder.”
2. “I like books, films and spending time with friends
and family”
So does almost every other human being in the
western world. If you’re going to talk about your
personal life, at least make it interesting, beg Quora
recruiters.
“List key personal projects,” says one. “I ask this in
almost every phone interview I do: "What kind of
stuff are you working on in your free time?"
"It shows me that you have passion for your field
beyond your 9-5.”
Other advice includes: “We recruiters are staring at
these missives all day long. Talk about how much you
love Nutella. If you're a rock star, throw some cheeky
self-deprecation in there if you can do so elegantly. I
think it's important to keep the work experience
details as professional as possible, but trust me;
there are ways to have fun with it. I love an ‘Easter
egg’ buried in a resume.”
However, avoid too many personal details. You could
leave a recruiter feeling like they could be leaving
themselves open to a discrimination case.
“I learn to tune out certain things like marital status,
whether or not a person has children, or references
to health or medical issues,” says one. “But it
seriously makes me uncomfortable when people
include photos with their resumes. If I want to see
what you look like, I'll stalk you on LinkedIn.”
3. No link to your Twitter?
Do you have your own website, blog, Twitter account,
or meaty list of glowing testimonials on LinkedIn?
Include a link on your CV so that recruiters can do a
little digging.
“I almost always click through to a candidate's
website or Twitter account. It's one of my favourite
parts of recruiting,” says a Quora poster.
And when was the last time you Googled yourself?
One recruiter says, “Typically the first impression an
employer is going to get of you is from a Google
search. Make sure you have an excellent online
presence.”
4. Failure to namedrop
If you have only worked for obscure-sounding
companies, brand snobs may dismiss you out of
hand.
Try to give recruiters a frame of reference. Instead of
just putting down the name of the company, give a
little detail that adds credibility. “X, which built the
iPhone app for [insert well-known brand here]”, for
example. Or “y, the biggest supplier of z to [insert
brand]”.
5. A lack of keywords
Human beings are all scanners now: instead of
painstakingly reading text, they scan the page looking
to relevant or familiar words.
Make sure that your CV is loaded with keywords that
show your skills.
“I Command + F the cr*p out of resumes,” says one
Quora poster. “On any given day I'm searching for
things like Ruby on Rails, Mule, Business Intelligence,
MBA, Consulting, POS, Cisco, JavaScript, and
seriously, anything you can think of.”
Keywords aren't just useful for lazy readers, they are
essential for many of the automatic CV parsing
software tools that leading recruiters and big
companies tend to use.
“Make sure your job titles match their job titles,”
recommends a recruiter. “Even if they don't have
your exact job title for a previous job, try to get as
close linguistically as you can to help those resume
parsers.”
6. Using MS Word templates? Stop it
This familiar CV format is a huge turn off for
recruiters, who end up seeing the same layouts again
and again.
While most warn against using too much fancy
formatting, or loading a resume with colour, being
creative about how your experience and skills are
presented can win you a lot of points.
Some good typography can go a long way, they
advise. But nothing can make up for poor spelling
and grammar, or a poorly ordered CV. So focus on
those key aspects first before adding bells and
whistles.
Whatever you do, make sure that your CV reads
clearly when all the formatting is stripped out, warn
Quora recruiters.
“It's important to keep in mind that if you're applying
to a position online, whether it's a PDF or not, most
companies' applicant tracking systems parse your
resume for information and convert it to pure text as
the most immediate viewing format,” says one.
“The original file is usually there for us, but most
recruiters aren't clicking through to that. If you're
going to do something fun with your resume, I
recommend having a clean text resume as well
whenever possible so it doesn't come through our
system looking wonky.”
Philippe Dubost built his online CV as an Amazon
page complete with product dimensions, five star
ratings and the byline: “Only one left in stock order
soon”. His “CV”, created in January last year, had
1.3m unique visitors and more than 100 job offers
within two months
7. No cover letter or a bad one
Recruiters on Quora unanimously agree: if you’re not
going to make your cover letter interesting, packed
with extra detail, and tailored entirely to the company
you’re applying to, then it’s not worth having one at
all.
“Reading a paragraph about why you want to work
here versus why you just want to work anywhere
could very well be the difference between being
passed over and being called for an interview,” says a
recruiter.
“But anything generic that appears re-used across
many job applications or focuses only on your
background (which I could just glean from your
resume) is useless and detracts from any genuine or
specific interest you might actually have in the
specific company.”
8. Mixing your personal pronouns
Never talk in the first person on a CV, Quora
recruiters advise. But if you must, at least make sure
you’re not mixing your first and third person
pronouns.
“Pick a voice, pick a tense, and then stick with it,” says
one poster. “I suggest third person and past tense.”
Using the first person is, generally, reserved for
talking about personal experience, so should be
avoided in a professional resume although this is fine
for the cover letter, of course.