fortyplus employment support trust

Article published in the Careers section, Weekend Press June 20-21 2009

Tips For a Top CV
Colin McKinney, Employment Consultant, 40+ Employment Support Trust

Few things in the whole of the job-seeking process are as important as a good CV. And few important documents are as poorly written and badly set out as most CVs. To make matters even worse, some employment professionals don't really know as much as they'd like you to think, and a fancy CV that you might pay a lot of money for is virtually useless - not least because it looks pretty much like every other CV produced by the same source.

So, then, what exactly is wrong with many CVs?
A widespread problem is that the writer of the CV uses guidelines which might have been useful and relevant some time ago, but which do not apply now - or worse, no guidelines at all! Here are six CV faults I often see:

1. The CV is full of things that busy employers simply don't want or need to know. All most employers really want to know about applicants is 'Can they do the job - and if so, how well?' Other information may be relevant or useful, but often it's not. Look at this from an employer's point of view: the owner-manager of a busy fashion store needs some help, so she advertises for an assistant. She is unlikely to receive a small number of applications - these days she could get hundreds. And she's already too busy to consider each one as carefully as their writers fondly imagine.

Judging from the applications, most of the candidates appear to be from hopeful people who don't mention very much in the way of actual retail experience - though they do all say lots of things like 'excellent communication skills', 'a team player', 'a great work ethic', or 'a people person'. At last she sees one CV unlike all the others: it's from someone who has previous experience selling clothes, and who names two referees (both former employers) who can be consulted. Clearly, the owner of this CV is far more likely to get the job than any of the others.

2. Almost by definition, CVs are written in such a way that all the excellent qualities that the writer supposedly has are stated by that very person! An employer reading this type of CV is left thinking "I don't care how good this person thinks they are - where's some evidence that will let me form an opinion of my own?"

If someone says on their CV that they're good at something, there's no guarantee that it's the truth - and very often it's not the truth. For example, one client confided that he wanted to work by himself or with animals or children purely because he didn't get on with other people and preferred to work alone, yet his CV asserted confidently that he 'worked well in a team'. I've frequently interviewed people who don't listen to my questions but instead interrupt by telling me something I didn't want to know; or who talk for five minutes when ten words would have been enough; or who speak too loudly / softly / quickly - yet these people state in their CVs that they "have excellent communication skills"! Claims of the writer's own excellence which can't be checked in any way are taken with a grain of salt, as they deserve to be.

The most effective way around this is - wherever possible - to use your CV and covering letter to illustrate the claims that you want to make. For example, proving that you have excellent written communication skills by having a concise, accurate, well-written application is a hundred times better than saying "I have excellent communication skills". Mentioning details of your teamwork under a particular job heading carries infinitely more weight than saying "I work well in a team" in a separate list of your own qualities.

Another way around the problem of the claims of a CV being overly subjective is to make claims which could be verified (say, by talking to an appropriate referee) - such as listing quantitative details like increased turnover or growth of a client-base. Another way of avoiding total subjectivity is to refer to customer or client satisfaction. If such people are also listed as referees, so much the better.

3. Most CVs are, quite simply, far too long. Partly excessive length is due to including unsubstantiated claims and downright untruths, as described above - but it is often also because the writer has incorporated a lot of irrelevant personal detail like date of birth, marital status, health, and wholly irrelevant hobbies and interests, which serve only to waste the reader's time.

4. Many CVs are poorly set out, with too little white space, far too much writing, and such visual clutter as annoying borders and badly-chosen fonts. These things invariably make the document more difficult to read.

5. Some things people say things in their CVs invite certain rejection (e.g. listing 'watching sport on TV' as an interest; or something absurd like "I consider myself perfect for any job, whatever it is").

6. One other thing that practically guarantees rejection is naming people who haven't been informed of your job application as referees (or worse, listing their details without their knowledge or consent). How do you think it makes you look to a prospective employer if referees are phoned, and instead of saying what a good employee you'd make, say something like, "That name doesn't mean anything to me", or "But I didn't agree to be a referee"?

