Thursday, April 29th, 2010
Your CV and Cover Letter… How important are they really?
With more than 6 years of recruitment experience in the recruitment vertical, I’ve helped hundreds of job seekers at levels ranging from junior graduates right through to senior executives and CEO’s find that “ideal job”. My personal strengths include a keen eye for talent and a capacity to filter through large numbers of candidates quickly. There are however, a number of key things that job seekers can do to make themselves stand out as the more desirable candidate when compared to others searching for work in the market place. After all, in the job market securing that ideal job is a race and the greatest and most damaging mistake that any candidate can ever make is to present a non-effective or unappealing resume. If you don’t spend the energy and time getting your resume right, your competition will, and will probably secure the better job ahead of you!
When assessing your personal CV, make sure that your details are up to date and also ensure that you are aware of ALL of its content. Borrowing experience from a revered colleague and splattering it throughout your resume like a cheap “Pro-Heart” commercial isn’t going to help you if you can’t recall what it is that you did! Spelling mistakes are also an all too common mistake. Whilst Microsoft Word has helped poor spellers like myself hide our otherwise once crippling deficiency, not taking the time to run a spell check says awful lot. For example, you either don’t have a computer, OR, you don’t know how to run a spell check, OR, you place no importance on presentation. Thus, as a job hunter and professional the devil is in the detail and its that detail that will rule you out as a potential candidate quicker than you can say “interview at 6″ if such disparities become evident. Of course, seeing the ideal job or wanting to beat everyone else in the stampede to the ideal opportunity may mean that you rush getting your resume out to someone thus compromising content for speed. My advice is, when presented with an opportunity that requires your most urgent response, take a deep breath, a step back, and ask someone else to proof read it for you before hitting the “submit” button. In short, you only get one shot at a first impression and simple spelling errors will see your resume placed in the waste bin, bottom of the pile, or alternatively becoming a centrepiece of entertainment as the team seek to throw it successfully through the undersized basketball ring attached just far enough away from our desks to make a score that much more enjoyable.
Having said that, very few candidates are what I would call “ideal”, meaning that there must be some involvement from the recruitment team to be able to help them achieve a highly successful placement.
In truth, most candidates fit into the mid-range mark. Ironically, this is not such an absurd statement given the mid range mark is the result of the sum of all divided by the number of “Marks”, or “Johns” or whatever your name happens to be. As a result, any advantage that you can be provided with which will help you identify and secure that ideal job opportunity is critical to a successful outcome! The next thing that I look for when initially inspecting resumes is the overall quality of the description of your role as well as the level of detail describing current and past positions. I suggest that you include specific dates in months as opposed to years of all engagements including both present and past. Typically, a paragraph of at least a few lines about the current company that you are working for, which should include what duties your conduct, what the day to day responsibilities are, and how you aid the current employer in achieving your companies goals. Frankly, if I am forced to do research on the company that you are working for because it isn’t included in the resume, two things will happen. Firstly, and more likely, you will not make the shortlist. Secondly, and more probably, I will NOT shout you a coffee when we meet. Failing to include such basic information will of course make your application less desirable because it’s easier for me to simply move onto the next candidate as opposed to “binging” your name. Contrary to the opinion of my mother, as a principal recruitment consultant, my time is critical and the message a job applicant is sending me by not putting in the effort to present a quality resume indicates a level of enthusiasm that I feel will transpire into work ethic and enthusiasm overall. In short, the longer it takes for me to respond to my clients with the right candidates, the less likely it is that you will be given the fair amount of time that you deserve to be considered for the role you are interested in! Following your duties breakdown, I’d suggest exploring your achievements which are perhaps one of the most important components of your resume. After all, the resume of a candidate really is a sales document and it is intended to “sell” your “skills” above all others to any potential employer. As a Professional seeking to sell a brand, service or product, if you cannot articulate your achievements and “wins” in your resume, what are the chances that you will be able to do so in an interview or engagement for that matter?
Your resume should be a few pages long and heavily focused on informing the decision maker about facts which would help him/her in furthering the mission of the organisation! Content including your current and previous employment history along with anything else which may be relevant to the position you are applying for is absolutely critical to any potential interviewer and overlooking it’s relevance could be the difference between a life changing job and a disastrous interview! At all times, when “actively” looking for employment, it is essential that you sell your strengths in relation to the position that you are interested in. They say that plumbers have the worst plumbing and gardeners have the terrible gardens. Don’t make the mistake of being the professional job seeker who has the worst sales document.
Tags: candidate, desirable candidate, job, job seekers, Johns, Marketing, personal cv, recruitment, recruitment experience, resume, time
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