Terrible CVs

[PymChurchBeach]

Disclaimer: I know times are hard and shitty right now and a lot of people are desperate for work so probably chucking out CVs left right and centre at anything and everything.

BUT. I have worked in HR for nearly a decade now and it has always been the same. The general standard of CVs is bloody awful. I'm recruiting for a mid level role at the moment and I have seen the following:

• people using little hearts and stars instead of bullet points
• massive glamour model style photographs taking up the whole first page of a CV
• people's dates of birth and marital statuses written up at the top. Just no!!!
• wacky, colourful borders and fonts. Comic sans. Enough said.

Also - this last one is possibly controversial but when women have had a break to look after DC, there really is no need to list all the skills gained as a SAHM - e.g. "excellent time management skills etc". You can just say you had time out to raise children. That's all you need to say. I'm not going to think any the worse of you for it.

I am desperate to implement application forms rather than have CVs and cover letters but my CEO is old fashioned and will not have it.

Oh yes! i had somebody boasting about her professional mediation skills ... acquired as a SAHP for 10 years or so...

somebody boasting about her professional mediation skills ... acquired as a SAHP for 10 years or so...

Yeah, that's just cringeworthy!

I know we all love to joke about how senior executives are a lot like toddlers. Having done both and having come down firmly on the side of toddlers on the grounds that they, at least, grow out of it I certainly have.

But, sorry, no! It's just not the same thing. The difference - to express it in cringeworthy CV terms - is that you can't bribe a senior executive out of their stance with sweets because they'll get a bonus that will allow them to purchase the entire bloody chocolate factory if they win this particular fight.

Do all these tips apply to CVs for more manual roles as well as office/management ones? Like supermarkets, factories, builders, bathroom fitters etc, where the company might be small and not even have a HR department? Would the recruiting boss of an independent double-glazing supplier or a pub landlord, for instance, be looking for the same things in a CV as the OP?

i was wondering if one should put one's name in the form of eg,
A. Smith, rather than putting first name in full because it usually denotes gender.
as a protected characteristic, is it not preferable not to reveal it until/if interview.
be honest do you think there is any hope for the older person who has been out of the job market for 10 yrs, due to caring responsibilities.
and if so, where/ what apart from supermarkets, call centres or paid careworkers.
used to do a responsible job but no way back and out of touch. also references would be a problem. even when i applied for a volunteering role, it was quite difficult to find an acceptable referee. they wanted a professional person not related to me.
i feel i could be of use but that no one would give me chance.
sorry sounds dopey.

It was years ago (decades actually - erk) that I had the task of sifting through CVs and there were some shockers then, so it's definitely not new.

Spelling the company name wrong.
Awful wanky personal statements about being a uniquely passionate and creative individual etc
Long rambling life story about growing up on a mountainside in peru with no boundaries and total freedom
Comic sans, curly borders, pink ombre paper, handful of dried petals stuffed in envelope like it's a wedding invitation!

I was amazed how many were weird, inappropriate, careless or just so up themselves. A job would attract a LOT of applications, say 200, and you'd be hard-pressed to find 4 or 5 that really seemed suitable.

I'm a careers adviser and also qualified in HR

I see a lot of this from both sides - recipient of CVs and helping people with CVs.

You get those who do not want to change their CV at all despite my advice.

You get those who haven't updated their CV since leaving school so recent jobs etc not on it and/or the template is vv out of date.

You get those with [email protected] as their email address

the SAHPs - I hate this. I feel it is insulting to working parents who do all this whilst holding down a job. By all means say you chaired a PTA, helped out at playgroups, but don't use simple parenting as a skill.

My DF used to bring home CVs whenever he was recruiting. Many were handwritten, long after computers were widespread. Some were only a few lines!

I will always remember one man describing himself as "single - no commitments". My dad couldn't see the issue. Me and my mum were not impressed.

Why don't companies upload a blank CV template to their website? That way you'll get the info you're interested in, and the template will be current.

@Clevererthanyou

eyebrow CV writing IS taught as a skill in schools, they teach the children to do the very things that posters here are now telling us what not to do. It’s also difficult to use the internet as a resource as different websites claim to put different things in a CV, so I ask you, which information is correct?

An issue here is that the application process for virtually all teaching jobs don’t actually use CVs, so the last time the teacher actually wrote a CV may have been to apply for a Saturday job at KwikSave in 1998.

The spelling and grammar thing goes without saying. The thing is that even if you do have problems spelling, would you not at least trouble to use spellcheck or ask someone who can spell to look over it?

