Critic my CV!

Soldato
Joined
30 Sep 2004
Posts
5,384
Location
Belfast/Edinburgh
Hey All

I decided to redesign my CV for when I was looking for a new job at the start of Jan. I've applied to a fair few places around town and i've only had one interview out of about 8 or 9 applications. I'm a student at the minute so i'm just applying for part time retail jobs.

I'm think i'm fine with interviews and all and I like to think my CV looks snazzy enough but maybe it's horrible.

So I put it to you OcUK!! Check out my cv and i'd appreciate any tips.

(Hopefully the free uploader I found works.)

http://www.freefileuploader.com/files/f78snv24wa3vfjrvzv5b.doc
 
Spelling is quite a useful skill and using a thesaurus takes no time at all.


Your welcome.


I'm usually a decent enough speller. Surprising how many people hand in CVs without any form of proof reading or spell checking at all.

Oh and :p at your spelling mistake. :D
 
Your missing a paragraph on "you" and what you are about and goals - summary.

and some bullet points on you "Key skills" that you have picked up over the years e.g.

• Working as part of, and communicating with ‘the team’ in a customer focused retail sales environment.


Edit:

Although none of it is bad, it doesn't flow well and would be easily lost in the scrum.

A different layout with more spacing might also be useful.
 
Last edited:
Your missing a paragraph on "you" and what you are about and goals - summary.

Key skills that you have picked up

e.g. • Working as part of, and communicating with ‘the team’ in a customer focused retail sales environment.

Yeah I was thinking that when I redone it. I might combine key skills and a summary section above the Education section to act as an intro.
 
Yeah I was thinking that when I redone it. I might combine key skills and a summary section above the Education section to act as an intro.

No, the summary is a short paragraph about you

I am, I can, I want, etc etc


Key skills is short sharp point about what you can do and have done.


They are separate.
 
Keep it to one page, nobody skims two pages when looking through a pile of CVs.

Tailor qualifications to every job you apply for, add stuff which is relevant to the specific job and trim everything thats not relevant to a minimum. An example of this would be GCSE's: 8GCSE's including 7 at grade A-C. When you have a degree nobody cares about your GCSEs except that you have some and they were good. Don't mention the D, it looks bad :p Do mention degree courses which are relevant to the job you're applying for.

Trim the work experience. Keep just the headers and only flesh out the ones which gave you the most/best experience that is relevant for the job you're applying for or the most recent ones. Nobody cares what you got up to when you worked as a Replenishment Assistant for 6months in 2004. Sorry, but they don't. You're applying for a graduate job (I assume) and it's very clear from the number of jobs that you've done that you have good experience in customer facing, low skilled, part time jobs outside of school. It's good that you seek and find work but your potential employer doesn't need details on every single one when you're unlikely to be doing anything similar at the job you're applying for.

I'd bullet Key skills so they're more instantly readable. Again, don't add things that aren't relevant to the position you're applying for. Being able to cash up a till isn't helpful if you're applying for a job which never deals with cash or tills.

Achievements aren't voluntary work, that's work experience (albeit voluntary). Use the same guidance as above for this and move it to work experience or have a separate section for charitable work. Achievements are things like "Won 1st prize in a crossword competition." If you haven't won any awards, accolades or other relevant goodness then don't have an achievements section.

Add something about yourself, the things you enjoy, what drives you. You're selling yourself as much as you are your qualifications, you want people to know that you're a great person, that you're outgoing and easy to get along with with and that you have hobbies and interests that make you stand out from others. Be honest about what you're interested in, even if it's a little geeky or unusual. It's better than saying you're an expert sky diver only to be asked at interview to talk all about it and looking very, very stupid when you only did a tandem jump once, 6 years ago and you passed out before leaving the plane.

I'd also add the references, not have them available on request. Requesting them requires extra effort for the employer and when they have 2000 applicants for 1 job they might just not bother requesting. Would be a sucky reason not to get the job.

Hope that helps.
 
You're applying for a graduate job (I assume) and it's very clear from the number of jobs that you've done that you have good experience in customer facing, low skilled, part time jobs outside of school. It's good that you seek and find work but your potential employer doesn't need details on every single one when you're unlikely to be doing anything similar at the job you're applying for.

I'm a student at the minute so i'm just applying for part time retail jobs.
 
Ahh, sorry, skip reading at work does that to you. General advice still applies though, too much info which is repeated/not necessarily relevant to the job they are applying for.
 
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