What’s In A CV Part I
September 26, 2007 on 1:53 pm | In Resume | No Comments
A lot of you have heard about how important it is to pass a properly-constructed CV but you may not know what it is you need to put in it. In order to craft a well-designed and impressive CV, one thing that you have to remember is that it should be done in a very ordered and methodical way. This is for your prospective employer’s sake so he won’t have to be swimming through the different pages of your curriculum vitae just so that he can find something in your work experience to reference.
The term “curriculum vitae” means “course of life”. Therefore, if one person would submit a CV, that would literally entail the different activities that he or she took until the present. The pages that you’re going to be submitting should essentially list down the different things that will convince your prospective employer how well-suited you are with the company or institution that you want to be part of. It will give them a blueprint and a concrete basis for hiring you—should they choose to.
A curriculum vitae would most probably be an original thing which you have to create simply because you have different experiences and learnings from the past years. During the time that you have been studying as well as working, you have been able to amass a great deal of experience through various projects, jobs and perhaps further education. These will be one of the times that you need to properly format all of these information in order to present the best case possible for your potential employer. In any case, all well-written CVs have at least some basic information in them
The section of the CV where you put your personal details is one that should be always the shortest—no more than 1/4 of the page. This is to ensure that you’re easily reached either by phone or email or maybe by traditional means such as postal mail. You should also include a long-term home address as well as dates of availability. You never know when they’ll hire you on the spot. Always keep your email address short and simple and most of all, professional! Try to make one if all you’ve got are the weird-sounding ones.
Just remember that this is one of the most professional documents that your future employer will be reading about you so you best not mess this up. It’s better to err on the side of caution and ask for the opinion of a person who’s already submitted a well-crafted CV or maybe if no one is available, research for yourself on the web. It will pay off when your employer says that sweet-sounding “Yes”.
Bridging The Gaps
September 19, 2007 on 11:07 am | In Resume | No Comments
There will be times when in the process of writing your CV, you might notice that there might have been out-of-work gaps in your timeline. For an applicant, it might be a very glaring factor in your curriculum vitae. However, it is not as big a deal by itself if there is a legitimate reason for it—and in most cases, there always will be.
If you actually didn’t waste away 6 months of your life by bumming around instead of looking for a job, you wouldn’t have to worry about this part of your CV. However, some people might not be as comfortable with it because it seems as if those were the times that you were unproductive. In a sense, unproductive behavior is tantamount to failure in most minds. This is, however, untrue. Most of the people who have out-of-work gaps usually hide or close these gaps in order for them to a more “presentable” curriculum vitae. This is for those gaps that could be just a couple of months long or around half a year at most. But what about those glaring gaps that you seriously cannot hide?
One of the things that you could highlight is an opportunity that you pursued during that long out-of-work gap. The trick here is to make it seem that your out-of-work gap was an opportunity for you to pursue different opportunities that could have adequately substituted work for you. You could probably explain that you were self-employed at that time when you did not have any work. If there was any opportunities, you could probably tell them that you were trying to set up a business for a friend or a relative. Be sure that you did go through that particular setting up of a business and don’t just invent something on the spot. Most, if not all, interviewers would be eager to have you explain what that type of business was about and how you were able to manage your responsibilities there. Be sure that you know the specific details of the project so you don’t get have any difficulty in answering the questions. If they ask you why you are seeking employment this time around, you could effectively say that the business is doing well now and being managed by someone else so you figured that you could already start on your chosen career path.
Out-of-work gaps are not as hard to explain provided that you have something substantial to explain. If you really did not manage to find the right type of job for you, then it’s best that you come up with the truth rather than planting mistrust in your prospective employer by sugar-coating what you say with lies.
Creating A View-Worthy Video Resume (CyberCV)
September 12, 2007 on 11:48 am | In Resume | No Comments
If you’ve been in the job-hunting phase for the earlier part of your life, then you probably are familiar with how to make a resume and what to put in it. Even though there are a lot of ways to craft your own resume, there is still one way to do it—tastefully and creatively.
With the advent of Internet video, one can just about broadcast anything online. This is just one of the ways that people are trying to get them hired by different companies. Because people nowadays are more in tune with technology, job applicants have used this to their advantage. People are now composing “video resumes”.
These types of resumes are fairly easy to do yet they are straight to the point. There is an increased interest in videos with the presence of broadband Internet usage as well as a marked enthusiasm for those people who are video sharing. To other jobseekers, after listing down all of their accomplishments and contributions to their previous companies, a video resume might just be the final nail in the coffin that will get them hired.
Take a skeptic for example, whose job-hunting efforts did not pay off. However when the person got a digital camera and got creative, it was a start of something unique. And it definitely caught the eye of her prospective employers, who by the way, is now her current employer. All that was done was a two-minute video that highlighted her good points in her paper resume as well as the answers to some common interview questions. It was straightforward, it was no-nonsense and it dealt with some of the questions that most employers would ask in an interview.
Even though it would be weird at first, you should definitely try doing this for yourself because it will ultimately catch the attention of the hiring manager of the company you’re applying for and it will enable them to see your personality which will ultimately shine through the course of the video. It’s quick, painless and you even won’t have to go through the jitters as your answering the supposedly difficult questions that they might throw at you during the actual interview. It gives you more time to prepare in answering their questions and it is done in a creative, eye-catching way.
There is a word of caution that job-hunters should remember: always have someone get an objective point of view of your resume. You might be so proud of what you’ve captured on video and forget that professionals are going to take a look at what you have to offer. There was a case of a person who submitted a video resume of him dancing with scantily-clad women. The video eventually got out and he has now become a very popular example of how not to do a video resume. If you’re trying out different stunts and look more like a wild man than a businessman, then your video might just be better left in your hard drive rather than have it launched on the Internet for the whole world to see.
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