CURRICULUM VITAE – COMPOSITION

Compose A CV

A Curriculum Vitae is to persuade someone, someone who is offering a job to become sufficiently interested in you to invite you for an interview.

Nothing more, nothing less. Simply a device to put you in the frame, in front of the appointment maker. The document should be brief, and of course look good on first sight. Many small businesses which call themselves consultants, or some such title, specialise in professionally composed CVs. Nothing wrong with that; the world owes everyone a living and I would be the last criticise anyone who shows an entrepreneurial streak. Just be careful, that's all.

The most expensively produced document, or the longest, is not necessarily the most suitable for you. If you do decide to employ a "professional" bear in mind they may encourage you to go for the long version to justify their fee.

Job appointing people usually have a mental picture of the person they are looking for. The vaguer, the less detail your C.V. contains the more they will seek to "FIT" what is contained in your documentation to their idea of the person they want. Instead of the other way round.

They are in effect fitting what the C.V. doesn't say, to the job.

I am suggesting that you should give the person who evaluates the CVs the opportunity to use imagination. If you provide a comprehensively written C.V. they will base a decision on what they read.

If it's not written down they have to make a judgement.

To make a judgement requires imagination. They have to visualise. When making it they are influenced by the idea they already have as to what the person should be, or what talents or skills they need for the position. Well and good if you happen to have written a CV that states clearly and concisely exactly what the job appointer is looking for. Miracles happen but alas all too infrequently.

If you haven't put it in black and white it cannot be used against you.

Not an easy message to get across, Not an easy message to grasp.

If you get in front of the job appointer you at least have the chance of stressing your good points, your plus points, sufficiently to overcome any shortfall you may have.

If you write War and Peace you stand a good chance of boring the pants off the poor unfortunate who has the unenviable job of interpreting the document - and I speak as one who has been lumbered with the task hundreds of times.

A long Curriculum Vitae gets binned. Believe it.

That's bad, that's terminal. Your application ends there. You are out of the race, never to know why. And no job appointer is going to tell you that the reason you are out of contention is because your C.V. was about as interesting as a telephone directory.

Keep it simple, as short as is reasonable. Two A4 sheets, 10 point type, one sheet if you can get away with it.

In my view you only need three headings:

Statutory Information : Education : Job History

Usual beginning, name address etc., followed by personal details, marital status (don't say how many times and don't mention divorce). Do not state age. Make the reader think. It will not be difficult to roughly figure out how old you are from your job history. More C.V.s are rejected on age than anything else.

Continue with educational qualifications. Don't go back to your play groups, believe me no one wants to know. Don't leave out evening class courses you have done but keep quiet about folk dancing and embalming for beginners.

Enclose certificates - they impress for some reason. I do not know why as they are so easily faked but it is a fact: certificates impress. Send copies, never originals. Take the originals along to an interview if you wish.

Job history needs special mention. The mental attitude of many job appointers is that if you are, as I am, someone who has had a lot of jobs, you are no good as an individual and a menace to everyone on the planet. Keep the number of jobs you have had down to a minimum. Lose a few. Be economical with the volume of information you are volunteering. Do not make claims that you cannot back up, or if you do be prepared to be found out and rejected.

Many employers think, in their narrow minded insular way that spending a long time with one employer is a commendable quality. I hold the opposite point of view as it happens, but I am not interviewing you for a job. There is a strong, better than even chance, that the individual who is interviewing you will hold the first. Accept the fact and face it, the view is widely held.

If your conscience will not let you "modify" your CV by omitting a few occupations then you must pre-handle the objection by mentioning the fact in your accompanying letter.

Job history should not read like a shopping list. What does it matter if you worked for a company from the 21st December 1984 to the 14th July 1990? Why not try to make it a little more readable by saying something like Winter '84 to Summer '90? You are trying to give the prospective employer an overview of what you have done so far in your career, for whom and for how long.

Treat the detail of the job descriptions in the same way.

You can say: motor mechanic Ford light commercials. Or you can say: motor mechanic working on a variety of vehicles, some with the 1600 cc engine model XYZ version III manufactured from May 1989 to July 1992 (inclusive).

If you consider such detail very relevant and of critical importance say so in your accompanying letter. Don't bore everyone to death by minutely detailing every job you have done with every employer. It will not enhance your prospects.

Close your C.V. with this paragraph:

"In the interests of brevity the detail contained in this Curriculum Vitae has been kept to a minimum. I will be pleased to provide any additional information that may be required by letter or at an interview."

It is a sort of "let off the hook device" that goes down very well with prospective employers and their staff who have to sift through C.V.s.

You cannot see into the head of the prospective employer. No two are alike and they do not behave predictably. All you can do is keep your CV as vague as possible without making it so brief as to be valueless.

The objective is to get in front of the person who makes the decision and that is all a C.V. is for. To help place yourself in a position whereby you are face to face with the person who has a job to offer or someone appointed by that person who will influence the decision.

Don't blow your chances by trying too do to much. It is not appreciated and will hinder your chances rather than help them. People who are looking for jobs and do not know any better do such things. Hopefully, for you, they will long continue to do so.

You will not. You know how to go about it properly.