At 40+ Employment we are happy to discuss improvements to your CV, with the sole object of improving its likelihood to work for you. We will never suggest a making a change without giving you a good reason - and it's always your CV, so you don't have to accept any alterations you don't want.

Article published in the Careers section, Wednesday July 15 2009
Net Yourself Better Employment
Colin McKinney, Employment Consultant, 40+ Employment Support Trust

These days, pretty much everybody uses their home computer and the Internet to help them in their search for a job, whether they are unemployed and desperate for work (any work!), or dissatisfied with their present employment and looking for a change.
But are you using this tool effectively? What follows are some ideas about how the internet can be used to help in your search for work.
1. To start at the very beginning: your email address. Even if you don't use the Internet in your job search to any greater extent than to put the address in your CV - if you're serious about finding work, please, please make sure your email address looks professional. If I was an employer looking for someone to work for me, I would think twice about proceeding any further with some hopeful whose contact address was cuddlemetight@hotmail.com, or any other cute / funny / risqué identification you once gave yourself. These may be fine for your family and friends, but not for the professional image it is in your best interests to convey.

So then, what do you do if your only email address is already on the 'unprofessional' side? Easy: get another one. If you have your own Internet Service Provider (ISP), it will almost certainly support more than one email address (typically, one ISP account supports up to ten addresses). The safest email address to use is your name: jsmith@isp.co.nz, johnsmith@isp.co.nz, j.smith@isp.co.nz, jrsmith@isp.co.nz, smithj.r.@isp.co.nz and other combinations of first name(s), initials, full stops, hyphens, and underscores allow for many possibilities. (Note: email addresses are usually not case-sensitive, meaning that as far as the Internet is concerned j.smith@isp.co.nz is exactly the same as J.Smith@isp.co.nz. Sometimes, however, people use capital letters to make the address easier to read/remember, e.g. johnRsmith@isp.co.nz)

Of course, you can't use an address if someone else has already taken it. This is one of the few occasions when a really unusual name / spelling may be an advantage!

This problem is made worse if you rely on a free web-based provider such as Hotmail, Yahoo!, or Gmail, because chances are relatively high that someone else (in the whole world) might have the same name as you. But persevere and eventually you'll find something you can use that is both sensible and unique. (If you find you can't have mary.jones@hotmail.com - or any of the sorts of combinations of this name listed above - try the same combinations with yahoo and Gmail, or other lesser-know free email services, of which there are many. Just Google free email account to find them).

There is no point in giving yourself a new email address, however, if you don't remember to check it frequently. If you give a business an email address, they will reasonably assume you'll see anything they send to it. Most free email addresses (Hotmail, Yahoo!, etc) simply stop working after a set period of non-use (usually 3 months), and any messages sent to them will 'bounce'. To stop this from happening, make sure you log in regularly.

2. The next most obvious Internet tool in job-searching is an Internet-based employment service - Seek, TradeMe, and MyJobSpace being the three main examples. Don't limit yourself to one of these: a given employer will not necessarily use all of them, and a job vacancy that is listed on one may not appear in the others.

There are four principal ways that the job-seeker can use a web employment service.
a. many people satisfy themselves with going no further than using the 'search' function to find job vacancies of a certain type in a certain area

b. the next 'level' is to register with the service and receive automatic notification (by email) as soon as a new job is listed which matches the specifications (e.g. type of work, geographical location) you have chosen

c. thirdly, jobseekers can go the whole nine yards and store their CV on the service's own computers, and arrange for it to be sent automatically when you apply online for a position. Such a CV can, of course, be edited at any time, for example to make it more suited to a particular application for which you may want to use it

d. lastly, the sites mentioned here have excellent 'extra' jobseeking advice such as getting the best out of your CV, answering job interview questions, and so on.

3. Finally, you can use the Internet to research an organisation to which you are applying for employment. Get on to the company's website and learn about how it operates before you apply for a job there (and certainly before you attend an interview).


If you are a jobseeker who for one reason or another has missed out on the computer revolution - perhaps because of your age - it's never too late to learn! Enquire about courses that assist older people to become familiar with using a computer. You don't even have to own one - you can use an Internet café or the public library. Phone 377 2141.