Quality of CV's

maxwell smart

I have been tasked with recruiting 3 sales people for the company I work for. I thought it would be easy in this climate, but after going through 125 CV's this morning only 2 are any use and even then its a bit of a reach for one of them.

If I can give some advice to people, when sending the CV have your name somewhere in the file name, don't just send the file named 'cv'.I had 27 of these this morning and nearly just deleted them, instead I renamed all of them to correspond with the sender.
And don't have it called 'Joe Bloggs sales jobs CV'... that's obvious that you are working the wording. People know you are anyway, just don't be so blatant.

And as a contact email address, perhaps have a think before you put your regular one in...'jenniehotstuff@whatever' gives a certain impression!!

Also, do people even look at the job they are applying for? Try to send a relevant CV.

The length of the CV needs to be 2-3 pages maximum. And the font, please pick something simple and plain.

And personally I don't like .PDF CV's but that is just me.

Also, please, please, please check both the grammar and the spelling. There is no excuse with spell check.

Hopefully some of these points will help you look at your own CV and improve it a little.

jimmy rabbit snr.

maxwell smart wrote: »

I have been tasked with recruiting 3 sales people for the company I work for. I thought it would be easy in this climate, but after going through 125 CV's this morning only 2 are any use and even then its a bit of a reach for one of them.

If I can give some advice to people, when sending the CV have your name somewhere in the file name, don't just send the file named 'cv'.I had 27 of these this morning and nearly just deleted them, instead I renamed all of them to correspond with the sender.
And don't have it called 'Joe Bloggs sales jobs CV'... that's obvious that you are working the wording. People know you are anyway, just don't be so blatant.

And as a contact email address, perhaps have a think before you put your regular one in...'jenniehotstuff@whatever' gives a certain impression!!

Also, do people even look at the job they are applying for? Try to send a relevant CV.

The length of the CV needs to be 2-3 pages maximum. And the font, please pick something simple and plain.

And personally I don't like .PDF CV's but that is just me.

Also, please, please, please check both the grammar and the spelling. There is no excuse with spell check.

Hopefully some of these points will help you look at your own CV and improve it a little.

what kind of sales jobs and location

maxwell smart

New Product Launch based in Dublin

Mill21

Thanks for the advice, I'm a Business and French graduate looking for a Marketing or Sales job. I assume that you will be looking for someone with several years experience as seems to be the case with most jobs I'm seeing available in Ireland. However if you open to looking at graduates pm me.

Ps. Totally agree with some bad CVs. I worked for a recruitment agency in Paris and the amount of bad CVs was ridulous from a range of nationalites, but if you think irish and european ones are bad see some of the indian ones!

jimmy rabbit snr.

in store selling door 2 door or b2b

maxwell smart

b2b

fasttalkerchat

I got my CV down to one page for applying for part time retail jobs. I'm starting to think I condensed it too much.

fergalr

(Came across this from the main page).

maxwell smart wrote: »

And personally I don't like .PDF CV's but that is just me.

I'm surprised at this. Is this a frequent perception? I'd have advised people that PDF was a good format to submit a CV in.

maxwell smart wrote: »

Also, please, please, please check both the grammar and the spelling. There is no excuse with spell check.

Spell checkers unfortunately do not catch everything.
Its worth reading over a list of common grammar errors.

E.g. This website:
http://www.caterer.com/careers-advice/cvs/8-common-grammar-mistakes-on-cvs-and-cover-letters

talks about common grammar mistakes on CVs and cover letters.

Incidentally, number 4 on the list says its supposed to be 'CVs'.

maxwell smart

Regarding the .PDF thing, its a personal thing. The main issue I have with it is downloading them to my laptop to review, they automatically open before I can save them. Also the format means that they will not look like the other CV's...it really is personal though.

So it should be 'CVs'? well I was talking more about something like this 'daily tasks where to visit the clients we where Supping to a.....' just an example

murphym7

maxwell smart wrote: »

Regarding the .PDF thing, its a personal thing. The main issue I have with it is downloading them to my laptop to review, they automatically open before I can save them. Also the format means that they will not look like the other CV's...it really is personal though.

