What Looks Good On Your CV?

Kettleson

In my last year at school I was encouraged to go on a Geology Field Trip, the teacher saying "It'll look good on your CV".

But to date it has proved to have been of no advantage at all, and when asked at numerous recent interviews what skills could I bring to the company, detailing my week spent in the Peak District in 1998, does not seem to have made any impression on the panel.

I was wondering what looks good on your CV?

IM0

ashtrays

Drakares

Kettleson wrote: »

In my last year at school I was encouraged to go on a Geology Field Trip, the teacher saying "It'll look good on your CV".

If you want to be a geologist.

And intern geologist.

Working for free.

With a degree in geology.

And work experience for a minimum of a year.

Then I conclude that a day trip to look at rocks with some other teenagers will be of some astounding benefit. He's right. Don't fúck this up!

xzanti

Keeping it to 2 pages or less.

They don't want to know if you like ice skating and horse riding. Keep it short and to the point.

kneemos

Teachers or career guidance councillers don't have a clue what goes on in the real world in my experience.

mailforkev

Full length body shot.

giant_midget

Large gaps in employment history and spelling errors always looks good on a CV

summerskin

Doesn't matter.

I just throw half the CVs I receive straight into the bin. That way I avoid employing unlucky people.

mattjack

Kettleson wrote: »

In my last year at school I was encouraged to go on a Geology Field Trip, the teacher saying "It'll look good on your CV".

But to date it has proved to have been of no advantage at all, and when asked at numerous recent interviews what skills could I bring to the company, detailing my week spent in the Peak District in 1998, does not seem to have made any impression on the panel.

I was wondering what looks good on your CV?

Have you considered a 2 cv ? http://www.google.ie/imgres?hl=en&safe=off&sa=X&tbo=d&biw=800&bih=485&tbm=isch&tbnid=SRZtrZZCEm2hlM:&imgrefurl=http://www.themotorreport.com.au/350/citroen-2cv-revived&docid=onJh6i9clil77M&imgurl=http://www.themotorreport.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/citroen-2cv-original.jpg&w=440&h=268&ei=RrMcUZSsF8SWhQfQw4DgBQ&zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,r:7,s:0,i:100&iact=rc&dur=1128&sig=101514873492788278823&page=2&tbnh=172&tbnw=278&start=6&ndsp=9&tx=211&ty=72

2ndcoming

"Marge, according to your resumé, you invented this machine!"

Martyn1989

Try to avoid putting useless info like address, phone number and email on it, not necessary.

notnumber

Links to facebook pictures showing you puking up in a niteclub toilet..shows your human side.Employers like to hire humans.

pickarooney

Find out who's going to be interviewing you and stalk them for a while to see what kind of hobbies they have, where they like to hang out etc., see is there any common ground.

Then put 'stalking' in the hobbies section.

CreepingDeath

Kettleson wrote: »

In my last year at school I was encouraged to go on a Geology Field Trip, the teacher saying "It'll look good on your CV".

Maybe they thought you'd be breaking rocks in a hard labour prison camp?

Duggy747

The production speed at which my orphan slaves operate at.

grenache

Employers like to hear about any voluntary work you've done, it shows you are selfless and willing to be part of a team. Also plug your interests i.e. reading, creative writing, playing an instrument, etc.

Sell yourself. We get so many CVs in work and 98% of them are the same boring old $hite. Nothing interesting or unique about them.

Czarcasm

kneemos wrote: »

Teachers or career guidance councillers don't have a clue what goes on in the real world in my experience.

Any teacher or career guidance counsellor will be able to tell you that in the real world attention to detail is important in any walk of life and that that there is no excuse for silly spelling mistakes on your CV. I was always told in school- if you are unsure of a word, look it up in your dictionary.

People nowadays really have no excuse, and yet I see it on CVs day in and day out. You can have best laid out CV with plenty of educational qualifications and experience, but if you make silly errors on what is essentially a document as important as your birth certificate, it's just a display of pure laziness, that you don't care enough about the job and making a good presentation of yourself if you won't even take the few minutes to spell check your work.

MurdyWurdy

Photographs - the cheesier the better. I used to work in recruitment and got a CV in with two photogrpahs of the guy (that looked to be professionally taken) at the top. One was him with his suit jacket thrown over this shoulder looking seriously at the camera, the other was him sitting down with his laptop on his knee laughing like a mad thing.

8 years later and it's the only CV of all the thousands I saw that I remember. I even remember his name

He was Austrian and I believe it is common there - maybe we need to bring it into Ireland!

