Adzuna, a fun little test
Discussion
A friend just showed me this website, Adzuna. You upload you CV, it analyses it and tells you what you're worth.
Happily it reckons I am worth a good £10k more than I currently get so I am off to confront my boss!
Thought it was a bit of fun first, but then saw the tab called "CV Booster". This page gives you some pointers and had pulled up these "warnings" about my CV:
Filename: Too long
Summary: No summary found. "A strong summary section looks great in a CV. It gives people a concise snapshot of your work history and what you can bring to a role. Don't put an objective into your CV though as they take up valuable space and don't add much value."
CV Length: Its too long. "Only 9% of CVs with your 6 years of experience are longer than yours. Try removing some content.". There is a histogram showing most CVs have 400-500 words. Mine is 900.
Address: We couldn't find your address, include it to help with the recruitment process
I think I can pass on the last one, already get spammed to hell on the phone and email so I don't want actual spam mail as well! But those two others do appear to be valid points although counter to each other (adding a summary yet removing content).
Would resident CV pros agree?
Happily it reckons I am worth a good £10k more than I currently get so I am off to confront my boss!
Thought it was a bit of fun first, but then saw the tab called "CV Booster". This page gives you some pointers and had pulled up these "warnings" about my CV:
Filename: Too long
Summary: No summary found. "A strong summary section looks great in a CV. It gives people a concise snapshot of your work history and what you can bring to a role. Don't put an objective into your CV though as they take up valuable space and don't add much value."
CV Length: Its too long. "Only 9% of CVs with your 6 years of experience are longer than yours. Try removing some content.". There is a histogram showing most CVs have 400-500 words. Mine is 900.
Address: We couldn't find your address, include it to help with the recruitment process
I think I can pass on the last one, already get spammed to hell on the phone and email so I don't want actual spam mail as well! But those two others do appear to be valid points although counter to each other (adding a summary yet removing content).
Would resident CV pros agree?
Re size of content; as both a hirer and CV advisor, I agree that less is more. An impenetrable wall of text makes the business of shortlisting a chore and I have myself overlooked CVs where it's obvious that the owner simply hasn't grasped the basics of an effective CV, which might suggest they've not investigated best practice in other aspects of their professional life.
Your CV should be no more than two pages
Top line - name - email address - phone number
Start with a paragraph of "sell" in the third person.... why hire you?
Bullet point columns of skills
Jobs in chronological order from most recent / current job title, organisation, dates and then a brief description of role and bullet point your achievements. Beyond 5 years you can be less detailed. Beyond 10 years just job title, organisation and dates
Any professional memberships
Then education
Finally - references on request
Never put your address on a CV
Top line - name - email address - phone number
Start with a paragraph of "sell" in the third person.... why hire you?
Bullet point columns of skills
Jobs in chronological order from most recent / current job title, organisation, dates and then a brief description of role and bullet point your achievements. Beyond 5 years you can be less detailed. Beyond 10 years just job title, organisation and dates
Any professional memberships
Then education
Finally - references on request
Never put your address on a CV
craigjm said:
Your CV should be no more than two pages
Top line - name - email address - phone number
Start with a paragraph of "sell" in the third person.... why hire you?
Bullet point columns of skills
Jobs in chronological order from most recent / current job title, organisation, dates and then a brief description of role and bullet point your achievements. Beyond 5 years you can be less detailed. Beyond 10 years just job title, organisation and dates
Any professional memberships
Then education
Finally - references on request
Never put your address on a CV
It is 2 pages. I do not have a summary para but do have a bullet block of key-skills that I modify depending on the role. This is 6-8 bullets in 2 blocks of 3-4.Top line - name - email address - phone number
Start with a paragraph of "sell" in the third person.... why hire you?
Bullet point columns of skills
Jobs in chronological order from most recent / current job title, organisation, dates and then a brief description of role and bullet point your achievements. Beyond 5 years you can be less detailed. Beyond 10 years just job title, organisation and dates
Any professional memberships
Then education
Finally - references on request
Never put your address on a CV
Previous job entries follow your guide but perhaps not as brief. Sounds like this is where I can re-shape and gut some text. Think I had memberships after education though.
