Question for employers......what do you look for in a cv?

[thefroggy]

I hardly ever get a response, never an interview.

I'm more than qualified for the jobs I apply for and have plenty of experience.

I'm thinking my cv must be crap.

Ideas?

One little baby, we are not all robots! My business is touchy feely and revolves around the customer, if it was a techy business it would be different. I want personality and passion, which i can see in a letter that is handwritten. Is that a crime?

Mama...I'm so sorry but sex applicants, and only one met the criteria...

I'm crying!

I also want to employ someone who really wants THIS job, who wants to work for THIS company. I dont want to employ someone who just wants a job.
Find your perfect job in your perfect company and then go get it! You have to have a positive, winning attitude and expect them to say yes.

Ok being all serious again weevil, I want a job, I do admin. It's not glam, I dont care. I work hard and dont let people down. It's pretty hard to have a passion for admin, and like I said, most times it's through an agency so I dont know who the employer is.

you can get free CV feedback from Next Step, also try other careers advice providers in your area (usually listed in directory under "careers" / "education" or sometimes "recruitment" ) / perhaps online. Or maybe get a (very) honest friend to look over it for you !

You make it sound like you think its not an important job, but every member of a team is important. Do you want something long term? Or are you happy doing temp stuff? Are there companies/ types of admin you prefer?

I want a skills based CV, rather than a chronological one. I want to know what difference you can make to my business

I'm pretty astonished that anyone's making shortlisting decisions based on handwriting in 2012! Of course you can't tell personality and passion from someone's handwriting! You can tell it from the actual words they write and from talking to them.

I've got plenty of personality and passion, but appalling handwriting. I wouldn't apply for a job where handwriting was required anyway because I'd think the recruiting organisation was very outdated and not at all clued up with equal opportunities, however if for any reason I did want to apply, I'd get my DH to handwrite my application because he's got lovely handwriting.

flowery apparently I'm a robot just because I work in tech. Before we have chip and pin, I at least get to sign my name regularly. Now I think I only use a pen when I write christmas cards.

I agree with you that handwriting isn't a good indicator of character. It only shows if you have beautiful handwriting. How many jobs requires good handwriting nowadays?

As flowery said, just because someone can't write a letter doesn't mean they couldn't do other 'hands-on tasks', whatever you might mean by that. In my case I'm qualified as a masseuse and could still work part-time doing that with the help of various widgets, some of which I own, or Access to Work could provide more - you don't get more hands-on than that!

Back to the OP - most of the CVs I get, after chucking the ones that either are riddled with mistakes, poor grammar, or have little relation to the job, my main complaint is 'yes, but what did YOU personally DO to get X to happen' - so many people list 'responsible for X which did Y' but no detail about what they did or how they did it. I'd much prefer a few roles with lots of detail and then other jobs summarised in a couple lines just to fill the timeline (actually I don't care about gaps in a CV but my managers always seem to)

OneLittleBabyGirl well everyone knows techies are all robots..

I don't even get to write Christmas cards in our house, I'm banned for crimes against handwriting.

The only time I really do very much writing is if I'm taking notes in a client meeting or disciplinary or something. And then half the time if I don't type it up immediately I struggle to tell what I've written...

In all seriousness weevil as well as it not making much business sense to exclude what might be fabulous candidates on the basis of their handwriting or lack of, you are also putting yourself at risk of a disability discrimination claim.

If you are in a technie meeting, everyone has a laptop or, if your company is loaded, an ipad . You take notes on these shiny things because 1) we type faster than we write, 2) you can actually search your notes

The downside of all this connectiveness is ofc, you sometimes found a lot of the meeting attendees are actually surfing the web.

I was looking at an admin job advert yesterday, and was depressed to find I wasn't even qualified for it. They wanted A level English FFS. I don't have that. I have an Oxbridge degree, and am a qualified accountant. I can write business letters and reports in concise, grammatical and well-punctuated English - probably far better than a school leaver. But I know my CV would be filed straight in the bin because I don't meet the criteria.

I was talking to DH about it and he suggested going into local employment agencies and talking to them about temp work. Perhaps it would work for you, froggy. If you pop in often enough, maybe you could build up a relationship with one of the recruitment consultants, and something would come of it.

It depends on how temp the work is. Six months for instance would probably be ok but anything less could be a problem in terms of tax credits etc. More so the childcare element of it. Unless they've changed the way they work it out it's already going to be a problem if I land a job just before the summer holiday. I need something permanent really, but thanks all for ideas

Sorry to the posters i've offended so. But hey, i've created the jobs, i own the company, i'm still in business during tough times, i have a great team, i chose them my way and i was right in my judgements using my methods.
Was just giving my opinion.

I'm not offended in the slightest! Amused more like!

As I said, you wouldn't be interested in me for a job because of my appalling handwriting (unless i got soneone else to handwrite the application as of course anyone could do..) but I would consider that your loss not mine.

If you have been lucky enough to find people who are good at the job but also happen to have good handwriting then that's great, you've been fortunate. But you are legally vulnerable and also potentially dismissing out of hand a wider pool of fantastic candidates for a ridiculous reason.

But its not just handwriting i assess people on!!! Its the content of their letter when they are not constrained by any formalities! Also consistent writing and legible writing. If you read about Graphology (the analysis of handwriting) you'll see what i mean. But please give me more credit than thinking i only employ people who write neatly!!! Geez!
You must agree that the people who actually create the jobs have to be a bit mad and creative, without their nutty visions there would be no new jobs. We WOULD all just be robots working for one huge faceless organisation.
(just to clarify: i dont just employ on handwriting!)

Just to add, i employed a fantastic 17yr old once who's writing wasnt perfect script, but was consistent from top to bottom, and the words she wrote blew me away. There was more insight into the job, her strengths and suitability for the position than i've ever seen since. She went on to Cambridge and has since excelled in life, i recognised her talent using my own judgement.

If you are disregarding applications from anyone who doesn't handwrite their application then you are assessing at least those applicants on handwriting alone, which is bonkers IMO.

Graphology has been completely discredited as being any kind of reliable tool for assessing competence in a job. You're obviously comfortable with disregarding candidates on that kind of criteria as being a sensible and shrewd business decision. Good for you. Hopefully you will never have to explain your selection methods to an Employment Tribunal having chucked an application from a disabled candidate in the bin or by advertising potentially discriminatory criteria.

Ok, you go create yourself a job, create 8 more, then come tell me i'm doing it all wrong.
Off to fetch my quill for a spot of calligraphy. Ffs.

Do you mean I must know nothing about recruitment because (as far as you are aware) I don't employ anyone?

I dont know, do you?

Not an employer, but have in previous jobs have sifted through applications. The ones that are badly presented I'm afraid go straight in the bin without reading. The ones that stand out (ie. on coloured paper) go to the top of the pile.

Do I what? Know anything about recruitment or employ anyone?

I know an awful lot about recruitment and employ one person, plus outsource work on a freelance basis to several other people I've had to recruit.

We obviously hold differing views as to what constitutes an appropriate, sensible, legally sound way of selecting candidates for jobs.

How many people we directly employ has no bearing on the validity of those views. I would venture a guess that I've been involved in an awful lot more recruitment decision making than you, but that isn't why I'm right.

Plenty of people do loads of recruiting and still get it wrong or leave themselves open legally. Plenty of other people recruit once or twice in their lives but take professional advice and/or research recruitment and selection extensively to protect themselves legally and make good business decisions and they get it right.

You carry on, as I say, I hope you will never have your methods challenged legally, because you'd struggle.

Calm down. You've not listened to much i've said.