Value my CV? It's very short

[viviloo]

PA to Managing Director, November 2018 – December 2018

• Diary management for the Managing Director, ensuring a busy and often changing schedule is up to date and MD is informed of any changes.
• Audio typing for meetings and interviews.
• Booking travel arrangements, hotels and accommodating all needs of the MD.
• Researching venues, locations and places of interested. Presenting all relevant information.
• Updating spreadsheets for pending court cases and complaints.
• Preparing reports.
• Composing legal document cover letters.
• Ensuring all relevant information is available and ready for any court dates.
• Office management, petty cash, stationary ordering.
• Ensuring HR aspects are kept up to date.
• Arranging meetings, and using initiative to decide if a telephone conference could take place to save time and travel.
• Managing staff training and keeping to tight deadlines regarding modules and training plans. .

PA/Medical Secretary, April 2017-September 2018

• Extensive diary management, responsible for updates and alerts on significant changes to three senior consultants.
• Dealing with all enquiries in relation to the clinic, including postal, telephone and email.
• Providing excellent patient care, dealing with enquiries both efficiently and in line with Trust procedures.
• Arranging appointments, alerting Drs when red alert patients appear and organising prompt investigation.
• Booking of travel arrangement/lunches.
• Organising office based events and fund raisers.
• Liaising with a variety of individuals, both clinical and non-clinical.
• Typing official documentation and appointment letters.

PA/Head of Administration, September 2014/December 2016

• First point of contact between clients, both external and internal.
• Screen and direct telephone communication, usually resolving quires by own means.
• Research and complete information sheets on places of interest to employer/employer’s family.
• Co-ordinating interviews for personal staff of employer, such as cleaners, nannies etc.
• Organise events, dinner parties and medical appointments.
• Processing all household invoices and arrange for payment of any bills and expenses.
• Updating systems, Microsoft package Outlook.
• Travel arrangements, both local and further afield.
• Ensure smooth running of office team, updating staff of system updates and booking relevant training.

How much roughly do you think I can ask for as a PA? Just out of interest.

I have left educational history and my first every job out on the thread. First job was a junior role at the same place I became PA/Head of administration. When I started someone else had that job title. They then left and I got the job, that was that :)

Depends where you are in the UK and the sector. PA to the CEO of a big bank is going to be a lot more than PA to small business man in the North East for example. Could be anything from 20k to 50k depending on these factors.

flossie The Managing Director I've been working for (only 6 weeks in total, it's a temp cover role), is director of a small but important company.

Just prior to that, it was working for three senior consultants (NHS).

I'm just outside of London. I would be looking to stay in the private sector now, NHS is too poorly paid with little to no thanks

£35K ish? This is based on my experience in an Energy Utility

Cherry Thank you. I really appreciate it

It's nice to know you're not being too cheeky by asking for £30-32k salary wise.

A job I applied for a few days ago wanted to know what I was on and what I was willing to take, as part of one of their application questions.

30 to 35k as a rough bench mark.

The first job you should specify that it was temporary as when I saw the dates the first thing that occurred to me was that it was short term - was she fired. Sorry don't mean to alarm you but it was what jumped into my head.

cstaff Thank you. Do you think I could put something like (Temporary cover position), in brackets next to my job title?

Yeah that would be perfect.

Fab, it's done

Do you have a short personal statement? I think most CVs start with a paragraph that highlights your key skills / USPs

My only advice is to make it clear in your cv that the latest job was a short term contract.

Looks good - I'm sure you'd catch it before sending out, but just in case, you want 'stationery' not 'stationary'. I have to look that one up every time!

Fusion This is it -

A highly motivated individual with exceptional multi-tasking and organisation skills. Able to exhibit reliable confidentiality, discretion and professionalism at all times. Possessing a proven ability to help make the best of business time by executing all administrative and secretarial duties in a prompt manner.
Key Skills

You've a typo in the latest role description so if you have copied and pasted, you need to re-visit the original. Do put the first junior role on you've CV as it shows progression (if you haven't). Even if you just put the title and dates. Yes, do state that a temp role is a temp role.

Depending on the sectors you've worked in, you should consider noting any specific software or programs you have used. I don't think you need a personal statement as they are a bit old hat and everyone says the same kind of thing. What you should think about is anything you did that was a first for the organisation or where you achieved efficiencies and savings.

Without wanting to sound harsh, there will be lots of candidates with similar CVs and yours needs to stand out.

Assuming this is a copy/paste of your actual CV, please go through carefully to check spelling and grammar. People sifting through CVs will use typos/incorrect usage of words as a reason to exclude that particular CV.

I would recommend going through each line item to ensure that it is clear and makes sense to someone not working in those types of environments. ie, don't assume everyone will know what you mean. Such as:

Audio typing for meetings and interviews
Researching venues, locations and places of interested. Presenting all relevant information.
Ensuring HR aspects are kept up to date.
Arranging appointments, alerting Drs when red alert patients appear and organising prompt investigation.
Updating systems, Microsoft package Outlook.

Otherwise all good

I would go through it carefully as there are multiple spelling and grammar issues.

There's a fair few spelling and grammatical errors so am assuming this is a rough draft.

20-50k for those tasks?? Im clearly in the wrong job!!

For a short CV it reads very long!

Make a list of skills/ duties common to all jobs and list under each any specific tasks.

Include any training.

List computer programmes you are familiar with and level of familiarity.
Include team sizes.

Arrange lists in a logical manner and don't put two different things under the same bullet point.

Definitely check spelling and grammar!

Re your personal statement (just my opinion)
Not sure what "reliable confidentiality" is.
I would put "organisational skills"

Something about contributing to the overall business goals and growth of the company / enabling others to maximise opportunity to do so by your own commitment to your specific role and spotting and resolving problems in a timely manner.

There are gaps - what were you doing between December 2016 and April 2017 and September/October 2018?

As each job is relatively short term I would wonder why they were so short term and why you weren’t working in between?

You will also need to demonstrate capacity to learn new skills, adaptability, etc, as you don't seem to have a lot of work experience (most fairly short term contracts, it looks like).
Because of the short term periods of employment, they will want to know if you were fired, if you left (can they count on you long term?) or why contracts weren't renewed.

I wouldn't put exceptional nothing anywhere, unless you can demonstrate with a few examples. If you get an interview, you'll be asked about it, in all likelihood.

You really need to look at and improve some items that you have included. For example:
•Updating systems, Microsoft package Outlook.
This is pretty basic. What do you mean by "updating systems". It takes clicking a few buttons and waiting.
Outlook is a basic email package that almost every PC user must have used at some point. What can you do with it that not all people can? Can you list some advanced tasks or settings that you can do on Outlook?

Look at things like bill paying. Do you really want to list something that every single person can sort out?

What kind of reports did you prepare? The same for other similar points.

"•Providing excellent patient care" - what do you mean? Surely you didn't provide patient care, as such. What made whatever you did excellent? Do you have evidence of any excellence?

You also need evidence of being able to work as a team member.
Were you really head of administration?

I'm trying to look at your CV from the eyes of a potential employer, and TBH, it needs to look more straight to the point, more evidence based, and, well, experienced and professional.

I think you are looking at it from the wrong perspective.

It's all well and good asking what you're worth, but before that can be determined you need to demonstrate on your CV why a prospective employer would hire you rather than a different candidate.

For this to be achieved, you need to see the wood for the trees and this is difficult with a CV that reads like a wordy to-do list of daily activities.

You could try splitting each job into a brief list of Core Activities and Value-Add USP (unique selling points) to see if it creates impact and highlights to the recruiter why you'd be an asset to an MD or senior Exec.

Personally I hate personal statements on CV’s unless you have an outstanding reason to include one. They all say the same thing, it’s never evidence based and it looks like padding and fluff.

I’d change all your doscriptions too. At the moment you’ve just listed the job description. Who cares? Tell me why I care? Tell me why you’re better then the person who did the same job with the same blurb. Tell me what you achieved, and why you being in role was important.

So not - diary mananagement blah blah blah but - Diary management leading to a 30% improvement in time management/efficiency savings/the winning of three major new contracts in three months, or whatever. Tell me why it matters

I'm not trying to disagree but the last two posters, you're asking me to give more examples of what and where etc etc

But also asking me to be more to the point?

I really didn't think you had to go into a big write up of examples with a CV, I thought it had to be quite short and just point out experience and strengths

If you are looking for a £30+ salary is be removing ordering stationery, petty cash, HR aspects (holiday sheets, recording absence?) and filling in spreadsheets and focusing on the parts of your job you see as being worth £30k+

So anything with responsibility, decision making, communication, conflict management, negotiation, budgets etc.