My CV, help from the more mature eya of the forum please.

James07

James07

James07

Soldato
Joined
6 Dec 2006
Posts
5,914
Location
West Yorkshire
I need some help with my CV, just a read over will be fine with your opinions of the structure, layour, grammar etc.

Im hoping that people with maturity and people who know a lot about this kind of subject will help me out. Any advice will be taken into consideration.

Id be very grateful if you could as im looking at better jobs, prefereably with banks and other companies that demand high of people.

Cheers in advance,

James.

http://files-upload.com/files/606437/James07 Curriculum Vitae.doc

EDIT: Plase edit my thread title to "My CV, help from the more mature era of the forum please."
 
a few things really, firstly i would look at templates online just to get an idea. Something that stood out was
Your key skills
• Excellent Maths skills
qualifications
Maths (Looking to re-sit) GCSE D 2006
 
Last edited:
My thoughts:

Layout looks very basic and amateurish
The first sentence in the personal profile is very long and doesn't sound very professional
You don't need the word 'based' in 'full time based work'
You mention you cannot work the hours stated below, where are these (I might just be being blind here)
I dont think you need the line ' I apply for jobs I am good at and enjoy' - puts across the image you're sending this to hundreds of employers and not customising it for each one.
You dont need to list all your GCSE's, just what you got in English Maths and Science

Overall it doesn't come across as very professional, comments like 'The people I worked with, they were not the kind of people that were easy to work with.' I'd leave out, sort of portrays the image you cannot adapt to working with different kinds of people.

It also needs to be two pages absolute max.
 
kai said:
a few things really, firstly i would look at templates online just to get an idea. Something that stood out was
Your key skills
• Excellent Maths skills
qualifications
Maths (Looking to re-sit) GCSE D 2006
Click to expand...

lol the ironing
 
Too many jobs imo, I think it should be limited it to 3/4, the personal profile and closing statement should really be colaborated to a cover letter.

Keep it to 2 pages max.

Basher said:
You dont need to list all your GCSE's, just what you got in English Maths and Science
Click to expand...

Also this is a good point, something like 7 GCSE's including maths, english and science.

You want to get across your good points in a small space, give them the jist of you, don't waffle.
 
Last edited:
I went for a job at an agency a few months ago, and the interviewer told me that they hate with a passion CV's with tables or borders around information, as it messes up the way the CV looks when they print it out or send it to there client.

Personally i think it looks hideous with tables.

Your CV is too long, the font is to small and what Kai noticed.

I would start from scratch with your CV and build on the advice from people on this thread.
 
As Basher says, 2 pages max.

Formatting issue, you've got the heading re jobs at the bottom of p2 and the list of job on p3 - get them on the same page.

Remove phrases such as "More skills but not stated here"

No need for your age, DOB is enough. Shrink personal details down to a few lines, perhaps put things side-by-side instead of in a list that takes up half a valuable page.

Again as Basher says, no need to list all your GCSE's. Just put something along the lines of "6 GCSE's B-E (inc. Maths and English).

There's no need for such a long closing comment or personal profile - in fact, I'd get rid of closing comment altogether and reduce the personal profile to 1 shortish paragraph (if you want to keep it in)

Current activites could probably be either rmoved or substantially reduced - you can put this in a covering letter.

I'd also remove some of the key skills and wouldn't put something like "Confidence (not to be confused with arrogance)" on my CV.

Hope that helps a bit, trying to be constuctive.
 
Does "I enjoy having customer relations." sound a bit Clinton-esque?
 
Overall thoughts are in line with those above - very amateurish and far too cluttered.

Now for the more detailed comments:

Personal details need to be reformatted almost like a letter head

James Paul Devaney
address 1
adddress 2
Address 3
Contact Number: Mobile / Home
Date of Birth

I would not bother putting any of the other details. For you as a white British single male you have none of the target factors so putting them down could only help you to be eliminated.

Personal Profile:

Very wordy and a couple of potentially negative aspects within -

You have 9 aspects which you feel are positive all within your first sentence. Break it down so that it is easier to read and stops you coming across as desperate to find a job.

The last line in your second paragraph just sounds very unprofessional - "...I enjoy having customer relations." If you were applying for work as a stripper this might be more suitable. Change this to "I enjoy managing the relationships with my customers and meeting their expectations" comes across as a lot more professional.

In the last paragraph you do not need to mention that you are seeking full time work - the job you are applying for will either be full time or not. The last two lines are also not required and something along the lines of "flexible in terms of travelling and hours required with the exception of Thursday evenings"

Key Skills:

Make this section relevant to the job that you are applying for and break it down to more logical sections:

Professional attributes:- Experience working at a junior level in both the front and back of house within a varied selection of restaurants.
Personal attributes:- due to the experience I have gained working within the hospitality industry I have developed strong interpersonal skills that allow me to establish a rapport with customers.

Basically in this section you are selling yourself to the job that you are applying for. Your experience which follows gives the examples of this.