Lollipops23

I worked in recruitment for a while- honestly relevant experience is the first and foremost thing that's looked at on a CV.

I always tell people to steer clear of listing "soft skills"- ie. attention to detail, good time management, good communicator, unless you can give a specific example of each of these (I manage a large team of people, so clear communication is essential. I have been told I possess this quality etc).

I definitely don't need to know that you spent your J1 in San Diego in 2005.

Czarcasm

grenache wrote: »

Employers like to hear about any voluntary work you've done, it shows you are selfless and willing to be part of a team. Also plug your interests i.e. reading, creative writing, playing an instrument, etc.

Sell yourself. We get so many CVs in work and 98% of them are the same boring old $hite. Nothing interesting or unique about them.

Great point about voluntary work, but the days of the "hobbies" heading, followed by a list of "reading, writing, socialising" are long gone, along with putting the parish priest and the school principal down as referees!

The second bolded part brings up another important point- that you should tailor your CV according to the job you are applying for. Research the company on the web and find out as much information as you can on what they do and who they are!

elefant

Focus on experience relevant to the job you want in the particular company you are applying to. Leave out the filler. Like everything in writing it's about putting down what you think your audience wants.

Lollipops23

Lollipops23 wrote: »

I worked in recruitment for a while- honestly relevant experience is the first and foremost thing that's looked at on a CV.

I always tell people to steer clear of listing "soft skills"- ie. attention to detail, good time management, good communicator, unless you can give a specific example of each of these (I manage a large team of people, so clear communication is essential. I have been told I possess this quality etc).

I definitely don't need to know that you spent your J1 in San Diego in 2005.

I've been asked about my J1 several times. Employers seem to like the 'interesting' stuff - time spent abroad, hobbies and interests.

Plazaman

I like to include in middle of my list work experience :

Mar 1993 - Nov 1995 Professional Hitman for the Garcia/Lopez Drug Cartel, Bogata Columbia

I do enjoy when interviewers go from the normal look to the wide eyed look as they read through it and when the beads of sweat start forming on their heads. Makes interviews more relaxing on my part and I've gotten every job interview I ever attended.

Oh yeah and don't put down social networking, watching TV, playing XBox or listening to music as a hobby. I have seen those recently on some CV's :rolleyes:

TonyStark

I got this "CV Advice" from a recruiter... needless to say they were dropped shortly afterwards.

How to update your cv - just an idea …. Please send it back as a word
document


1) Make sure your margins are as slim as possible


2) Make sure your font size is 10


3) All new sentences starting from the Left Hand margin


4) Just an idea perhaps have an introduction paragraph - a synopsis of your
skill set and most importantly what you are really strong at / passionate
about
/ if you code at home etc. ( ie your unique selling points / why would you
be
good to work on the persons team ?)


5) Education / Certs next / Awards - highlight the results if they were
strong


6) Work experience - give a brief description of the company that you work
for and what they do. How complex their systems are. Are they
mission critical for example or how big the user base is for example.


Explain what you have done within the role - perhaps outline a couple of
projects - listing the technologies that you have used and most importantly
what
you have done with those technologies. Your cv will be read by Technical
Architects / Senior Software Engineers or CTO's so its really important to
spell
it out , exactly what your role is ( example you might code 80% of the time
and
deal with external or internal users the rest of the time OR sometimes
people
are Senior Developers realistically only code 50% of the day where by in
another
company they could code 95% of the day every company is different !! ) So
if you
code most of the day the example the explanations you give on your work
experience / project work should portray this therefore there is probably
no
point in saying I code 90% of the time if you know what I mean )


The type of applications you have worked on ( again for example Winforms /
Web based / Web Services / Intranet / Enterprise applications etc ) - and
what
you exactly code in ( example Visual Studio / LINQ / Entity Framework / C#
/ MVC
for example ) . The environment - example Scrum / Agile .. / Size of the
team


7) Your cv should be approx 3 to 4 pages long ….. On reading it back to
yourself you should get the feel that if a stranger read it they would
technically understand what you have achieved and what you do on a day to
day
bases ..


8) Interests and hobbies - always good to list . If you code outside of
work
/ read technical books / follow blogs / magazines list this here … shows
you
have a passion for the industry.

Enright

Robbed from another site! But they made me laugh


ACHIEVEMENTS – “I came first in the school long distance race”
HOBBIES – “Horse rideing,like going pub when havent got my kids.looking after kids and doing stuff with them when they anit at school.”
EMAIL ADDRESS – Lazysod@……
ACHIEVEMENTS – “Being sober”
ABOUT ME – “My favourite colour is Toupe, cos it rhymes with Dope”
REASON FOR LEAVING – “It was hard work”
PERSONAL PROFILE – “I be no stranger to double-entry. I loves numbers, and my wife and I loves journals and ledgers! Can also do tricky sums when I puts my mind to it. Computor litrate.”
COVERING LETTER – “This is my CV I am intrested in any job opening use have avaiable if u could please send a vercation that you reciceved the email”
PERSONAL PROFILE – “I do have convictions (drug offences) which are spent some 30 years ago for when I was 16-18 and have a caution for 4 years ago for criminal damage”
HOBBIES – “Marital Arts” (Possibly meant martial arts?)
KEY SKILLS – “Perfectionist with a keen I for details.”
HOBBIES – “Space Travel”
EMAIL ADDRESS – Batfacedgirl@………..
EMPLOYMENT HISTORY - “Whilst working in this role, I had intercourse with a variety of people”
HOBBIES – “i like playing sport, which i fined gives me a winning appitite for life’”
KEY SKILLS: “I would like to assure you that I am a hardly working person.”
HOBBIES – “enjoy cooking Chinese and Italians”
JOB HISTORY – “Career break in 1999 to renovate my horse”
SKILLS – “Fantastic ability in multi-tasting.”
SIZE OF EMPLOYER: “Very tall, probably over 6’5″.”
SKILLS – “Speak English and Spinach.”
STRENGTHS – “Ability to meet deadlines while maintaining composer.”
SKILLS – “I have technical skills that will simply take your breath away.”
MARITAL STATUS:- “Celibate”
SKILLS – From an IT Engineer, “Have you tried turning it off and on again?”
EMAIL ADDRESS – hotsexyluv@…….
KEYS SKILLS – keeping family home clean, tidy and hygienaic undertaking basic DIY.operating domestic taskslike cleaning,washing,cooking.dealing with emerengencies smoothly.dealing with health issues,superivsing,supporting,guiding and organising children.
CV GAP – Candidate explained his gap in employment by saying it was because he was getting over the death of his cat for 3 months!
KEY SKILLS – “But wait…there’s more. You get all this business knowledge plus a grasp of marketing that is second nature.”
PRINTED CV – Candidate sent over their CV printed on the back of their current employers headed company paper
SKILLS – “I can type without looking at thekeyboard.”
JOB HISTORY - “Left last four jobs only because the managers were completely unreasonable”
SKILLS – “I am a rabid typist”
HOBBIES – “My interests include cooking dogs and interesting people”
COVERING LETTER – “I am extremely loyal to my current employer….Feel free to ring my office if you are interested in my CV”
KEY ACHIEVEMENTS – “Received a plague for Salesperson of the Year.”
EDUCATION – “I am about to enrol on a Business and Finance Degree with the Open University. I feel that this qualification will prove detrimental to me for future success.”
HOBBIES: “donating blood – 12 litres so far.”
KEY SKILLS: “Assisted with filing, billing, printing and coping”
KEY ACHIEVEMENTS – “Oversight of entire department.”
EDUCATION - “University: August 1890 to May 1993″
WORK EXPERIENCE –“ I’m working today in a furniture factory as a drawer”
EMAIL ADDRESS – homeboy@……
KEY SKILLS - “I have extensive experience with foreign accents.”
QUALIFICATIONS – “Here are my qualifications for you to overlook.”
COVER LETTER – “Please disregard the attached CV; it’s totally outdated”
REASON FOR LEAVING – “After receiving advice from several different angels, I have decided to pursue a new line of work.”
KEY SKILLS – “Am a perfectionist and rarely if if ever forget details.”
WORK EXPERIENCE – “Night stalker in Tesco”
HOBBIES – “painting my toenails in varying colours”

MurdyWurdy

The emails in that are a good point, especially when I did grad recruitment. If your email address is [EMAIL="sexylilkitten69@xxx"]sexylilkitten69@xxx[/EMAIL] you need to get a new one for job hunting. Some of the addresses we saw were unreal.

grenache

Czarcasm wrote: »

Great point about voluntary work, but the days of the "hobbies" heading, followed by a list of "reading, writing, socialising" are long gone, along with putting the parish priest and the school principal down as referees!

The second bolded part brings up another important point- that you should tailor your CV according to the job you are applying for. Research the company on the web and find out as much information as you can on what they do and who they are!

Well, I work in wine, and one of my hobbies was reading wine books, I'm also a member of a wine club. I was told by my employers that this was the main reason I got called for an interview and got the job.

