CVs - am I being fussy?!

[Ponzischeme]

Recruiting at the moment and we just have a sea of terrible CVs

Example:

Name: Sarah Jones
DOB: 15/6/1980 (don't need to know that)
Gender: Female (don't need to know that)

• Convoluted work history including saturday job at M&S in 1996
• List of all awards and achievements ever up to an including ballet certificate

I don't feel like I am that fussy when it comes to CVs - I just want an overview of the person's relevant employment history, skills and qualifications.

Am I wrong? Am I, in fact, expecting too much?

Apologies AutumnRose1. I took it the wrong way

The advice on here is very conflicting

No need for dob on a CV. You don't need to put dates on your education either and you only need to list the last 10 - 15 years of roles you've undertaken.

No need for address just name, general location, mobile number and link to your LinkedIn profile.

I don’t understand how on one hand you shouldn’t give your dob but on the other you are asked to give qualifications and date received (as was the case on a recent public sector application I completed recently). Because while you might have gone to university later, if you have to write ‘O’ levels then your minimum age is pretty apparent. Also if you took GCSEs at a point when A was the highest grade, the date might be a useful fact. And in years to come writing A / A* / 9 will also date you. Assuming GCSEs are relevant, perhaps they’re not if you have a degree or professional qualifications?

The worst thing I’ve seen, from people applying to be a headteacher, was exclamation marks. I counted 40 scattered throughout one applicant’s personal statement. Binned.

Be thankful you don't have to look through academic CVs, which are a completely different beast from normal ones. By mid career, they are literally dozens of pages long. When you have 100+ applicants for a job, it is no joke.

I used to work in higher education so I know all too well what that is like!!

Quite an enlightening thread. I was relatively senior in my career but have been a sahp for the last few years. Tentatively putting my feet back in the work water (and very aware I'm unlikely to waltz back in at the level I was). Lots of mention of don't leave gaps but don't put home life on CV. Just curious as to what people therefore suggest people in my position would put. I did voluntary stuff at the kids school in between but that's not necessarily directly linked to my job. (Aside from proving organisational skills/communication). How would I stand a chance of getting my cv shortlisted amongst those currently in work and able to put such in their cv?

One of my favourite applicants ever, in his cover letter, when explaining why he was applying, stated that the role was close enough for him to cycle to work.
Yes, well, marvellous, I'm so glad we can help you with your fitness / environmental goals.

Google doesn't really help.
The first few sites that come up have All said to put your home address.
So it isn't clear which sites have guidance that can be followed and which can't.
It's a minefield.

Very glad that every job I apply for has an application form

Cvs are a minefield, every recruiter has different requirements, it seems.

What's a good font to use?

What's a good font to use?

Arial. Assuming you're not a graphic designer needing to show your skills, no one has ever gone wrong with arial.

I would have thought a plain sans serif one. I tend to use arial as it is easy to read.

I am happy to be corrected.

Cool, Ariel is already my font of choice in all correspondence. Thanks!

I had one recently "UOL" (university of life" and I was like WTF?!!

in years to come writing A / A* / 9 will also date you

Especially if you are the one cross-over year that had a mix of numbers and letters.

Mind you, I have O levels... and an A* A-level. That'll muddle them nicely.

John Lees ^Why You? CV Messages to Win Jobs" is quite a useful book, because it looks at different ways of formatting CVS according to your situation, be it just out of school, returning after a career break, going for a promotion and so on. It's about a decade old, but I think the basic advice will still stand, and certainly it gives you different ways to think about formatting a CV, as its basic premise is there's no such thing as the perfect CV, because there's always a different way to do it.

Lots of mention of don't leave gaps but don't put home life on CV. Just curious as to what people therefore suggest people in my position would put.

I don't know who said don't put home life - I definitely don't think you should leave career gaps unexplained. I see plenty of CVs with "career break to raise children" - I think that's perfectly fine and it doesn't put me off a candidate at all.

Thanks Ebear

Every job I’ve had in the last ten years requires a long, convoluted application form rather than a CV which takes about three hours to fill in and has you basically repeating over and over again the information that would be on your CV anyway.

For those saying DOBs are relevant - why? Apart from maybe if they’re over 18/21 for some roles, why would employers need to see someone’s DOB?

I get the other gripes though about there being so much conflicting advice - i’m currently redoing mine and am valiantly trying to reformat it in the ‘skills based’ CV that seems to be popular nowadays, but it seems massively convoluted! Might just go back to the old faithful of listing out relevant jobs in order but expand on the job spec in more of a skills based fashion!

The comment about the new format GCSE grades made me chuckle though - we got our first CV through recently with a Grade 7 and I had to google to see if that was good or not!

I would also recommend setting up a LinkedIn profile, even if it’s basic and just has your CV repeated on there - or is it just me who likes to google the candidates?

"Apart from maybe if they’re over 18/21 for some roles, why would employers need to see someone’s DOB? "

I was advised to include it because there's a risk of them thinking you are older. yes, it's ageism.

As an ex-recruiter, we doctored all the CVS to make them sound better and formatted them etc

And I wouldn’t want to include my dob because I suspect I am looking a bit too old these days. But they can operate age discrimination by looking at my qualifications so it doesn’t work as a way to make your cv blind on one of these 9 criteria that have been mentioned.

Hello do you mean GCSEs?

I stopped including those ages ago. Others are saying don't put a date on any qualification.

Everyone googles candidates, it's what the interweb is for Can't beat a Facebook stalk to see what the person coming for interview is like.
It is a minefield, and what is the norm for one industry clearly isn't for another. I teach CV writing to 18-19 year olds at various times of the year, and the skills/competencies are definitely as relevant as the GCSE in woodwork. They are often invented, or waffled through though.

I think that hobbies are also quite an outdated element of CVs. If I only have 2 pages to convince someone that I'm right for the job, I'm not wasting it with details of my knitting circle!

I've seen some awful CVs, including one where the man in the picture was clearly topless (a creative role so may explain, but not excuse, that) and another where the hobby listed was 'playing with my little sister'... for a mid-level position.