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Thread: Mind sharing your CV Ideas?

  1. #1
    Goron goron Kumagoro's Avatar
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    Mind sharing your CV Ideas?

    I am starting to look for a new job and like many I am getting stuck at the first hurdle i.e. the dreaded
    CV and cover letter. I have a had a bit of a look via google but all I seem to find is general tips and I
    tend to learn more from real examples. So if anyone is feeling generous could you PM me and then
    email me a version of your CV.

    Mainly I am after ideas on layout, structure and wording, especially wording of job descriptions and
    how to structure skills. I am at a loss on how to list skills you are very knowledgeable about and
    others which you know a bit about. For example I know a lot about Win XP etc but only a bit about
    Linux, Vista and OSX. Also I am having trouble thinking of software applications to list which arnt job
    specific, all I can think of is Office stuff.

    Just posts on here about how you went about structuring your skills would be very helpful, it would
    be interesting to see some CVs to see how good they can be.

    Cheers

  2. #2
    Squirrely tigerboyce's Avatar
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    Re: Mind sharing your CV Ideas?

    I would just keep it as professional looking as possible. Even in careers that are art based, They want to see just a simple Plain, But ultimately professional and neat looking CV

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    finding nemo staffsMike's Avatar
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    Re: Mind sharing your CV Ideas?

    I was always told to keep it simple clear and concise. One page, with just the facts, don't dress it up too much..well not at all just the facts.

    Then the covering letter should be used to address just a few simple points.

    1.Who you are and where you saw the job (if it's speculative then say your enquiring about future employment etc..)

    2. Why you are suited to working with the company.

    3. Why the company are suited to you.

    And always find someone specific to address it too preferably the person who will be interviewing you, call to find out if its not obvious from the advertisment.

    All you want the cv and covering letter to do is get there attention, and make you seem like a good candidate for the job...not bore them with your life story.
    The interview is about them getting to know you more personally so try to keep the cv focused on the business side.

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    Senior Member Mithrandir's Avatar
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    Re: Mind sharing your CV Ideas?

    THIS might help
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    Poseidon Magma: MSI P45 Zilent ¦ E6300@3.0ghz - Coolermaster Hyper 212 (MX-2) ¦ Corsair 2x2gb (880mhz @ 5-5-5-15) ¦ Corsair HX450w ¦
    xfx 9600gt Alphadog edition (780/1950/1000) ¦ X-fi Gamer ¦ Gigabyte Poseiden ¦

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    Goron goron Kumagoro's Avatar
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    Re: Mind sharing your CV Ideas?

    The CV I have made is two pages first personal details, education and past jobs. The second skills and training. It is pretty much complete and I would say reasonably good but there are always
    ways of improving things and I need some outside inspiration now.

    I have had a brief look at the learn direct link and there are some other links with examples which
    may be of use. As always though they have a style I find a bit pretentious, tacky and rather dated.

    I would like to see some real CV's

    I appreciate the replies.

  6. #6
    HEXUS.timelord. Zak33's Avatar
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    Re: Mind sharing your CV Ideas?

    I got a CV from Iain here on HEXUS. It was clear concise and I liked it so I used it.

    After I got my job....my new boss told me it was the worst CV he'd ever read, for someone with such a brain and such a vast wealth of experience.

    Why did he see me at all?

    Cos of the humour on it?

    What humour?

    Achievements: I learned to ski.....fast
    And no one knew what kind of fast I meant...and wanted to know!!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by Advice Trinity by Knoxville
    "The second you aren't paying attention to the tool you're using, it will take your fingers from you. It does not know sympathy." |
    "If you don't gaffer it, it will gaffer you" | "Belt and braces"

  7. #7
    HEXUS.timelord. Zak33's Avatar
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    Re: Mind sharing your CV Ideas?

    I'd bette rexplain that.

    A CV should reflect a part of your personality....just a glint of it. And for me....humour was essential.

    Quote Originally Posted by Advice Trinity by Knoxville
    "The second you aren't paying attention to the tool you're using, it will take your fingers from you. It does not know sympathy." |
    "If you don't gaffer it, it will gaffer you" | "Belt and braces"

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    finding nemo staffsMike's Avatar
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    Re: Mind sharing your CV Ideas?

    I tend to use the covering letter to hint at my personality but there's so many ways.

    The person who told me to keep it short and sweet see's thousands of the things and apparantly gets bored after the first page..but if you were to make it a liitle funny I guess that would be good way of not boring them lol

  9. #9
    SiM
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    Re: Mind sharing your CV Ideas?

    What industry are you applying to and how many years have you been working?
    If you have just graduated from uni then you should try to keep your CV to 1 page.