This is exactly the point; it's the obvious lack of care that kills a CV as much as the spelling itself, and a lack of care doesn't tend to appeal to prospective employers

LinkedIn is useful to see how other people are presenting themselves, it can be quite useful to check out people in your industry to get some key phrases from the best ones and some phrases to avoid from others!

As someone who interviews I don't really like personal profiles, the vast majority seem to be full of platitudes. If they took the place of an old fashioned covering letter where they pulled out your relevant experience that would be more useful. But we have now moved to application forms for all jobs now.

I too have fallen foul of the recruitment agency who have rewritten my CV introducing spelling and grammatical errors, I was furious! At work we prefer to not use recruitment agencies (they are an expensive waste of time) but in DH's industry everyone does.

As far as SAHPs go I think if it has been less than 5 years wrangling toddlers then don't go into a lot of detail, your previous experience will still be relevant. If it's longer then I'd want to see a good amount of voluntary work, e.g. I have friend who is a SAHP who is on the PTA, volunteers for a local charity, runs a children's activity and is a local councillor. My Mum is of the generation who took 20 years out of the workplace in the 70s and 80s and she had a similar amount of voluntary experience and updated her professional training before returning to work in her 40s.

I genuinely don't care if someone has been a SAHP for 7 years and hasn't done voluntary work.

Any advice for a sahm who has suffered from depression and anxiety for 4/5 years and has a few short stints in work?

Do I mention my depression, that's have now recovered from?

lemmathelemmin

I work for an organisation that is very hot on mental health and wellbeing and we actively encourage those who have experienced mental health problems to apply.

I would always advise being honest, but my reasoning for that is that an employer who wouldn't want you there because you suffered from depression is not an employer I would ever want to work for.

full body shot in a bikini is not appropriate

I haven't seen that one! When recruiting, I always ask to see the applicant's original CV as well as the agency one. I don't want to employ anyone who can't layout a document so it's readable with correct spelling and grammar. Sadly, fewer and fewer people seem to be able to do that.

Agencies regularly cock up applicant CVs

I always tell people - keep it fairly brief (I don't want to know what you did 20 years ago), keep it honest (I WILL ask probing questions at interview, so don't waste my time by exaggerating) and make it readable (easy layout, sensible font, good spelling, and grammar).

I think it's a bit unfair to blame what you were taught at school unless you're younger than about 21. Things change, but also a lot of what they teach in school is going to be explicitly about the situation of most school leavers, ie how to write a CV when you have little to no work experience. Of course you have to go on about extracurricular stuff and your dazzling personality then; you shouldn't still be doing it a decade later, you should have some actual work-related stuff to replace it with.

See also: people who put two spaces after a full stop because they were told to in typing class in 1989. Have you not noticed than nothing professionally produced ever, ever looks like that and wondered if it might be time to revisit that advice?!

LisaSimpsonsbff

The two spaces thing is so bizarre! When I worked in executive search a few years ago, they were still making their poor assistants do that. So old fashioned.

I have tried to teach Year 10s how to write CVs for their work experience and have tried the same with 6th formers, too. I say tried, because what the hell do I know about CVs? Of course teenagers know better than me, who has not always been a teacher but worked “real” jobs, too. Yeah Miss, you know the font you said looked a bit boring. Nah Miss, I left out the boring stuff, they don’t want to know that.
Believe me, we try.

A good trick to see if you have tailored your CV and application is to print off the job application, your CV and cover letter. Underline what they want - each point in a different colour. Then go over to your CV and application and underline in the corresponding colour where you have explicitly addressed the criteria. You should get the whole rainbow.

Save your CV and cover letter as a PDF. It looks more professional, all the lines disappear, the formatting stays the same.

Use a template. There are hundreds online for free. www.canva.com have some beautiful ones. Even office have some fairly unoffensive ones. Better to be boring and neat than 'creative' and a nightmare. But it is worth making it look good. Try not to have sentences break over a page. Make the font the same size all the way through. Make the headings the same. Make sure your spell check is set to English UK. Use the same template for CV and cover letter. It gives a good impression - like you've thought it through.

I once received a CV to read that had reason for leaving under each job. In these exact words: "I got sacked for something I didn't do so wasn't my fault I had to move on"...

As some others, I disagree that you shouldn’t include hobbies. In my experience (on both sides of the recruitment table), they can be a talking point at interviews, even for senior roles. But do keep them very brief, well thought out, and think of something interesting you can actually say about them.

I once received an 83 page CV.

That one went in the bin without being read...