Putting down your hobbies is no harm, as long as at least one of them is relevant to the job.

marketty

Drakares wrote: »

If you want to be a geologist.

And intern geologist.

Working for free.

With a degree in geology.

And work experience for a minimum of a year.

Then I conclude that a day trip to look at rocks with some other teenagers will be of some astounding benefit. He's right. Don't fúck this up!

Got me that job in poundland

funk-you

xzanti wrote: »

Keeping it to 2 pages or less.

Jeez, try doing that with a technical CV. You'd have to use an illegible font, even that wouldn't squeeze them in.

Most important things for me when I've gotten technical CV's are:

• Relevant headings
• Short points on experience
• Relevant previous experience
• Clear and easily read.

Try to keep it S.M.A.R.T. Especially if applying to a US company. HR will also filter based on the buzzwords of what I have asked for against what they have received before sending me on to me to choose applicants for interview.

Be able to back up experience and qualifications you list. They will check and when you start you'll most likely be on 6 months probation so if you've bullshitted, you'll be found out.

-Funk

7 7 12

Enright wrote: »

Robbed from another site! But they made me laugh


ACHIEVEMENTS – “I came first in the school long distance race”
HOBBIES – “Horse rideing,like going pub when havent got my kids.looking after kids and doing stuff with them when they anit at school.”
EMAIL ADDRESS – Lazysod@……
ACHIEVEMENTS – “Being sober”
ABOUT ME – “My favourite colour is Toupe, cos it rhymes with Dope”
REASON FOR LEAVING – “It was hard work”
PERSONAL PROFILE – “I be no stranger to double-entry. I loves numbers, and my wife and I loves journals and ledgers! Can also do tricky sums when I puts my mind to it. Computor litrate.”
COVERING LETTER – “This is my CV I am intrested in any job opening use have avaiable if u could please send a vercation that you reciceved the email”
PERSONAL PROFILE – “I do have convictions (drug offences) which are spent some 30 years ago for when I was 16-18 and have a caution for 4 years ago for criminal damage”
HOBBIES – “Marital Arts” (Possibly meant martial arts?)
KEY SKILLS – “Perfectionist with a keen I for details.”
HOBBIES – “Space Travel”
EMAIL ADDRESS – Batfacedgirl@………..
EMPLOYMENT HISTORY - “Whilst working in this role, I had intercourse with a variety of people”
HOBBIES – “i like playing sport, which i fined gives me a winning appitite for life’”
KEY SKILLS: “I would like to assure you that I am a hardly working person.”
HOBBIES – “enjoy cooking Chinese and Italians”
JOB HISTORY – “Career break in 1999 to renovate my horse”
SKILLS – “Fantastic ability in multi-tasting.”
SIZE OF EMPLOYER: “Very tall, probably over 6’5″.”
SKILLS – “Speak English and Spinach.”
STRENGTHS – “Ability to meet deadlines while maintaining composer.”
SKILLS – “I have technical skills that will simply take your breath away.”
MARITAL STATUS:- “Celibate”
SKILLS – From an IT Engineer, “Have you tried turning it off and on again?”
EMAIL ADDRESS – hotsexyluv@…….
KEYS SKILLS – keeping family home clean, tidy and hygienaic undertaking basic DIY.operating domestic taskslike cleaning,washing,cooking.dealing with emerengencies smoothly.dealing with health issues,superivsing,supporting,guiding and organising children.
CV GAP – Candidate explained his gap in employment by saying it was because he was getting over the death of his cat for 3 months!
KEY SKILLS – “But wait…there’s more. You get all this business knowledge plus a grasp of marketing that is second nature.”
PRINTED CV – Candidate sent over their CV printed on the back of their current employers headed company paper
SKILLS – “I can type without looking at thekeyboard.”
JOB HISTORY - “Left last four jobs only because the managers were completely unreasonable”
SKILLS – “I am a rabid typist”
HOBBIES – “My interests include cooking dogs and interesting people”
COVERING LETTER – “I am extremely loyal to my current employer….Feel free to ring my office if you are interested in my CV”
KEY ACHIEVEMENTS – “Received a plague for Salesperson of the Year.”
EDUCATION – “I am about to enrol on a Business and Finance Degree with the Open University. I feel that this qualification will prove detrimental to me for future success.”
HOBBIES: “donating blood – 12 litres so far.”
KEY SKILLS: “Assisted with filing, billing, printing and coping”
KEY ACHIEVEMENTS – “Oversight of entire department.”
EDUCATION - “University: August 1890 to May 1993″
WORK EXPERIENCE –“ I’m working today in a furniture factory as a drawer”
EMAIL ADDRESS – homeboy@……
KEY SKILLS - “I have extensive experience with foreign accents.”
QUALIFICATIONS – “Here are my qualifications for you to overlook.”
COVER LETTER – “Please disregard the attached CV; it’s totally outdated”
REASON FOR LEAVING – “After receiving advice from several different angels, I have decided to pursue a new line of work.”
KEY SKILLS – “Am a perfectionist and rarely if if ever forget details.”
WORK EXPERIENCE – “Night stalker in Tesco”
HOBBIES – “painting my toenails in varying colours”

