Please, please, if you're applying for a job.....

[seeker]

...make sure your CV is neat, tidy and well set out. Check the spelling and the grammar. Either write it or print it on the best paper you can manage, and make sure that all the pages are in order and the same size. If you make a mistake, start again, don't just cross out a paragraph and add another on at the end with an arrow to show where it should have been. Don't make jokes in your covering letter. Get the name of the place you're applying to and the person you're addressing right. Oh, and don't leave huge gaps in your employment history with no explanation.

Can you tell I've been short listing this morning? For a teaching post!

I understand it entirely in the public sector, but the example mentioned was about actors - where I thought it would matter a lot.

crossed posts WFH - thanks

SM we recruited recently for what I consider for the area to be a well paid and more importantly, secure, job. We expected with the economy as it is (Northern Rock are a big employer in this sector up here) we'd get some good candidates. We got 2 OK ones out of the 33 applicants
As for your gaps, I would rather you acknowledged them with a brief description than completely left them blank

You're probably right - and being out of a job without one to go to happens to most people at some time or another.
Plus, life happens - everything you describe does happen unless you're lucky I suppose!

please - you can string a sentence together, so you're already in the top 5!

Understandable to have to say to actors not to send a photo, as obviously they would usually do so.

No photo not just a public sector thing. I have never worked in the public sector and on the rare occasions I've been sent a photo with a cv it makes me look like this, wonder why on earth it's been included and puts me right off the candidate anyway tbh. I can't see any reason for including it. Anyone who thinks what they look like is going to help them get the job would not be someone I'd be likely to want to recruit anyway, and clearly they don't think much of the organisation's ability to choose the right person for the job if they think their hairdo will make a difference. I just chuck it in the bin immediately and think FFS.

I once saw an application from someone who padded out his work history by saying that he had done voluntary work for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). I'm pretty sure that all he had done was to download SETI software, which can be done by anyone and takes about 2 minutes.

On the photo issue - My Mum also works in HR. She had a temp job years ago for V big firm of accountants.

First morning they piled her desk with cvs and asked her to sift them. She asked what the criteria were. She was told as a first sift, to take out any with a photo of anyone "asian looking" in case they were "illegals"

She left at Lunchtime

how long ago was this?

About ten years - v bad on their part

I am just pleased she walked out.

This thread has been great reading. It's given me/us hope. DH is currently looking for work and has a really strong cv, he was really worried about the competition out there, am hoping that people continue to write their rubbish cvs for DH's sake!!