Career Development
Preparing your CV
Some Typical Problems with CVs
- Incorrect use of English, particularly related to consistency of tense.
- Using Company/Job description as an achievement rather than as part of
the Company/Job
profile: use it only if it can be expressed as an achievement.
- Writing complex and wordy statements of achievements which can be simplified
and gain
more impact if split into separate short statements.
- Omission of quantification i.e. size of budget/size of spend/value of contracts,
etc.
- Failure to describe companies' size and function - if not well known.
- Repeating the same words within a few lines. An example is the use of words
such as
'improve' or 'effective' in two adjacent lines.
- When including turnover figures/staffing/profit, etc. omitting to do simple
sums to ensure
that they make sensible reading. Failure to distinguish those figures which
refer to the
'Group' and those which refer to your own responsibility.
- Writing two superficially different statements which, on examination, prove
to be the same
event.
- Failure to be consistent in detail such as "expatriate" - "Ex Patriate" -
and "ex patriate" all
in the same CV.
- Using jargon without examining in detail what is meant and then translating
it into simple
terms, eg:-
"Planned integrated human resources and career development programmes
to achieve Group policy for technology transfer on a viable basis" - which
turned out to mean "Developed programmes to train Third World Nationals to
expatriate standards".
- Overstating
responsibilities: "Forecast requirements and implemented £100k investment
to automate the London Office" - it transpired that he had bought a rather
superior photocopy machine.
- Using terms like "specially chosen" when this is totally inappropriate
and exaggerates both
the position and the circumstances.
- Giving too much space to unimpressive and irrelevant early career performance
at the
expense of later achievement and to the detriment of the overall picture,
eg one and a
half inches of valuable space given over to singularly unimpressive periods
of catering
experience when the CV is devoted to presenting an Export Sales Manager with
an
industrial background. Conversely one must try to demonstrate a continuing
level of
success from the start.
- Incorrect use of words such as "merchandising" and "marketing".
- Using generalised statements. Either be specific or say nothing. Examples
in regular use
as follows:
- " offered rapid promotion"
- was he 'rapidly promoted' or 'offered - promotion'.- In this case he
had been in the position for over a year.
- "responsible for all aspects of"
- it may be valid, but needs to be considered.
- "Participated in a"
-
NB. "Participated" always begs the question - HOW?
- "variety of ...."
- in a variety of needs to be more specific.
- "....etc...."!!!
- Never!
- "....with a depth of expertise...."
- How can you quantify this?
- "Controlled the system...."
- without indicating what system!
- "Reviewed methods/systems
.."
- without stating what resulted or what was achieved!
- "Recommended (or
made recommendations) ...."
- without saying whether the recommendations were
implemented, and with what result!
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