So it should be 'CVs'? well I was talking more about something like this 'daily tasks where to visit the clients we where Supping to a.....' just an example

We all dislike PDF's in our place too - I echo most of your points on CV creation too.

On cover letters, this is me personally though, I do not read them. especially for high volume roles like this one you are recruiting for. I am not going to read 100 cover letters and 100 CV’s. This is not advice by the way, just my personal preference.

Atomic Pineapple

Wait, so you would prefer a CV in .doc format over a .pdf format?

RedXIV

I actually remember that from years ago, getting told to send your CV as a .PDF AND as a .doc so the interviewer can choose which to look at but I thought it would be overkill. perhaps not by the sounds of this?

listermint

Quite surprised by the PDF and .Doc thing tbh. I suppose its more down to the ability of the receiver. If they are comfortable with certain formats on their desktop/laptop little things that dont mean much in the real world can annoy.

Best bet is x2

Gurgle

Quality of CV's

Good old grocer's apostrophe
It actually types itself in any post relating to punctuation.

re: docs vs pdfs
I'm really surprised that anyone would rather get a doc, considering how formats get screwed up between different versions of word.

maxwell smart

I prefer .doc format as I am (now) an old codger (almost).

Eoin

When you're dealing with an agency, they're probably going to want .doc so they can slap their logo over your contact details so the company has to go through the agency.

Personally I don't really mind PDF, because I had the cop on to install an alternative to Adobe Acrobloat reader which doesn't take up an inordinate amount of memory.

Some HR staff might have a process of copying and pasting sections of CVs into some sort of internal recruitment form and PDFs can be a pain for that. Or they might not be that technically literate and it might annoy them. There's worse things you can do to annoy someone viewing CVs though.

As an aside, if formatting across different versions of Word is an issue, then your CV layout probably needs to be simplified.

maxwell smart

Switching between pdf and doc would not normally annoy me, but when you get (as of now) 250 CV's (i'm sticking with that apostrophe now:D) it becomes a pain.
It was really just some advice for anyone applying for a job, the sheer volume of applications for jobs these days needs to be taken into account by people applying. I am reading every CV, would anyone else if they had to make the effort of switching between formats?

jd83

At least with a pdf your guaranteed that the document you send will look the same when the receiver opens it. I know usually word docs are fine, but sometime if the receiver is using an older version of office or using open office, or not too good with a computer and opens it arseways it can open and the formatting can be messed up which can reflect poorly on the applicant even though its not their fault.

banie01

fergalr wrote: »

(Came across this from the main page).



I'm surprised at this. Is this a frequent perception? I'd have advised people that PDF was a good format to submit a CV in.

Speaking as someone who has worked in recruitment, .pdf format CV's are a nightmare!
While its good for printing and actual viewing in hardcopy, its a pain for database management using the software most Irish recruiters use, also online talent management pipelines such as taleo and ICIMS don't work well with .pdf.
Most recruitment database search software works on boolean search and apart from 1 software package I've used none could search .pdf documents on the database.
Whenever I received .pdf CVs i would always mail back and request a .doc/word compatible version so that I could add it to my database and have it searchable.

To the OP I totally agree with you, the standard of 70% of the CVs I see is laughably poor, particularly with IT grads!
Its as if they seem to assume that because they have a degree they don't need to actually sell themselves and their skillset.

theholyghost

maxwell smart wrote: »

Also, please, please, please check both the grammar and the spelling. There is no excuse with spell check.

This disturbs me, the OP doesn't know how to use an apostrophe or how to pluralise "CV" but is going to judge someone's suitability for a job based on their grammar. I'm not having a go at the OP in particular but it bothers me a bit that someone applying for a job might give a poor first impression despite being correct because their potential employer is labouring under some grammatical misconceptions.

Again, I'm not aiming this at the OP per se but you never know what the person who reads your CV "thinks".

Raekwon

When I'm job hunting I always send both a .pdf & .doc CV just to give receiver the preference of the format that they are used too.

I used to always send a .pdf as my was CV was formatted with tables and it used to look awful on older versions of word or open office. I actually started to receive emails back from HR telling me that they couldn't open my CV and to send them a word doc instead.

The one thing that I hated about word docs is when recruiters would edit them before passing it on to a company. I remember once a recruiter took some important information out of my CV because they wanted to fit it all on one page. I only found this out at an interview but luckily I had a few spare copies of the original which the interviewer described as being "much better".

maxwell smart

theholyghost wrote: »

This disturbs me, the OP doesn't know how to use an apostrophe or how to pluralise "CV" but is going to judge someone's suitability for a job based on their grammar. I'm not having a go at the OP in particular but it bothers me a bit that someone applying for a job might give a poor first impression despite being correct because their potential employer is labouring under some grammatical misconceptions.

Again, I'm not aiming this at the OP per se but you never know what the person who reads your CV "thinks".

To be pedantic about the whole 'CV' thing, the actual correct plural is CV, as it is Latin.
But I wouldn't be too bothered about a misplaced apostrophe or comma, its the way people use the language in describing their experience.

im invisible

it's actually acceptable either way, in things like 90's, CVs etc.

Eoin

Let's not turn this into a big pedantic argument please. There's other forums for that. And yes, I said forums not fora. maxwell smart has made some good points, regardless of whether the apostrophe should be there or not.

Anyway, keep the formatting simple, and the word doc should be backwards / cross platform compatible.

maxwell smart makes a good point. The more CVs you're dealing with, the less time you have to make decisions. This means that it takes less to make annoy the person vetting them. As I said, it doesn't bother me, but it might bother others. The filename is a simple but good idea too.

What personally annoys me is CVs that are a massive wall of text. Use an extra page and/or trim down the text please. It felt like getting slapped in the face by a page from a dictionary. This is probably a bit irrational, but I absolutely hate reading documents that use Times New Roman. It's designed for print. You can't go wrong with Arial IMO.

fasttalkerchat

maxwell smart wrote: »

To be pedantic about the whole 'CV' thing, the actual correct plural is CV, as it is Latin.

Oh, well spotted!

phoenix999

maxwell smart wrote: »

To be pedantic about the whole 'CV' thing, the actual correct plural is CV, as it is Latin.
But I wouldn't be too bothered about a misplaced apostrophe or comma, its the way people use the language in describing their experience.

Spot on. The correct plural term is "Curricula Vitae". So both "CV's" and "CVs" are incorrect.

fergalr

phoenix999 wrote: »

Spot on. The correct plural term is "Curricula Vitae". So both "CV's" and "CVs" are incorrect.

I think 'CVs' is fine - as its used 'CV' is basically a singular English word in common use.

You'd have to be pretty hardcore to use 'Curricula Vitae', but whatever works, as long as the meaning is clear, I guess!




curricula vitarum

Eoin

Eoin wrote: »

Let's not turn this into a big pedantic argument please.

*ahem*

maxwell smart

I started this thread to try to tell people that there are jobs out there and employers are willing to give people a chance, but people looking for work have to maximise their own chances when applying for jobs.
These are mistakes I see all the time, but they are unnecessary mistakes.

At least give yourself a chance when applying for a position.

fasttalkerchat

Eoin wrote: »

*ahem*

I see your point about not wanting an argument and usually Grammar Nazis piss me off too, but spelling and grammar are an important part of a CV!

gandalf

Are you looking for any more CV's to add to the pile

Eoin

fasttalkerchat wrote: »

I see your point about not wanting an argument and usually Grammar Nazis piss me off too, but spelling and grammar are an important part of a CV!

I absolutely agree - but everyone's going on about the punctuation in the thread title!

I am going through lots of CVs CV's Curricula Vitae resumes at the moment, and I am finding it strange how some people think that what they're sending in is a good advertisement for them.

Writing a good CV isn't easy - it takes me ages, with lots of constant reviews and updates. But some of the silly errors or just really off-putting layouts I am seeing should have been spotted.

