In 2009 I went through a career change. I was shifting from hospitality to event management and concurrently moving back to Europe. While I was eager to commence a new path in a different industry, I also wanted to start my own business — something I could do in my free time and manage from anywhere (given that I had no clue what country I was going to move to next).
The question remained: What could I do?
By then I had worked in Austria, England, Canada, Malaysia, and the United States and had collected a ton of expertise in compiling job applications. And there I had the idea: I’d offer a personalized CV writing service!
I am telling you this story because I still have friends coming to me for CV- and resume-writing advice. In fact, I had someone ask for help just this morning, and in this article I’ll share with you what I told him.
It’s 2013 – Time to Adapt to the New Rules
A CV/resume today is not the same as it was just 10 years ago. Being in my 20s, I have seen the changes happening firsthand across many different industries.
Here is a short list of the most significant changes:
Keep your personal information short. Skip your family details, marital status and current address; it’s just taking up space and time. In the U.S. it is unlawful to ask for the applicant’s ethnicity, race, origin, and photograph. Stick to name, current place of residence (optional), objective, and your website.
Focus on your proficiency and ability portfolio. What skills have you acquired? What are your strengths? Try to give the reader a good overview of your skill set (by category: languages, marketing, sales, etc.) and don’t forget to sort your list by relevance to the job.
Provide details of relevant professional experience only. Unless you are going for a complete career change, you will find value for the new job in your work history. Focus on what matters for the future job. It gives you better chances to get noticed!
Showcase your personal interests and non-work related activities.More and more companies hire by personality rather than just experience; use this opportunity to put your best foot forward and get acknowledged for the awesome blog you write, the voluntary community work you do, and the networking events you organize.
Add personality and flavor. CVs are no longer black & white and restricted to two pages. Play with the design, add a cover page, showcase your projects in image and text, and write an “about me” introduction.
Why Your CV MUST Impress
Remember my little CV writing service? When I registered the company I named it “the first impression counts” simply because this is what your CV should do — create a (possibly great) first impression and get you that job interview.
With the amount of job applications an HR department receives, it is difficult for any hiring manager to read through your masterpiece. In fact, they take as little as 2.5 seconds to determine whether you make it to the next round, or move it to the trash bin. Perfection is of the essence and therefore your CV must stand out among others.
Some companies may welcome the conventional format. CV Maker is a great platform to create a CV in minutes. If you want to get creative, you can find some pretty amazing examples on CV Parade. Visualize Me and ResumUPeven offer the option of displaying your information in charts and graphs for better visualization.
Then you have Web apps that allow you to create a portfolio of your work, such as Zerply, Carbonmade and Behance. I would never recommend to maintain just an online portfolio, but always combine such with a great personal website. I made mine with Flavors.me and you are welcome to take a look here: www.melaniehaselmayr.com. A personal website is the best way to unite all your online profiles — your portfolio, your blog, your social media accounts, your photo streams, and everything else you want to share with the world.
These are the traditional uses of job seeker apps. That’s what they are made for, that’s what most people use, that’s what will become mainstream eventually.
Think Outside the Job-Seeker-Apps Box
You have no way of knowing how many other candidates you are up against, how good they are, and what aces they have up their sleeves. All you can do is prepare to impress, and this is where being different and interesting is what is going to give you the competitive advantage.
Source: http://www.forbes.com
HT Editor
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