CV Writing 1: Beware of the Employer

Picture the Scene

You are a busy Human Resources manager in one of those rare to find companies that are recruiting people rather than laying them off. Chances are you’ll be swamped by the number of replies that you recieve and end with a huge and daunting pile of Curriculum Vitaes (CVs) to wade through. Imagine the prospect of sifting through endless paragraphs of chronological facts and figures with mind-numbing management speak and incredibly long sentences in high-blown language without real focus or clarity, merely to identify which if any of the 400 people who replied has the skills you need in a potential employee. Not the most exciting prospect.

Thinking Like an Employer

What do you think is likely to happen? How deeply do you think each CV or resume will be read? How long do you think that an employer will spend assessing that information? To really understand this we need to go back and think about what the employer needs to achieve and how a CV will help them to achieve it.

For most hirers, a CV will answer yes or no to certain key questions that are important for the role in question. That might be location, level of experience, previous or current work in a specific field or with particular technology. It might include levels of relationships : ability to deal or negotiate with senior management, the ability to understand consumers needs when buying a service or product. The list goes on but for each role will ultimately boil down to just a few things.

Sell Me What I Need

Let’s take an example. I need to recruit a new field sales person who can sell advertising space. We publish specialist industry magazines so it needs to be someone who knows a bit about our markets and more importantly has previously sold into our typical client base before. By the way we’re based in London and we need you in the office every day.

As an employer when i review a CV i’m not thinking “how could this person help me” or “maybe they might be able to do the role”.  I’m scanning the CV quickly to pass to the next stage only those CVs that have and preferably are selling into our marketplace. Where that information is obvious there’s a good chance that as an employer,  I’ll look deeper to check the other things i need – to make sure that the applicant is within reasonable distance of London for example. 

Critical 20 seconds

 Typically an experienced recruiter will spend less than 20 seconds reviewing your CV.   In that time they need to:

1. See that you tick the boxes they need
2. See it quickly and easily
3. See that there is an obvious reason to talk further to you
4. Not have to wade through, infer or use common sense to determine that you are suitable.

Appealing to Employers

So the lesson is simple. Make it easy to read. Show the information. Dont lie as it will be found out. Don’t assume that every employer will understand what you did before or know the company (or industry) you did it for.  Write and adapt your CV for each application bearing in mind the clues they have given in the job advert. If you want the job – show them clearly and easily how well you match their requirements and you should proceed through to the next recruitment stage.

Above all – remember no-one ever recruited anyone on a CV alone. They are not sales documents or brochures, but in the initial stages help select or deselect applicants quickly.