If you're in a specialist profession, then you might need someone in the same field to review it for you, so you know what particular points you should be emphasising. But also get anyone with a good grasp of English to proof read it and weed out the silly mistakes too.

Also, read the job description and make sure your CV matches what they're looking for. I'd say most people should not be sending the same CV in for every role they're applying for. It should be tweaked for each application.

Quorum

Raekwon wrote: »

The one thing that I hated about word docs is when recruiters would edit them before passing it on to a company. I remember once a recruiter took some important information out of my CV because they wanted to fit it all on one page. I only found this out at an interview but luckily I had a few spare copies of the original which the interviewer described as being "much better".

Don't get me started on recruitment agencies. :mad: Luckily the field I wish to pursue means I should be able to cut out the inept middle man for a fair few years at least.

Honey-ec

maxwell smart wrote: »

I have been tasked with recruiting 3 sales people for the company I work for. I thought it would be easy in this climate, but after going through 125 CV's this morning only 2 are any use and even then its a bit of a reach for one of them.

If I can give some advice to people, when sending the CV have your name somewhere in the file name, don't just send the file named 'cv'.I had 27 of these this morning and nearly just deleted them, instead I renamed all of them to correspond with the sender.
And don't have it called 'Joe Bloggs sales jobs CV'... that's obvious that you are working the wording. People know you are anyway, just don't be so blatant.

And as a contact email address, perhaps have a think before you put your regular one in...'jenniehotstuff@whatever' gives a certain impression!!

Also, do people even look at the job they are applying for? Try to send a relevant CV.

The length of the CV needs to be 2-3 pages maximum. And the font, please pick something simple and plain.

And personally I don't like .PDF CV's but that is just me.

Also, please, please, please check both the grammar and the spelling. There is no excuse with spell check.

Hopefully some of these points will help you look at your own CV and improve it a little.

Jesus Christ, I would have thought all of those would be absolute no-brainers. Are people really that idiotic? Scary.

Gurgle

Quorum wrote: »

Don't get me started on recruitment agencies.

I never understood why companies use recruitment agencies. I have never met or spoken to an agent who even understands the difference between electrical and electronic engineer, never mind the myriad of completely different jobs within these fields.

antodeco

A bit of advice I can give in relation to CVs

• Bullet point your key skills.
• Dont have long sentences/paragraphs. Keep it simple
• When applying for a job with similar skills to you, ensure the bullet points matches what the ideal candidate skills are. This allows easier glancing to match skills to expertese
• Dont be afraid to use bold to highlight the names of the companies you work for. Dont have everything bold, but rather the headings

the_syco

Eoin wrote: »

When you're dealing with an agency, they're probably going to want .doc so they can slap their logo over your contact details so the company has to go through the agency.

Also, they'll take your contact details off the CV, so the company has to contact you through the recruitment agency...

banie01 wrote: »

To the OP I totally agree with you, the standard of 70% of the CVs I see is laughably poor, particularly with IT grads!

You'd wonder if the problem is that this is how they've been taught to write the CV by their lecturer.

=-=

Most companies that use recruitment agencies seem to have either a sh|te HR, or no HR at all!

the_syco

antodeco wrote: »

When applying for a job with similar skills to you, ensure the bullet points matches what the ideal candidate skills are. This allows easier glancing to match skills to expertese

On this point; ensure that the relevant skills are at the top of the list. You want it to be noticed straight away!

Surveyor11

It's actually resumé, but anyway....:D

I've been looking at CVs in my field (construction consultancy) of late. Here's what I see as a common list of mistakes:

Mixing up fonts - keep it consistent - arial / times new roman or whatever tickles your fancy, no fancy fonts

Qualifications - BSc not BSC / BSc / Bsc
A degree is a bachelor's degree not batchelor's (they make beans:D)

misuse of apostrophes - cats' vs cat's.
Your / you're - your car, you're going to....
Their / there - Their house, there is a house
where / were getting mixed up - were 2 of us, where are we going to
too / to - too much, I'm going to Dublin
Than / then - more than, then I undertook

Also when it comes to units - make sure any units you're talking about are properly described - superscript m2 (square meters), sq. ft. used as appropriate. If your job involves units that are particular to the industry (for example, a lab job may talk about micrometers - μm) take the time to correctly describe the units. It shows a level of attention to detail.

