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Project Management Careers & Job FairGordon Dewar-McKay Director of Recruitment & Talent Management

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Preparing your CV

Curriculum Vitae

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Preparing your CV (tips & advice)

Your CV is incredibly important. It's your potential employer’s very first impression of you. Here are a few tips on how to write a compelling CV:

Your personal details

You should include your name, address and contact details. It's up to you whether you include your age, marital status and nationality – recruiters should be able to make a decision about your skills and abilities without this information.

Personal Profile – the 7 second rule!

In this section you should summarise your:

skills and qualities

It should be a short and punchy paragraph, detail your professional accreditations and must grab the reader's attention. For example, if you are a Project Manager, you could say you're excellent at Stakeholder Management and an extremely effective communicator. You can highlight examples of your skills in later sections.

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Preparing your CV (tips & advice)

Employment history and work experience

If you've been working for a while, you should put your employment history first; if you're beginning your career and don't have much work experience, you might like to highlight your education and training.

In this section you should start with your present or most recent job and work backwards. You should include employer, the dates you worked for them, job title and your main duties. Provide more detail on the relevant skills you used and what you achieved. Use bullet pointed lists.

Try to relate your skills and experience to the job description or what you think the employer is looking for, if you're sending your CV on spec. Also include any relevant temporary work and volunteering experience.

Avoid unexplained gaps in your employment history.

Education and training

Start with your most recent qualifications and work back to the ones you got at school. Using bullet points or a table include:

the university, college or school you went to the dates the qualifications were awarded and any grades any work-related courses, if they're relevant

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Preparing your CV (tips & advice)

Interests and achievements

You can include hobbies, interests and achievements that are relevant to the job. For example, if you're involved in any clubs or societies this can show that you enjoy meeting new people. Try to avoid putting activities like cooking or reading, as these activities are too general and widespread to be of interest to an employer. Make them specific and interesting!

Additional information

You can include this section if you need to add anything else that's relevant, such as explaining that a gap in your employment history was due to travel or family reasons. You could also include other relevant skills here, such as if you have a driving licence or can speak any foreign languages.

References

At least one referee should be work-related; or if you haven't worked for a while, some other responsible person who has known you for quite a while. You can list the contact details of your referees on your CV or just put 'references available on request'. If you decide to include their details you could also state the relationship of each referee to you – for example 'John Smith, Line Manager'.

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Optimising your CV for job boards

The beginning of a New Year represents a reset point for many people in regards to their current role and future aspirations. New Year resolutions are in full-swing and many of you are now seeking new job opportunities.

To make the process of finding your next role a little smoother, we have devised a list of hints and tips to help you whilst using the primary job boards.

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Optimising your CV for job boards.

Ensure your contact details are correct and on your CV!

Although this may seem like simple advice, you would be surprised at the amount of CVs we see as a recruitment business, which don’t have contact details on them or the details are often out of date. Without an email address/telephone number, both ourselves & employers cannot contact you directly! You should also ensure that your location is correct. If you are planning on relocating, please state this at the top of your CV and change the location on your profile to show where you are seeking work.

Use Boolean key words

Recruiters and employers will often use specific words when searching for candidates therefore it is important to include these words within your CV to maximise your chances of being head-hunted. For example, if you are a Project Manager you should include words such as “APM”, “Prince 2’ and “Stakeholder Management”. Tailor the words you use to suit the job which you are seeking and always view your CV through the eyes of an employer.

Choose the correct salary expectations

Job boards will often ask you for your salary expectations or current salary and it is really important to try and keep this as accurate as possible. Again, we search for salary expectations and it helps us to judge whether you would be suitable for the available vacancy. You will not be pigeon-holing yourself by stating a required salary, it just gives a rough idea of what you’re seeking; equally do not put a lower salary than what you are seeking though!

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Optimising your CV for job boards.

Use a simple format for your CV

A word document with lots of pictures, boxes and diagrams may look amazing on your PC but you have to remember that not all computers are compatible with this. A simple and straight-forward CV will catch the recruiter’s eye if it is filled with information. Your work experience should speak louder than the colour of your font!

Include crucial information such as dates of employment and reasons for leaving. Employers will sometimes scroll past a CV if the work history is a bit choppy because the candidate has not explained why they have had lots of jobs within a short space of time. More often than not, candidates take on temporary work to avoid unemployment which is great, but this should be stated on the CV to avoid confusion. Employers want candidates seeking longevity within their careers, ironically even in the Interim space, so it is crucial to explain why you only stayed at a job for a few months if this is the case.

Dates are really important as well because it helps us to understand your career history better! Equally, if you have been at a company for a number of years and you have had different positions, you should split these up into sections with dates.

Make sure you’re logging in daily! If you are seriously seeking a new role then you must ensure you are logging into your account because you will be at the top of the list with search results!