Ultimately don’t look like you have just looked up a thesaurus and picked out a bunch of adjectives.

Qualifications:

First questions is what is Personal Effectiveness? I thought PE was Physical Education or has this been changed in the last 10 years?

Do not put the fact that you are looking to re-sit and for RE I would not bother with half course, half grade. The employer really won't care.

Again keep the certificates relevant to the role that you are looking to apply for - keep the Basic Fire Safety and Basic First Aid and ditch the rest - its just cluttered.

Current Activities:

Change this section to interests. Drop the college course as you have already covered this. Mention that you are into sports etc but keep it light. Again if you can include interests that are relevant to the role that you are applying for do so.

Work history:

Remove the first two paragraphs - and include the relevant sections within the table that you have below and simply put the start date to "present".

When looking at the reason for leaving keep it non personal and do not **** off your previous employer.

I would not include specific dates of voluntary work - just cover it with a general "Carried out a number of voluntary roles in various companies during my full time education to gain and an appreciation and understanding of what that industry is like."

I think the hardest thing that you are going to find is that your experience and dates show that you are incapable of holding a job down for more than a couple of months. I would strongly advise you to stick with your current job for at least another 3-6 months to show that you have broken that habit.

Closing comment:

Paragraph one just sounds desperate.

Paragraph two sounds incompetent "will do my best" you are either capable of giving them references or you are not.

Paragraph three is just irrelevant - by claiming you have the qualifications means that you have the certificates OR could obtain proof if required.

Paragraph four sounds desperate and that you know your CV is not up to scratch. Bin it.

Paragraph five is just wrong - you are looking for a job and have provided them with contact details - let them choose how to contact you.

What I would advise is that you could put a statement in here trying to cover our short employment terms. You have enjoyed the work that you are doing but due to a number of personal issues out with your control you have had to move jobs having only worked for a short period. You might want to emphasise that you left these roles and were not fired (unless of course you were fired in which case don’t say anything)

Finally it takes two seconds to run a spell checker over your CV. Spelling mistakes are inexcusable in today’s world.

I suppose a lot of what you have put on your CV I would include in a covering letter. It allows the potential employer to keep the two articles separate and provides you with two environments to communicate with them.

Anyway hope the above helps
 
JIM_BOB7813 said:
You say "do not hesitate" 4 times in your closing statement.
Click to expand...

LOL, and i seen somewhere in personal details NI number - on request i would take that out straight away.

bascally read what Bar has written, really good stepping stone for you.
 
Meant to say, don't title it "Curriculum Vitae", title it with your name.

Edit: Only include relevant work experience.
 
Others have kindly posted very detailed analyses of it so I will keep mine short.

1) You need to be far more concise. State what you think is relevant, what an employer wants to know and only say it once. Don't make anything up or stretch the truth.

2) You really ought to get it down to two pages. I don't know why this is so, but it is highly preffered. Employers tend to skim through CV's, looking out for a number of keywords or looking to get a feel of the type of person you are and what you can offer. They do this, already have an ideal "imaginary" candidate in mind. So you need to look at the job description, the employer and try to figure out what it is that they are looking for. If you say you have done something or know something, be prepared to talk about it in detail at interview.

3) Leave out ANYTHING and EVERYTHING that could possibly be percieved as negative. This is your first contact with the company and they need to know only about your potential suitability. Detailed questions about previous experience is for interviews and again even here; you need to be sparing with the negative but not to the point of it being subtley clear your holding back. Theres nothing wrong with disaggrements be it personal or professional with a colleague or customer. Its how you deal with it that counts and demonstrating that you learn from mistakes will never always give you credit.

I think once you get these aspects sorted, you will be able to make it a lot more compact and pleasing to the eye.

Good luck!
 
Last edited:
I wouldn't list your gcses, the D in maths and science doesn't look good espically considering you have said you have excellent maths skills, and it isn't helped by the gcse in an unheard of subject, "personal effectiveness" and the half an E in RE.

I don't think including the reasons why you left the jobs add anything either.
 
Last edited:
What do you want to do? I'd suggest tailoring the CV to jobs you apply for instead because of the Maths and Science grades. I would also not list anything below a C, for the pass courses just state you have the award instead of showing the grade as Pass.

I am going to guess you want something in IT, in that case focus on your experience and skills in that area making it match up with the job requirements. If you make yourself look qualified and are truely able then you have a better chance because employers don't look favorably upon getting a D at a core GCSE unless you have the experience and skills to prove you are able.

Make sure you always spell check (press F7)!
 
Lose the tables they look rubbish, cut it down to 2 pages, and it needs to be more straight to the point with less padding, never send the same C.V twice ALWAYS tailor it to the job you are applying for :cool:
 
It's probably been said before but i've just scanned through here at work.

You need to cut it down a lot, be concise and don't try to add many statements in your CV, the CV needs to give the employer the bare facts (names, dates, results, skills etc.). Anything you want to communicate in more detail can be put in the covering letter.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom