Would anyone comment on my CV please? Copied it here

[haveamooch]

Would anyone be willing to give me some feedback? I'm losing hope. Not hearing anything back from anyone...

I'm presuming my CV is awfully lacking in something. Would anyone advise?

Summary
An effective, motivated Assistant, with exceptional multi-tasking and organisation skills. Able to exhibit confidentiality, discretion and tact. Proven ability to ensure managers and directors make the best use of their time by dealing with their secretarial and administrative tasks.
Experience
05/2019 - Current －
Assistant
• Effectively controlled the release of proprietary and confidential information regarding clients and details of admisssion, in line with the Data Protection Act 2018.
• Provided general administrative and secretarial support to managers.
• Updated documents and ensured details were kept accurately.
• Responsible for screening telephone calls, post and emails, responding personally or referring to the relevant member of staff.
• Making appointments and arranging travel accommodation.
• Documenting invoices and expenses.
• Liasing with staff, clients and members of the public, responding appropriately to each individual.
• Report writing.

11/2018 - 01/201
xxxx Ltd (Maternity cover) － xxx
Personal Assistant
• Management of MD's diary and calendar.
• Organising external and internal meetings, of which involve the MD.
• Within two weeks of joining the company, cut stationary expenses by over 30% by sourcing supplies from a significantly cheaper company.
• Arranging company events.
• Arranging travel and accommodation for the MD and others.
• Filing expenses and handling petty cash.
• Responsible for staff training and HR portal.
• Updating Excel spreadsheets.
• Ordering office supplies and refreshments.

05/2017 - 11/2018
Xxx － London
Secretary
• Documented highly confidential material, acting with complete discretion.
• Minute taking.
• Reviewed and advised on adequacy of documents, editing as required.
• Prepared correspondence for analysis.
• Composed letters for consultants.
• Updated clinic lists and ensured attendance was noted.
• Ordered stationary and genera office supplies.
• Liased between consultants, other staff members of the Trust and members of the public.
• Arranged travel.
• Filing and organising.
• Management of emails and post for two consultants.

10/2015 - 05/2017
Xxx － xxx
Personal Assistant
• Management of clinic diary.
• Appointment arrangement.
• Updating spreadsheets as required.
• Organised onsite training and support.
• Ordering stationary, medicines and managing post.
• Liased with clients and staff members.
• Minute taking.
• Distributing reports to relevant staff members.
• Managing staff absence and created incentives for fewer absences.
Education

• 9 GCSE's, ranging from A to C, with an A in English and a C in Mathematics.

• Safeguarding Level 3 Qualification.

• First Aid.

Possibly length of employment , longest around 18 months. others quite short.

Hi OP

My criticism would be that your CV is mostly a laundry list of tasks. Your point about saving 30% on stationery within 2 weeks of joining the company is fantastic - you need more of those!

You need to sell yourself and focus on your accomplishments in each role, not just your duties. What did you do in your roles that another person may not have achieved?

Also you need a spelling/grammar check: it should be "stationery" and "liaised", "of which involved the MD" isn't a grammatically correct clause with the rest of the sentence, you have some bullet points which switch tense halfway through, etc.

Hope this helps!

I was basically going to say what @goodwinter has put so I'll just echo those points. Good luck!

highlight any points where you have gone beyond the basic expectations of the job.

also, is there any extra training you have done?

Thanks all - Saving that 30% within two weeks of starting the role was a big achievement but I'm not sure what else I could say in the other roles, really... I helped the business tick along nicely a lot of the time but I don't want/not allowed to pull figures out of my bottom that don't exist So what can I really say?

I don't have statistics really for anything else

I agree with the comments above about trying to think of specific highlights. Is there any particular projects you help drive forward or tricky managers or clients you dealt with in an exceptional way?
I would also do some slight tweaking to make the language a bit more positive. e.g I am not sure that first adjective should be effective. And the first line of your first job doesn't stand out. (I don't know exactly what the work involves - but I think would start with something like - Provide exceptional business support to...)
It also depends on the jobs you are applying for, try and tweak CV every time to make sure you have clearly shown that you can do everything that is in that particular job description.

This may help: www.askamanager.org/2013/06/how-to-list-accomplishments-on-your-resume-when-your-job-doesnt-have-easy-measures.html

I recommend the AAM site to anyone & everyone. It's US-focused but it's the best work-related resource I've ever seen, both for job hunting & navigating professional situations.

Good luck!

Arranging company events - that's dealing with budgets. Is there a yearly budget so you could mention that?
Staff training? Employee On-boarding? Can you fill that out a little?
What kind of report writing? Using what?

What are the spreadsheets you updated for?

I think you could review a lot of your task bullet points and make them sound better.

Also: • Effectively controlled the release of proprietary and confidential information regarding clients and details of admisssion, in line with the Data Protection Act 2018.

Too much! Managing client and patient data in line with DPA 2018.

thee Thank you, I was just worried about waffling on so didn't include a lot of the details you're suggesting! I will now

Also, can I really use DPA and abbreviate on a CV like that?

Also use plain English, able to exhibit?

You could do long format for DPA although anyone reading a CV really ought to know what DPA means. But the whole sentence together was too long and sounded fluffy.

Spelling is not great - your CV really needs to be with no spelling or grammatical errors, especially as you state you achieved an A* in English GCSE!

Short lengths of employment could also be putting people off.

After adding/edit with all changes suggested, what can I do if my short employment periods are putting people off?

Do you have good reasons for moving?

To be honest the first part of my CV once looked pretty similar in terms of roles and length of time in jobs. I moved regularly as I gained experience and wanted more interesting/developed admin roles. Nothing was wrong with that. It certainly was never an issue for me.

The length of the last two jobs would concern me, and as PP have said, it needs to be completely accurate in SPAG terms - that's the minimum I expect from a PA. I would also look to do some professional courses to boost your appeal - you can do online touch typing courses very cheaply for example which help demonstrate your capabilities, or MOOCs in things like time management/secretarial skills. Your education is very minimal atm and not tailored to the sort of jobs you appear to want. Agree with PP too about highlighting your achievements.

Do you write cover letters or supporting statements with the CV? I think that's where you really sell yourself for a job

Without wishing to be pedantic can you check the tenses for each entry. Current should be present, rest past. Also try to focus on what makes each different, "updating excel spreadsheets" seems a bit vague. Agree the number of roles and short duration may make it seem as if you don't look longer term or avoid commitment.

Is Safeguarding level 3 accredited or an internal course?

The length of the last two jobs would concern me, and as PP have said,

The role before my last was completely temp, maternity cover as it says. So couldn't have lasted for any longer.

My current role is a permanent one and my reason for leaving is because I took the job as it exposed me to a healthcare setting and I wanted to do a 3 year degree to become a healthcare professional myself. However, upon reflection and seeing the realties of the profession, I changed my mind

But you have only been there 4/5 months. Even if you no longer want to pursue it as a degree or career it makes you look indecisive and a bit disloyal.

LIZ I do agree, and it's very unfortunate as I suspect most people looking at my CV will feel the same way.

If I'm fortunate enough to bag myself an interview, I'm hopeful they'll understand my short stay if I explain in interview that it was an attempt at a complete career change

I agree with PPs, particularly the suggestion to take some further accreditation/certification (maybe courses in Advanced Excel or proofreading or project management?)

Is your LinkedIn up to date? I always look up potential candidates on LinkedIn - those who have a well-curates LinkedIn page are more likely to be invited for interview. LinkedIn also runs a range of free/cheap courses on LinkedIn Learning that you can take advantage of. You can then add the certifications you receive onto your profile.

Have you checked your digital print in general? Make sure you don't have any unprofessional looking results when you type in your name. I tend to change my Facebook profile picture when job hunting so that I don't look like a lunatic/alcoholic if a potential interviewer were to look me up!

Also, check your formatting - look up some templates online to ensure your CV looks up to date. Send it out in PDF form to ensure that the formatting stays the way you want it to - sometimes word documents will unexpectedly reformat when opened on a different computer.

Yes @haveamooch unfortunately I'd think the same way as @LIZS here - if I was reading your CV I would think you might not be the type to stick around long, and that makes it hard to justify putting so much effort into someone through onboarding, induction, training etc. It wouldn't stop me putting you through to interview, but it would raise a question in my mind. I also wouldn't raise it with you at interview, but would hope you would proactively raise it in a general question around 'why do you want this job' or some equivalent.

What sort of job are you applying for?

You should tailor each cv to the type of job, so a PA would be a different CV to an admin or even coordinator for example.

Consider a skills section, list desirable skills like shorthand, typing etc.

Some of your sentences are filler (sorry)
Provided general administrative and secretarial support to managers
Well yes, that’s what a PA does, either remove it or elaborate.

Your summary had a weak start but a strong ending. Being organised etc is expected, or if you feel you’re exception why?