And I am counting my PhD as work/job experience rather than education. Would you agree? It is not education really in as much as you don't turn up to lectures and get taught or sit tests. You are paid to conduct research. Though I have had some recruitment people question it.
Also my education is limited to most recent. Just university degree, with a brief mention of key activities; mostly outcomes of group work for industry based projects. I am not sure how useful these are to keep on there now given my employment history only starts in 2009 and for 2010-2014 I was doing a PhD and have had 1 job either side of that.
If you were paid a salary during your Phd it was work, if you were paid basic subsistence its education. I suspect I would move it between the two depending on the job I was applying for
Get yourself a summary paragraph at the top. That is expected.
People reading a CV will make the decision to move on after they get to the middle of the first page. Without a summary paragraph you are disadvantaging yourself.
Get yourself a summary paragraph at the top. That is expected.
People reading a CV will make the decision to move on after they get to the middle of the first page. Without a summary paragraph you are disadvantaging yourself.
craigjm said:
If you were paid a salary during your Phd it was work, if you were paid basic subsistence its education. I suspect I would move it between the two depending on the job I was applying for
Get yourself a summary paragraph at the top. That is expected.
People reading a CV will make the decision to move on after they get to the middle of the first page. Without a summary paragraph you are disadvantaging yourself.
One of those grey things... Paid a stipend, no tax on it, about £1600/mo. Classed as both a student and staff to suit whatever people needed you to be at the time!Get yourself a summary paragraph at the top. That is expected.
People reading a CV will make the decision to move on after they get to the middle of the first page. Without a summary paragraph you are disadvantaging yourself.
Any tips on writing a summary that doesn't also come across as total and utter cringe?
Reading some guides, but its making me feel like I've gone wrong somewhere. I am struggling to really write down, with clarity, what my job role is, what I am good at, what I enjoy doing.
My PhD and my current job don't really lend me to a nice pigeon hole type job title like "Project Manager". I don't feel like I can stand up and say I am such and such an engineer. I've literally had a hand in many pies from making electronics, doing simulations, computer models, engine testing, engine calibration to data analysis and writing code to process data, images, video to designing experiments, building them and performing them. Today I am acting as a technical lead on something (with no prior experience of said technology!) and next week I shall be wiring up a HGV with sensors and performing many many tests devised through Design of Experiments. Again stuff I haven't got any significant experience in. I just do it, make it up as I go and ask for help when I get stuck.
It all sounds like excellent experience.... but its leaving me feeling like I haven't actually got a purpose. I turn up. I do stuff. What ever needs doing. I go home again. I don't feel like I have good enough experience in any one thing that I can then sell my self by.
The guy next to me can say resolutely that he is a design engineer. He has years of experience designing particular items with a particular software and designing for manufacture. The guy opposite is the same, but with embedded software. Thats what they do, turn up and do CAD or turn up and do programming. I don't feel like I can do that, yet I seem to have gotten involved with just about everyone's work area to a level where I can understand what they're doing and why. I've even had to dabble in project management (which I hate).
My PhD and my current job don't really lend me to a nice pigeon hole type job title like "Project Manager". I don't feel like I can stand up and say I am such and such an engineer. I've literally had a hand in many pies from making electronics, doing simulations, computer models, engine testing, engine calibration to data analysis and writing code to process data, images, video to designing experiments, building them and performing them. Today I am acting as a technical lead on something (with no prior experience of said technology!) and next week I shall be wiring up a HGV with sensors and performing many many tests devised through Design of Experiments. Again stuff I haven't got any significant experience in. I just do it, make it up as I go and ask for help when I get stuck.
It all sounds like excellent experience.... but its leaving me feeling like I haven't actually got a purpose. I turn up. I do stuff. What ever needs doing. I go home again. I don't feel like I have good enough experience in any one thing that I can then sell my self by.
The guy next to me can say resolutely that he is a design engineer. He has years of experience designing particular items with a particular software and designing for manufacture. The guy opposite is the same, but with embedded software. Thats what they do, turn up and do CAD or turn up and do programming. I don't feel like I can do that, yet I seem to have gotten involved with just about everyone's work area to a level where I can understand what they're doing and why. I've even had to dabble in project management (which I hate).
Edited by Otispunkmeyer on Wednesday 27th July 17:29
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