those new-fangled box things on cvs giving a summary of who you are etc...

[hatwoman]

what's your opinion of them? are they the norm these days? how long should they be? and should they be soft skills (which I HATE. describing yourself as professionally "self-motivated" is nearly as bad as describing yourself as socially "bubbly" imvho) or should they be key hard-fact points? or a mixture?

Personally I hate the articifial third-person nature of them but I'm open to persuastion.

[Wigeon]

Hate hate hate them. Use a covering letter to describe who you are and why you want the job.

[hatwoman]

the guardian seems to like them. I was just wondering if I was old fashioned in not being convinced...

[flowerybeanbag]

They are the norm, should be two or three sentences at most giving an overview of what you are looking for and where you are in your career, stuff like that. Gives you an opportunity to highlight things that don't necessarily come out in a dry cv listing your experience, and tailor the cv more to each job that you might otherwise be able to do.

[hatwoman]

the expert speaks...

fb if I come back later with a sort of mock version of mine might you possibly be around to pass judgment? [cheeky emoticon]

[flowerybeanbag]

Might not be around later but will be in the morning if not.

Email it to me if you prefer, address on profile

[Wigeon]

I still hate them. Don't see why you can't put all that stuff in the covering letter, and then you wouldn't potentially piss off people like me.

But you're not applying for a job with me...

[flowerybeanbag]

Trouble is when cvs get passed round to different people/photocopied, covering letters don't always stay with them, and if there's nothing more personal on the cv itself that stuff gets lost.

They are a bit cringeworthy I agree, but it is usual to have something and as long as it's not written too horrendously, hopefully it shouldn't irritate too many people!

[TattyCatty]

Not a fan at all. Have worked in recruitment for the last 11 years, and I'd much rather see what you have done / achieved in your previous roles rather than some cliched statements that people think that employers want to hear. Am very much of the opinion that a CV could have been written by anybody, not necessarily the applicant themselves. Personally, I just need to see evidence of previous experience and where skills are used, and then the interview / assesment process (when done well!) is a far better way of finding out about what you are looking for, and how you might fit into either my or my customer's organisation.

[gallery]

Hatwoman, I have had recruitment people review my cv (a pal) and she advised to move away from the personal self motivated statements and provide evidence based statements instead. (Like tattycatty says).
So for instance, I put on things like
Achieved x position out of y class at degress
Increased performance by 40% in one year
She has used my cv as an example to others to give an idea of what to put (sounds smug but she advised me on how to make it good so it is not meant to be smug)

I have sanitised my cv to remove some personal info and sent previously to someone on mumnet. If you want to contact me, I can try and send it to you (but my email is giving me hard time at the moment)
Because I have such a varied career, changing industry several times, my cv is competency based style and not what i did in each job (so there is a section on management, communications etc and evidence underneath)
Also, I don't put anything personal at all. I fell foul many years ago of having put self defence classes on and being told by a company they had a policy not to employ martial arts people.....Honestly, it was a 10 week self defence course, not a black belt in karate

[hatwoman]

thanks gallery. I don't put personal stuff on. when you talk about those evidence-based examples - do you still mean that you put some of these (the best ones) in a box at the top of you cv? or did you mean you put that under each heading (in your case skills/competence headings?)

the body of my cv is quite traditional - employment, education, publications.

I've experimented with a sort of "highlights" box at the top, which at the moment is tailored to a particular job. it's 6 short bullet points, that summarise my experience. eg "a floor cleaner with x years experience in the carpet sector"
"detailed knowledge of the carpet framewrk with partcular expertise in deep pile, wool, and rugs"

none of it says that I'm a good team player or any of that shite
whilst I think the idea is ok I think I could make them a bit more evidence-based.(is not just lay claim to the expertise in deep pile but point out why...) but other than that what does anyone thing of the idea of using the box this way?

[gallery]

Hi Hatwoman, sorry not been on line mnet few days, my home email up and runing so if you want me to send my cv (sanitised a bit), contact me, via mnet
My evidence in the box, I tried not to repeat in the body of the cv. So for instance, I received a merit award for something- so that went in the top box, not in the main cv. Also, rather than a one line saying I was Chair of something, I used that in the evidence whilst chair of X committee (professional society not work ) did Y and increased ABC during my tenure.
I might be wrong, I thought I saw you posting on the sport forum. It may not be you, but an example of a committed motivated person would be completion of a marathon achieveing a target time. you don't have to say ,committed motivated' the fact that a marathon was achieved is significant and says is all. Hope this helps

[hatwoman]

hi gallery - thanks for getting back. I did a box in the end - it was essentially a summary - hatwoman at a glance type thing. and I put some evidence stuff under a couple of my jobs taht I was quite pleased with actually. so instead of the bullet points under a particular job just being the job description it was a reduced jd plus 3 quite cool things I did.

yes you did see me on a running thread. and yes, I did the marathon in April - but really no space for extra curricular stuff - my jobs have all been relevant and show a kind of logical progression - which is good but makes space tight. perhaps the marathon is a good one to pull out at interview.

the whole thing is completely speculative anyway - it's a f-t job in London...and I want to work 4 days a week mostly from home (cheeky emoticon). I couldn't be bothered to play any games so was completely upfront and put this in the covering letter. I don't want them to waste their time, or me mine. (and they could be a source of consultancy work, which is what I currently do).

[gallery]

okeydoke, will look out for updates and keep track on running thread. Got my gear in work today so hopefully off home on foot tonight for the first time in weeks