Absolutely none of that is even remotely funny :-(

Lollipops23

Gracie Moldy Toenail wrote: »

I've been asked about my J1 several times. Employers seem to like the 'interesting' stuff - time spent abroad, hobbies and interests.

Much as I see "travel" as being interesting on a CV (particularly if it's somewhere a bit offbeat and unusual), J1s are generally seen as an almighty piss up by most. It's not something I would have ever mentioned or brought up on reading someone's CV.

enda1

Work experience (project completion, team work, managing)
University Degree (1st, top uni, relevant degree)
Good companies
Spelling, formatting and grammar

In no particular order these are the important points I think

El Horseboxo

Traveling, voluntary work, work on open source projects, languages, good personal profile, avoiding buzz words, self study - loads of online courses.

The most important thing is to bridge the gap between college and work. Figure out what you want to work at and do stuff that is relevant to it. Displaying a big interest in your prospective job should be visible through efforts and achievements. Not just because you stuck you like it on your cv.

Lollipops23

Lollipops23 wrote: »

Much as I see "travel" as being interesting on a CV (particularly if it's somewhere a bit offbeat and unusual), J1s are generally seen as an almighty piss up by most. It's not something I would have ever mentioned or brought up on reading someone's CV.

Well, I used the opportunity to get some really good work experience in New York. I didn't write 'J1' on my CV, just the position and length of time, but most Irish employers would know it was a J1.

witchgirl26

I have a basic CV that I used & I tailored it for the particular role/company I was applying for, highlighting the skills they had listed in the job spec.

I was also told to keep it to 2 pages - you're only giving the basics here & if they want to know more, then they interview you and ask the questions. It's not an almighty dump of everything you've ever done or know. A lot of places won't look at CV's longer than 2 pages.

I was also advised to keep the hobbies but be smart about them - don't just list things but give examples. I.e "I enjoy reading and am a member of a book club." sounds better then "I read.".

Soldering_Iorn

Just don't mention the drug use. Be grand!

notnumber

Soldering_Iorn wrote: »

Just don't mention the drug use. Be grand!

Unless you are applying for a role in the tour de France obviously

The word c*nt would look great on any CV.

silvine

notnumber wrote: »

Unless you are applying for a role in the tour de France obviously

Hi Lance.

BillyMitchel

Draw big huge cocks on it OP it might turn the manager on and they'll want to see you so interview in the bag and the rest is up to you!

Capt'n Midnight

Neils Bohr got a silver at the 1908 Olympics for Soccer, and a Nobel Prize for Physics in in 1922. Philip Noel-Baker got a silver medal for the 1500 at 1920 Olympic Games and then won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1959


So to be in with a shout you'll have to get at least a gold.

Dj Grimreefer

Pictures of naked women always look good on your CV

summerskin

I do a fair bit of recruitment for our european offices, and it does help when people put their photo on the cv.

it allows me to pre-judge them based on looks, and ensure that as an employer i can easily stick to our company's loose "no fat chicks" policy by ensuring that only attractive people make the interview stage.


unfortunately we can't do that in ireland....



EDIT: on a serious note, that is actually why i dislike the european style of putting a photo on a CV. whether we like it or not, some people will make their initial judgement based on looks, rather than competence.

Capt'n Midnight

summerskin wrote: »

EDIT: on a serious note, that is actually why i dislike the european style of putting a photo on a CV. whether we like it or not, some people will make their initial judgement based on looks, rather than competence.

+1

Remember that employers use negative marking when looking at a CV so no pictures unless you are seriously photogenic and in the right age / gender / ticks other box range.

Don't put anything on it that is likely to be used against you , unless there is a reasonable chance it could work to your advantage. If applying for lots of positions then Marmite stuff where the reviewer will either love it or hate it is fine - if you get to the interview stage you've got a better chance.