CV writing

[xathras1982]

Hiya there,
has anyone had there CV professionally written? I'm looking at getting my CV reviewed and I'm looking for some recommendations.

Thanks in advance

[Arthurgray50@blu]

Do yourself a favour, do it yourself. It will cost you a lot of money, and could not work.

I was told by Jobseekers to do one, and did one with them, and it was crap, I did one for myself at home, and it worked.

Most employers only ask for the last five years, and what qualifications you have etc, and that is it, all l did was l wrote out two CV's and asked a mate of mine to choose one, and the rest is history.

[superbiatch]

There are loads of helpful websites advising how best to lay out your CV - just google them, i'm with Arthur on this - save your money and do it yourself.

Only make sure you get more than just a mate to look it over Maybe a college tutor, teacher or someone whom you look up to as a professional.

[Hom3r]

Do you have MS Word?

On there are templates for CVs/Resumes, I have used this for ages, and I was asked was the CV done professionaly

[Sasha222]

Originally Posted by xathras1982

Hiya there,
has anyone had there CV professionally written? I'm looking at getting my CV reviewed and I'm looking for some recommendations.

Thanks in advance

Also put your last job first and so on and dont put it on a binder as the bosses dont like that for the simple reason when they are filing it takes up a lot of space in the filing cabinet

[xathras1982]

Hi there,
Thanks for the replies, apologises, I probably needed to add a bit more information on.

I've got a good CV at the moment and a good job, but i think to make the step further I need to get a more professional and winning CV.

I was hoping to see if anyone out there has used anybody and what the feedback was.

[Hom3r]

In addition to to what I said about using word for templates, buy a very good quality paper.

I was given some 100gsm textured paper (cream) which is worth about £25 for 500 sheets, I printed my CV on this at the laser printers max 1200dpi

[Ignitionnet]

Much as I hate to disagree with the man above don't worry about paper, chances are you'll be sending the CV electronically anyway.

Keep the CV to the point, factual, make sure it has all the buzz words employers in your field get horny over. If you can get all the needed information in a single page that's a bonus, failing that two is fine.

Remember, recruiters are extremely busy, they will spend less than 30 seconds looking at each CV initially, giving it a quick scan for the right key words.

Keep it simple, if they want your life story that's what interviews are for, companies of any size will have a check list, make sure the skills, etc, in your CV tick the boxes.

EDIT: If unsure about the buzzwords look at job advertisements online, they'll tell you most of them, along with checking out LinkedIn, a very strong resource.

EDIT2: To give you an idea of how buzzword heavy things can get, here's me, taken from my own LinkedIn profile - the big thing for me is that when a recruiter is scanning the CV, either with their own eyes or using a computerised find, they get plenty of 'hits'.

Summary:

High quality experience with carrier class high availability networks. Experience with broadband cable and DSL, as well as dialup through Lucent and Nortel equipment. Routing and switching experience with Cisco, Juniper and Extreme Networks equipment.

Experience with BGP, OSPF, ISIS, EIGRP, RIPv2 routing protocols, extensive experience of switched and routed networks and also ATM both in the context of leased ATM circuits and DSL bearers.

Strong DOCSIS and DSL access technology skills, PacketCable, VoIP, video over IP, MPLS.
Experience of load balancing and server farm technologies through Cisco and Foundry load balancing hardware, IPSec and security through Juniper / Netscreen firewalls and Cisco PIX.

More recently experience also with Riverbed's Wide Area Data Services equipment, application acceleration and enhancement.

Specialties:

MPLS, Nortel Dialup, DSL, DOCSIS, PacketCable, DVB, CATV, HFC, Voice and Video over IP, Cisco ATM, Forethought / Marconi ATM. IP, RIP, OSPF, IS-IS, BGP, STP, IPSec. CRS-1, GSR, Cisco 10k both uBR 10k and L2TP aggregation, 7xxx series routers, 65xx and below switches. Foundry ServerIron load balancing, Cisco Application Control Engine, Cisco PIX firewall and Firewall Service Module. Juniper routers. Juniper / Netscreen Firewalls. Wide Area Data Services / application acceleration.

[Halcyon]

A few tips:

- Be consistant. Don't use ten different tyes of font aligned differently. Keep things consistant throughout.

- Font size. Not too big and not too small.
Space things out into sections.

