CV review please?

jambutty

jambutty

jambutty

Associate
Joined
26 Apr 2014
Posts
97
Hi there,

I'm wondering if you beautiful people could perhaps help me out a little?

I'm currently working in a commercial finance department and to be quite honest, after 12 years and a couple of different companies, it isn't for me.

I'm wodering whether perhaps, anybody could review my CV and to see if it could be worded, updated and perhaps weighted to, a career change in IT?

And if anyone has any ideas where I can upload this without giving away my full name that would be awesome! (Dropbox and Gdrive is a no no)

Many thanks.
 
Can you not just delete the name / identifying information before you upload it? Change the name to Bob McJobseeker or something.
 
  1. They don't need your address on the CV.
  2. I would rewrite your personal summary, it doesn't actually say anything about you that shouldn't already be obvious. Stick to a few sentences which differentiate you from everyone else. From what I'm reading, focus on the fact that your an experienced accountant who is also technically capable. Having people with both finance and IT skills is not very common.
  3. Remove the headings of "previous employer". The dates of employment should be sufficent
  4. Am I reading it right that you were an accounts assistant and and sales assistant at the same time working two jobs?
  5. The work experience has a good level of detail, it's pretty clear what your jobs actually were. However, I would cut down the detail for the sales assistant jobs as they're less relevant.
  6. If you're applying for IT jobs, the skills bit at the end should be more than a footnote. At the moment the CV reads like this: finance experience, generic sales experience, oh and I also do a load of Windows server stuff. This should be much more prominent, probably before the work experience.
 
I'd agree with Burnsy re: the personal statement, basically your address and personal statement have taken up half the first page and are of no real use. If you're going to put in a personal statement, and you've mentioned above that you're looking for a career change to IT, then that might be a better use of it. Everyone is a 'highly motivated individual' with 'initiative' on a CV etc.. it is just wasted space.

Relatively short education section and 5 jobs (at least one of which appears to be part time) shouldn't need to take up 4 pages, it would be nice if you could fit it into two pages.

I agree again with Burnsy's comment re your IT skills being more prominent - how you order education, work experience etc.. does depend somewhat on what you want to emphasise - in this case, because you're aiming for a career change to IT it isn't ideal for you to have your IT skills listed at the bottom of page 4 after the reader has had to sift through stuff about you being a key holder or something in your job at a shop.

On that subject, just get rid of that stuff, at least one of those roles is a part time job and probably needs about a couple of lines at most. Honestly this sort of stuff is just a waste of space:

· Identifying customers who need assistance on the shop floor.

· Operating the till and accurately counting and reconciling the till float.

· Being alert to thefts and fraudulent bank notes, cheques or credit cards.

· Accurately processing all methods of payment.

· Making sure the store is clean, tidy and safe at all times.
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You really, don't need to go into that much detail about working behind a till in a shop.

I'd look up some CV templates online and follow those as an example. There are a few minor grammar issues with missing words but it probably needs some major deletions before getting onto them (plus I'm not going to profess to be particularly good myself in that respect either!).
 
dowie said:
Relatively short education section and 5 jobs (at least one of which appears to be part time) shouldn't need to take up 4 pages, it would be nice if you could fit it into two pages.
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I not only agree with this, but also want to highlight that it's a really useful thing to do in any CV. The reason being is that if you put a page limit on a CV you have to keep the CV relevant and punchy. When I sift through CVs, I skim read and I don't think I'm alone. You need to get everything about you out quickly, drawing the eye to all the bits you think an employer are going to be looking at.

I think the priority is working a bit more on the content and then we can look at distilling and making the important points really stand out.
 
Thank you for the comments it's been greatly appreciated. I noticed the replies earlier on, but it's not the most professional to update your CV during working hours, not to mention man's got to eat!

I have taken all comments onboard and I really do appreciate this for sure. You both were right RE the personal statement - properly meh, hopefully it's now much snappier, including removing all the other fluff to boot.

The assumption was correct that I was working full time and part time during 07-09 and again in 12 working in the wine biz was fun, if I included the date of my completed NVQ that was during 08. 60+ hour weeks and study was not fun I can tell you.

Anyway enough jammering on, here is the updated link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/19xeq8k4Pcq33cOMLzBu0UMBduS03aLs2qe0bSXfXg4A/edit?usp=sharing
 
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