CAREER DEVELOPMENT AND EVOLUTION: THE 3D-CV

In my last posting, I began explaining the importance of getting to you know yourself well as you start the process of career evolution.

In this post, I’ll focus on how to use the information you have assembled (in other words, your liberating thoughts, your skills, qualities and values) and then, how to build a 3D-CV.

But before that, I’ll begin with a few questions?

• who is your CV for?
• indeed, what is a CV for?
• is the key information easy to find?
• and does your real personality appear?

The answer to question one is … anybody but yourself! The CV is not for your eyes only. It is for a recruiter, a consultant, a head hunter or an HR Manager of some sort. In other words, somebody who does not know you!

Reports differ, but on average, a CV will be read in anything between 30 seconds and three minutes! Just because the CV is clear for you does not mean that it is clear for someone else. I once received a CV that was nine pages long! Needless to say I did not dissect it in great detail, having realised, quite quickly, that the applicant had none of the skills, experience or diplomas I was looking for. So, as you can imagine, this person was not called in for an interview…

What about the fundamental purpose of the CV. At one time, it really was for outlining the “course of your life” and many people tell me, when I ask them the question, that the CV is about getting a job. In fact, that is not the case. The purpose of the CV is to get the recruiter interested in meeting you! In other words, it’s a little like one of those teasers or trailers of new films you might have seen at the cinema. In a couple of minutes you decide whether you want to see the film or not… and your CV should have the same purpose!!

Generally there are two approaches to presenting a CV.

The first is the traditional or chronological CV. In this approach, you describe your professional history, focusing on your current then previews occupations by outlining your key tasks and possibly achievements. After this you describe your academic background, counting down from your most recent diplomas to the most distant.

The second approach, which I do prefer, begins by outlining your professional skills, possibly organised into two or three connected groups according to your own experience. For example, on my own CV, I pinpoint the key areas of coaching and training, hiring and team managing as well as quality control and customer satisfaction. These are the specific fields where my career has taken me.

As I pointed out in my last posting – analyse your career (with help if necessary) to discover your skills, qualities and so on. Having grouped them by “family”, you should be able to take the ones most suited for the job you are applying for.

And oh yes… it’s not one CV fits all. Quite the reverse; you will probably need two to three models that you can specifically adapt to the job you have applied for.

In this way, the key information for the recruiter is much easier to find… and they will be much more open to meeting you!

The next part of your CV – your past experience – becomes lighter. Rather than give a highly detailed job description – as the 9 page CV I mentioned earlier did – you can quite simply write your job tile, where and when you worked and what your biggest success was.

The fourth question I asked at the beginning was “does your real personality appear”, and I’ll turn to that now.

Did you follow any unusual courses at university – many people are intrigued, for example, that I studied Russian for two years – did you have any outstanding results or participate in any memorable extra-curricular activities? Some of my students at the ESTP engineering school have told me about how they built a new school in war-torn Haiti, worked as a porter in an American hospital or cycled to Kathmandu (yes, Kathmandu in the Himalayas!) to raise money for an orphanage.If you can include something like that in your CV, it will probably make the recruiter say “wow”… This is the 3D element of the CV since it really does make YOU stand out from the crowd, and bearing in mind that recruiters may receive around 50 applications per post, this approach will convince them that they need to meet you! Mission accomplished! 

So, both for the Studies and Training element of the CV, as well as the final Areas of Interest, try to highlight the parts of your personality that make you different from the other candidates.

Furthermore, don’t just write, for example, “anglais lu et parlé” if, for example, you’ve scored more than 800 points on the TOEIC and did a work placement in New Zealand, for instance. And if you use the language at work every day, in meetings, on the phone or writing emails – in other words, you are fully autonomous – you should indicate that.

Many recruiters focus most on just two sections: the first one, of your professional skills, and the final one – your other skills and areas of interest. If they are interested by these two sections, they will then focus on the others.

So, in conclusion, make it easy for the recruiter to see what skills you can bring and why, you as a candidate have something the others don’t.

If you can do that, the chances are high that you will be called in for an interview; as I said earlier, Mission Accomplished!

EnglishWaves.fr - The french radio station that speaks English!

The french radio station that speaks English!

http://www.englishwaves.fr/podcast-2599-career-development-and-evolution-part-d-cv.html