I'm far from perferct when it comes to grammar, but in my game we expect reports to be written well with minimal spelling mistakes. Grammar needs to be well constructed - it takes time for people to pour over reports and correct them.

Surveyor11

Surveyor11 wrote: »

Grammar needs to be well constructed - it takes time for people to pour over reports and correct them.

Honey-ec wrote: »

Jesus Christ, I would have thought all of those would be absolute no-brainers. Are people really that idiotic? Scary.

I would have thought so too.

I usually send CVs in .doc, but it's annoying when the recruiter then forwards on an edited version claiming skills I don't have. I had to have a word with one, once, and was told I could tell the employer myself. How about you just don't lie in the first place

Surveyor11

em, I meant to say - getting pore / pour mixed up:o

Eoin

Gurgle wrote: »

I never understood why companies use recruitment agencies. I have never met or spoken to an agent who even understands the difference between electrical and electronic engineer, never mind the myriad of completely different jobs within these fields.

Agencies can be very useful. If you had to deal with 10s if not 100s of CVs, you'd understand why.

the_syco wrote:

Most companies that use recruitment agencies seem to have either a sh|te HR, or no HR at all!

That's not true at all.

An agency has a better chance of finding a candidate who might be interested in a change but isn't actively applying for jobs. Given the choice, I'll engage an agency every time. I've found that I tend to get a better quality of candidate in general.

This might become less of an advantage for agencies in the future though, with LinkedIn's head-hunter service for companies becoming more popular.

I think a lot of people have had bad experience with some recruiters, and that makes them think that they don't do anything at all. But the good ones do a good bit of work for their customers; who are the employers, not the candidates.

Edit: shame this is getting side tracked into either a bitch about agencies and a silly pedantic argument. There's been some useful tips about CVs mentioned here.

Nody

Agencies matter if you want to fill specific types of positions; for example AP Manager with 5 years experience and able to handle a team of 200 people in Ireland and offshore. That's where an agency can help you as a company (to weed out the gazillion applications not meeting the requirement) and get you possible candidates. Those agencies don't approach your standard "We send all CVs to the company just in case" agencies that became popular during the boom days though and do add value to your process.

Another thing I'd add is the use of the EU CV layout; I got a CV once from a person with no work experience that was 5 pages because of it.

RATM

Gurgle wrote: »

I never understood why companies use recruitment agencies. I have never met or spoken to an agent who even understands the difference between electrical and electronic engineer, never mind the myriad of completely different jobs within these fields.

Well I run an a recruitment agency and do know the difference between the two so now you know one

Companies use us because there is a demand to outsource this type of work to people who are specialists in it. We also have economies of scale in advertising as we are paying and using it year round whereas a small employer isn't and therefore gets charged substantially higher rates. Anyway if agencies weren't better ( or at least as good as ) finding the right candidate than the employer doing it themselves then they will cease to exist. That hasn't happened and I don't expect it to anytime in the near future either- I have many satisfied clients who always get straight on the phone to me when they need staff- they don't even bother doing it themselves as I can do the job well for them and at a good price and they know my track record from previous candidates who were submitted. Over time I've gotten to know exactly the kind of staff they like to hire so now I only send them the right people with the right attitude which means they are only spending their time talking to the type of person they are likely to hire - it is my job to sift through and filter out everyone (90% of applications) who don't match their criteria or aren't a good cultural fit for their organisation.

We can also do recruitment a lot quicker as we generally aren't starting from scratch and will have candidates who weren't successful in other interviews (for whatever reason) but who might be the ideal fit for a new client who just came in the door. So what can be a 5-10 week process for an employer can sometimes be whittled down to as low as two weeks and that in itself is valuable to them- time is money after all.