    Make sure the formatting is 100% perfect - don't use space bars to space out bullets and columns (you will be surprised how many CVs I have seen that do that), it doesn't give a good impression if you send it to them in electronic forum. Don't use too many different font sizes - again see this all the time, its not professional.

    Sorry if this sounds very basic but its what I see commonly wrong with my fellow student CVs

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    Re: Mind sharing your CV Ideas?

    If you have enough skills and training to fill the second page then maybe you should consider putting them first and relegate education and past jobs to after skills. It also sounds like its too long - as others have said, if you are not very specialist them the recruiter will have loads of CVs to sort through, and will only spend 10 to 30 seconds on each! You need your key selling points to stand out in that short time.

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    Goron goron Kumagoro's Avatar
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    Re: Mind sharing your CV Ideas?

    I left uni several years ago and a had few jobs since so keeping it to one page would make it over
    simplistic or messy. Like I say its more to do with how to word things and layout my skills which I
    think could be improved. The jobs I will be applying to will be either electronics or I.T related.

    I am currently making an I.T related one and have concentrated on those kind of skills. I have
    seperated my skills in to hardware (very strong), software programming (pretty weak but I am
    interested in moving into that area) and software apps (obviously dependent on the prog)

    Without seeing some technical type CVs its hard to see if there is a better way of doing it.

  12. #12
    Goron goron Kumagoro's Avatar
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    Re: Mind sharing your CV Ideas?

    I see your point wither I may have a go at re-ordering it and see how it looks.

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    Re: Mind sharing your CV Ideas?

    Quote Originally Posted by Zak33 View Post
    I'd bette rexplain that.

    A CV should reflect a part of your personality....just a glint of it. And for me....humour was essential.
    I agree.

    A CV has one and only one task - to get you to the interview.

    So while the basic facts need to be there, and it needs to be clear and concise, a good CV (IMHO) needs something that says something about the person and personality. One important section is the hobbies/interests bit. You need enough to make it clear you have a personality, and something interesting in there can do it. It CERTAINLY has for me in the past. But don't overdo it .... and I'd advise and making it up, because you just might come up with someone with the same interest or hobby as you claim to have. Again, it happened to me. Fortunately, I wasn't gilding anything, and it resulted in an hour's discussion of the mutual interest, a ten-minute actual interview and a job offer.

  14. #14
    Don't feed the trolls... tiggerai's Avatar
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    Re: Mind sharing your CV Ideas?

    Quote Originally Posted by SiM View Post
    What industry are you applying to and how many years have you been working?
    If you have just graduated from uni then you should try to keep your CV to 1 page.
    I don't see why... My CV was already 2 pages and pushing it before I left for uni. It all depends on what relevant content you have to put on there. If you're "Just" a student, then you need to make sure that all the skills that you have already gained through life are on that CV to make you stand out from the crowd.

    Yes ok, stacking shelves isn't the most glamourous of jobs, but it still shows responsibility and initiative, working in a team etc. There are always things to be learnt from a job and an experience so you need to show that in a CV to give them an idea of what you're like and what you can achieve

    If I were ever recruiting, the boring CV's with just education and experience on them would be rejected straight away. I'd want to know (like Zakky' CV, which I'd love to have a gander at!) what the person was like.

    Quote Originally Posted by wither2000 View Post
    If you have enough skills and training to fill the second page then maybe you should consider putting them first and relegate education and past jobs to after skills. It also sounds like its too long - as others have said, if you are not very specialist them the recruiter will have loads of CVs to sort through, and will only spend 10 to 30 seconds on each! You need your key selling points to stand out in that short time.
    This is a very good point. My education and experience has ALWAYS been on the second page, Key Skills and Key Achievements are on the first page, along with a basic profile (I'm a graduate from uni, looking for a technical job with prospects to become a CIT or CENG)

    It is always IMPERATIVE as an IT worker though that you show that you are able to socialise, get on with people and generally not sit in a dark corner with your headphones on. (although, i do know we all like to do this sometimes, but Code Monkeys with no social skills are just creepy) put in there that you have other interests other than computers and programming... I do league Ten pin bowling on a tuesday night, and arrange meets around the country for all you lovely hexites!

    My Job at LloydsTSB (Group IT, Web Systems) for my Industrial year was given to me on the fact that I did have other (life) experience, mainly that I was a Cheerleader at the time! (this is light hearted, I did a lot of proper work for them while I was there, some of which is still in use on the retail website)

    I've said this before, anyone who wants to have a look at mine is welcome to get some ideas. PM me!
    Last edited by tiggerai; 29-09-2007 at 08:35 AM.

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