CV's

[QualityChimp]

I'll add the thing about spelling too. It's like nails on a blackboard and there's no real excuse for it.

I also agree about the email address. We get so many CVs sent from "littlemisssexy" or "crazybeermonster43".

Lock down your Facebook profile! One of our new people described himself as a "beer-swilling c**t". Charming.

If you're emailing the CV, try calling the file name "Firstname Surname CV" instead of just "CV", "My CV" "new CV" and so on.

Don't put a photo in it. Some people do and it's irrelevant.

If your using Office 2007, don't save it as a .docx file, just as a .doc. Not everybody can afford the latest version of Office and converting it is a faff.

Keep it to 2 pages, no more than 3.

Make your job history relevant to the job you're applying for. Flesh out the relevant jobs.

List responsibilities and achievements in that role.

[Flabio]

If you're sending it as a word doc, for gods sake remember to purge off the 'revision history' gumpf as well. The number of people that don't know word does that is massive. Even really important government docs get released with all the previous revision stuff in place.

[ascender]

I also think that you need to make sure your covering letter, however short (especially when applying via sites like Jobserve) also has the correct "buzz-words" from the job spec in it so that and your CV matches up. This will give you a good chance of making it past the initial filtering stage which seems to be a growing problem at the moment where there's so many people going after the same small number of positions.

Also, when applying online, many now say that if you haven't heard within 48 hours, consider yourself successful. If you think you're a good fit for the job, always place a follow-up phone call regardless.

[chopemon]

Just a word of warning about agencies, I have a really nicely formatted CV and once made the mistake of going through an agency and they formatted it to their own template and it looked like garbage.

Also, I work in the games industry which is obviously vocational and creative and my 5 page CV has always been extremely well received and I have been praised on the quality of it.

It is highly dependent on your industry but if it helps you sell yourself make sure you say everything you need to say. Obviously fiddling with margin and header and footer size helps you squeeze more on to a page.

[Brad]

I've often thought that providing agencies with a protected PDF of your CV might be a good idea?

[ascender]

To be honest, if they're going to change your CV for whatever reason (standard format, formatting asked for by a client), nothing's going to stop them. Could they still copy text from a protected PDF? I suspect by doing that, you're just giving them the chance to binit immediately.

I was recently contacted by an agency about a Project Management position. They had a recent CV of mine on file and needed to get it over to the client that day, so I hadn't even seen the detailed job spec so I could tailor my CV to be a better match, making sure I fleshed it out in terms of appropriate skill & experience in areas mentioned. Anyway, the agent said they would alter my CV as they saw fit, as they had done a lot of work with the client and knew what they were looking for. Hmmmm.....

Chased them for a couple of weeks, "no feedback yet". Then 10 days later I get hold of the woman who advises they didn't even send my CV to the client as their senior manager thought my CV was "too network based" for the role. I didn't even bother arguing, just left them to do whatever bumbling around they had planned next.

My recent dealings with agencies have done nothing other than reinforce the oft-repeated and almost stereotypical view of them being absolutely awful on all levels and various colleagues who have been looking for work this year have all said similar things. Very disappointing.