I couldn't agree more with the OP- nearly half of the CVs I receive have some sort of a spelling mistake. I don't mind a missing apostrophe; it is more so the language contained within and spelling mistakes too. I'd love to throw up a few examples here to show people how bad it can get but even if I removed the personal details I could still find myself on the wrong side of data protection laws so I won't. But it tends to range from the really, really bad to the downright atrocious to the point that it is very frustrating to try to read.

I used to email people back and tell them 'sorry thanks but your CV has a pile of errors in it so I am not progressing your application any further on this occasion. I would advise you to address these problems with your CV before applying for any further positions', etc. I'd feel sorry for them so would take the time to let them know. But after a year of doing that I got sick of it as it is so common plus I figured that my time was better spent talking to good candidates who had the sense to have their CV proof read by someone else.

Many people moan and bitch about agencies not getting back to them- well it is harsh but if my time is wasted reading through a CV littered with errors then I won't be getting back to you. We make profit by filling positions for clients, we don't charge the candidate a penny and therefore owe them nothing and them likewise- I've been left high and dry by candidates plenty of times but I just have to get on with it. But if your CV isn't up to scratch then there is no point carrying on the conversation; it might be the reason why employers or agencies are not getting back to you. Sad but true.

Gurgle

RATM wrote: »

Well I run an a recruitment agency and do know the difference between the two so now you know one

Now I know of one who thinks he understands the different fields of engineering :P

Stark

maxwell smart wrote: »

And don't have it called 'Joe Bloggs sales jobs CV'... that's obvious that you are working the wording. People know you are anyway, just don't be so blatant.

I would have thought it was expected that you tailor your CV to the job you're applying for.

Nody

Stark wrote: »

I would have thought it was expected that you tailor your CV to the job you're applying for.

It is but you would not walk into an interview and state "Well as you're company likes X I'm going to mention it a lot"... An application and interview is like courting; you're both going to lie and hide things while trying to find out more about the other and if it's a good match.

RATM

Gurgle wrote: »

Now I know of one who thinks he understands the different fields of engineering :P

I don't claim to be an expert in engineering but I am building on my knowledge of it everyday. For example if I'm hiring software engineers and there is something I don't understand I ring up a software engineer who I have previously placed and ask him about the technicalities of the position I'm recruiting for. I try my level best to understand the skills and elements of the role that are fundamental to doing the job well. If I'm uncertain I can introduce technical tests to the equation on top of the interview process. What can I say, I do my best, I'm a lone recruiter and if if I don't find my clients good staff then I'm out of business. That hasn't happened (touch wood=) and my cleints come back to me for repeat business all the time so I guess I'm doing something right.

Anyway back on topic - there are some excellent resources online for people to put their CV together. It is vital that candidates focus intensely on this document and ensure it is fluid and tailored for the job you are applying for. And always always have someone else to proof read it- only this morning I had a CV come through where the candidate claimed to have "a great attention to detial"- I couldn't believe my eyes upon reading it but was left with no option but to eliminate them (because of this and another two errors). Talk about shooting yourself in the foot before the race even began.

Stark

Nody wrote: »

It is but you would not walk into an interview and state "Well as you're company likes X I'm going to mention it a lot"... An application and interview is like courting; you're both going to lie and hide things while trying to find out more about the other and if it's a good match.

Only a moron includes lies on a CV/in an interview. What I would do is if I was applying for say a software development job, then I would make cursory references to irrelevant experience like barman experience and include greater detail on my software development roles. If the job required specific skills, I'd make sure they were listed before skills that weren't specifically required. The most common complaint I hear from HR is that people send in generic CVs without any attempt to highlight what skills they have that are relevant to the job.

Posy

So if I am sending a CV, should I send it in both doc. and pdf just to be on the safe side if they don't specify either way; but doc. to recruitment agencies?

fasttalkerchat

Posy wrote: »

So if I am sending a CV, should I send it in both doc. and pdf just to be on the safe side if they don't specify either way; but doc. to recruitment agencies?

.doc can be edited easily so you don't wan't a recruitment agency to get it.
I like pdf but someone on a work computer may not have the necessary software so I have a .doc formatted version too.