Remove your CV from the job boards if you have secured employment! This is one of the most important things to do once you have secured a new job because it saves you time with responding to employers to tell them that you are no longer looking. We understand it can be difficult to do this but it is for your benefit as well as ours!

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Social Media

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Social Media

There are different sites for professional networking and for social networking – your ONLINE profile may not present you to employers in the best possible light!

According to a study by CareerBuilder.co.uk

55% of employers claim they found something that caused them not to hire the applicant

48% of recruiters currently use social networking sites to glean information on potential job candidates

50% of recruiters used search engines to research potential job candidates

45% of recruiters said drink and drug habits had put candidates in a negative light

39% had rejected applicants who said bad things about previous employers and employees

38% were put off by inappropriate photographs, but a third of those surveyed claimed they had also found content that made them more likely to hire job seekers.

You need to take control of your web presence by limiting who can post to your profile and monitor posts about you.

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Social Media

LinkedIn

LinkedIn www.linkedin.com is a business-oriented social networking site with over 90 million members worldwide. It provides opportunities to network online with professionals from all kinds of different employment sectors: there are also groups for different regions and institutions such as universities.

Google links quickly to LinkedIn and tends to list them towards the top of search results, making a LinkedIn page a valuable tool. Make sure that your LinkedIn page sells you effectively - it should be a bit like an on-line CV, and also allows you to mention your career goals. It's a good idea to put your photo in your profile as apparently, people are four times more likely to connect to you if they can see your picture.

How to create a LinkedIn profile. Tips on developing your LinkedIn profileLinkedIn Job Search Tips http://bit.ly/1ke9EZ6

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Social Media

Facebook

What is Facebook?Facebook is a social networking website that makes it easy for you to connect and share with your family and friends online. Originally designed for college students, Facebook was created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg while he was enrolled at Harvard University. By 2006, anyone over the age of 13 with a valid email address could join Facebook. Today, Facebook is the world's largest social network, with more than 1 billion users worldwide.

Why use Facebook?Have you ever wondered why people like using Facebook? After all, there are already lots of other ways to communicate online, such as email, instant messaging, and so on. What makes Facebook unique is the ability to connect and share with the people you care about at the same time.

For many, having a Facebook account is now an expected part of being online, much like having your own email address. And since Facebook is so popular, other websites have worked to integrate Facebook. This means you can use a single Facebook account to sign in to different services across the Web.

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Social Media

Twitter

Twitter www.twitter.com Recruiters of all types make extensive use of Twitter, giving out information about their organisations as well as actually posting job vacancies. You don’t have to tweet yourself – you can just follow companies, brands, people or issues of interest to you and get an insight into current issues and concerns from what they say, and retweet their tweets.

You can use your own tweets to show your interest in a particular career: tweet about current affairs in the sector you wish to work in Your Twitter bio should include your education and some of your relevant skills: all in 140 characters!

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Protecting your online presence

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Tips to protect your online presence1. Turning Off LinkedIn Activity BroadcastsSo maybe you’re looking for a job and you start following several companies on LinkedIn. The only problem is that these interactions are broadcast on your activity feed. This can alert your current employer that you’re searching for new work. Do your connections really need to know every time you make a change to your profile, follow companies, or write recommendations? If not, dig into your Activity Broadcasts setting and uncheck this feature.

2. Limiting Future and Past Facebook PostsThink about the nature of your Facebook posts. Unless you’re trying to promote products or services to the public, then it’s a good idea to keep your personal posts private. Seemingly innocuous public posts can become risks in the future. For example, you might not believe that publicly posting about your up and coming holiday is a major concern. However, this information could be used by criminals hoping to target unattended homes. You can restrict the audience of your past and future Facebook posts by visiting the “Privacy Settings and Tools” section and changing the settings under “Who can see my stuff?”

3. Preventing Search Engines from Indexing Your FacebookDo you want anyone to find your Facebook posts when they type your name into a search engine? How about prospective employers? You can quickly turn off search engine indexing by unchecking the “Let other search engines link to your timeline” box in Facebook’s privacy settings.

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Tips to protect your online presence

4. Not Referring to Other Social Media AccountsMany social media platforms allow you to fill in a profile field linking over to your other social networking accounts. However, it can be a good idea to maintain a separation between accounts, especially if they involve different personal and professional identities. For example, you might not want LinkedIn audiences to find your Facebook account. Avoid connecting these accounts to increase the privacy and security of your digital identities.

5. Forcing Facebook Tag ReviewsLet’s say you enjoy a fun night out, drinking with friends at a bar. One of your friends wants to post and tag a particularly embarrassing photo of you downing beers in one or worse. You can prevent some awkward conversations by requiring tag request approval before your name is linked to a post or photo. This prevents others from attaching your name to content without your consent. Change these settings by visiting Facebook’s “Timeline and Tagging” section.

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Questions?

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