- Keep it to one side of A4 if possible. You dont need to list every single job and some qualifications can be grouped together. eg. 10 GCSE's including maths and science (B-C)

- Don't write CV or curriculum vitae at the top. Everyone knows it is a CV. Put your name in bold. Make it easily identifiable and so they know who you are.

- Don't use sentences. Employers wil take a quick look. Use bullet points to make your skills and qualifications easily readable and stand out.

- I normally structure mine in this order...

1. Contact details.
2. Employment history.
3. Quaifications.
4. Additional skills and interests.

- Finish your CV with interests / hobbies. Even if it is just to put sports you do or an interesting thing you have done. It shows the employer you are motivated and have interests and basically not boring.

Once you have done it, give it to someone else and ask them how easy it is to read. How easy is it to find out what you are good at.

The main selling part will be in your cover letter.
You should nearly always include a cover letter with your CV and this should be specific to the job you are applying for.

Make sure you mention the following points in the cover letter...

1. Why you are applying for the job.
2. What makes you the right person for the job.
3. What additional skills you can bring to the job and the company.
4. Previous experiences that demonstrate the skills that would help you in this job.
5. How you fit in to the organisation, good team player, etc.
6. Don't say something if you cant give an example.

- Spell check isnt good at everything. Use it but then print a copy of your CV and cover letter.
Get someone else to read it.

Hope this helps.

[Hom3r]

An important thing to remember is with hobbies becareful.

if you are going for jobs that are working on you own don't fill hobbies with team hobbies.

Likewise if you are going for a team job don't put solo hobbies (fisshing etc)

---------- Post added at 13:03 ---------- Previous post was at 13:01 ----------

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

Much as I hate to disagree with the man above don't worry about paper, chances are you'll be sending the CV electronically anyway.

True, but if you do print you can feel the difference between budget paper and High quality paper.

[Ignitionnet]

Again purely my opinion hobbies have no place on a CV. This could just relate to the CVs I've seen which are largely technical / engineering. Interests are another matter for the interview, the CV is to get past the first 'cuts' and get to the next stage.

Recruiters aren't going to have the time to read through an entire CV word for word including interests.

Again this is just my experience and would I'm sure vary depending on the company and industry no doubt.

The ideal CV is customised slightly to each and every job you apply for though, not just the covering letter should change.

[Escapee]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

Again purely my opinion hobbies have no place on a CV. This could just relate to the CVs I've seen which are largely technical / engineering. Interests are another matter for the interview, the CV is to get past the first 'cuts' and get to the next stage.

Recruiters aren't going to have the time to read through an entire CV word for word including interests.

Again this is just my experience and would I'm sure vary depending on the company and industry no doubt.

The ideal CV is customised slightly to each and every job you apply for though, not just the covering letter should change.

Having been in the position of looking through lots of CVs and interviewing engineering applicants, I can say that hobbies are of an interest to the technical interviewers.

I admit hobbies are of no interest to HR, but then again in my past experience HR in larger companies take very little interest in a persons technical ability when it comes to interviewing someone. I have been quite shocked at HRs suggestion about which candidates are suitable!

I always put hobbies on a single line at the end of my CV.

[xathras1982]

Well, i must say, I seemed to have started a nice little debate here.

What i've decided to do, is go ahead decide popular interest and purchase a CV writing service to provide a current overhaul of what I have, with the additional of some spectulative letters,etc...

To keep in-line with the rules of the board, I'm not going to post company names, prices etc... But i thought it was pretty reasonsible, the proof will be in the pudding.

[Pyramid CV's]

Originally Posted by xathras1982

Hiya there,
has anyone had there CV professionally written? I'm looking at getting my CV reviewed and I'm looking for some recommendations.

Thanks in advance

Hiya
Are you still looking at having your CV reviewed? I am an experienced senior recruiter and headhunter who has many valuable years experience in reviewing and writing candidates CV's. Having recently had my second child I am in the process of setting up my own business, where I am going to be focusing on CV writing and Interview techniques.

Please do not hesitate to contact me should you like to discuss things further.

[Richard M]

If you're applying for a technical position:

- don't send it from @aol.com
- don't include your school/college qualifications unless you really are just out of school
- include any work-related interests such as working on open source projects, but don't bother writing "I like music"
- don't put a reason for leaving after each job listed (of which there should only be 2-3), save this for the interview and think of good reasons why before you turn up.

Also remember that a CV is just as important for the information you don't put on it - you want them to offer you an interview so they can learn more, but put enough good gems on it that they'd be reluctant to bin it without meeting in person.