CVs and Interviews



I read an interesting CV article this morning – Actually it was not that interesting or even that informative. The article quoted research from a leading recruitment agency telling me (or most jobseekers) anything new. They did not have to waste time on a survey to get their quoted facts as they are already easily accessible on the web. Rather than state the obvious the article could have provided some creative solutions about “how to help your CV avoid the bin”.

Let me quote you some of the facts from the article.

a) 92% of CV’s received by employers go straight into the bin.

b) The research also notes that an employer takes on average 30 seconds to read a CV.

c) 70% of jobseekers are unaware of all the avenues available when seeking employment

d) More that 50% ill prepared for competency based interviews.

Solutions provided by the article to help CV’s avoid the bin.

a) Be careful with spelling and grammar – recheck your application

b) CV layout must be easy to read

c) The most important thing the employer wanted to read was your current or previous employment.

d) Most CV’s should be about 1,000 words in length.

e) Content should be read as achievements and not duties

f) Use non traditional methods of securing a new job

g) Prepare for interview

Some of my thoughts ….

Yes many jobseekers have poor CV’s and interview skills. Let’s face it there has been a skill shortage for the last decade so jobseekers did not need these skills. If all the supermarkets pulled out of Ireland tomorrow it is obvious that there would be a market for fishing and hunting courses. Having not had to hunt for a few years so would be a bit rusty with these skills.

The most important element of CV preparation is content yet this article leads with spelling and grammar. Come on – spelling & grammar ranks about number 10 in the CV to do list. Have these people not heard of spelling checks – I review many CV’s and this is not a major problem. CONTENT CONTENT CONTENT!!!!!

CV should be no more than 1,000 words. Is this a more creative way of saying two pages? I remember telling a jobseeker some years back that their seven page CV was too long only for the employer to tell the jobseeker at interview that he loved the CV. The amount of words does not matter – If the first page does not make an impact it does not matter how many words or additional pages your CV has.

Using non-traditional methods – Is this recruiter telling us not to use recruitment agencies? Joking!! Again stating the obvious – look on the job boards and agency sites – they have fewer jobs and as most jobseekers use these reactive routes this means more competition. Accessing the hidden job market is essential BUT please tell me how!!

Prepare for interview – Most jobseekers can’t survive a traditional interview never mind a competency interview. Again outside the HSE, Public Sector and the odd multinational competency interviews are not really used. The large proportion of my interview coaching clients face traditional interviews.

CV Writing Service

Tags: Advice, Content, CV, CVs, Layout, Preparation, Service, Tips

This entry was posted on Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 9:16 am and is filed under CV, CV Examples, CV Expert, CV Format, CV Layout, CV Tips, CV Writing Service. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.