CV Review Note (Part 3)

 In the past couple of weeks, Career Objective and Clarity have been covered as part of CV review notes.

In this part of the CV Review Note, I'll be writting on NYSC and Industrial Training work experience.


NYSC AND INDUSTRIAL TRAINING WORK EXPERIENCE
Are you a recent graduate? If yes, then your NYSC and Industrial Training work experience are of great importance. Work experience is not about how much you were paid on the job, it is about what you did. I noticed some CVs just listed the year, name of their employer and job title. No information was given on what they did on the job - activities (duties or responsibilities).

Please don’t give the excuse that you were just a subject teacher or admin assistant during your NYSC service year. It is still work experience. These jobs require allot of skills and I suggest you take the time and draw out the activities you performed while on the job. Bring out at least 5 activities you did on these jobs and structure them to highlight the core skill required for a job in your ideal profession.
When you’ve had more years / activities of work experience, you may decide to give just brief summaries of the less relevant employment.

The same also applies if you worked part time while undertaking your studies at university.
I have highlighted work experiences gained from NYSC and IT because I've come to notice that a great majority of recent graduates in Nigeria gain their work experiences through these schemes only.

Please find the words to describe your activities (duties or responsibilities) and include them on your CV. This is the best way to portray your skills to a recruiter.

 How do you list activities on your CV?
The following image is a cut out of a CV I received recently. This is a CV of a recent graduate and the only work experiences listed were those gained during his NYSC year and IT.

Moving on to his reviewed CV. Changes were made.
He added the activities he performed on these jobs and even though he was interested in a career in HR, he structured these work experiences to highlight the core Employability Skills for a career in HR.

The following image is a cut out of  the reviewed CV:

I'm sure you can notice there is a huge difference between both images. It is still the same CV and the only thing that has been changed is the manner with which these skills have been captured.
Need I say more?

*NYSC - National Youth Service Corps
* IT - Industrial Training

ILLUSTRATION: Creating a More Effective CV (Part 2)

Saturday is here again. How was your week?

As it's yet another weekend, I thought to do one more illustration to show how to create a more effective CV.

I know for most job seekers, it's the best of days to do the job hunt. Hence, I've decided to give yet another picture illustrations to show how to achieve an effective CV.  

I have used a CV I reviewed recently, blocking out personal information for privacy reasons.


And I'll start with my usual slogan Effective CV=Effective Job Hunting

The CV I'll be using for today's illustration contrasts that of last week in the aspect of the quantity of the information on the CV. Please click here to read last weeks illustration.

The following is an image of the Original CV that was sent in for Review. I advise you go through it and point out flaws.

What I noticed with this CV...

- Poor clarity

- Poor visibility of qualifications

- Very poor portrayal of skills 

Poor Clarity
The main flaw of this CV had to do with clarity. Please read CV Review Note (Part 2) where I wrote about the importance of clarity and how to achieve it. 

- Texts are not aligned properly. For example, at the section 'Personal Information' notice how items seem to jump around. There is an obvious lack of order in that section.

-  Email, Mobile number and Address have been squeezed into the header of the CV. Please always ensure your contact information is written clearly and visibly.
Avoid squeezing allot of information at the header of your CV; it works against clarity most times. You will be acting unkind to yourself if a recruiter is unable to contact you because you have not made your contact information visible enough. I usually prefer listing my contact address in the 'Personal Information' section too.

Poor visibility of qualifications
Instead of lumping the CIPM membership into the 'Education and Qualification' section, I have given this qualification more visibility by creating a separate section for Professional Qualification'. You may also name this section 'Professional Membership and Qualification'.

Very poor portrayal of skills
Moving on to the 'Work Experience' section - notice that the only information contained on the original CV is the employment duration, jobtitle and name of employer.
This is the most important section of your CV because it provides the best opportunity for you to portray the use of your skills to a recruiter.
Do you know that possession of a good mix of skills is likely to convince a recruiter to overlook the fact that you may not have met some other requirements of a job advert (eg age or degree classification)?
Please portray your skills in an effective manner - list your duties and responsibilities.

Now lets look at the reviewed CV....

Notice that a proper order and alignment of texts has been achieved. As I said in a previous post, clarity boosts understandability and this CV has really shown that that.  

Also, I have removed the item 'Certificate of National Youth Service' from the 'Education and Qualification' section. This item isnt an academic qualification and thus cannot be listed s such. If however you really must include information stating that you have completed your NYSC, you can do so by including a line under 'Personal Information' section as follows;
NYSC Certificate:        Yes (although I really do not see the need)

The reviewed CV has a new section - 'Skills'. After I sent the CV back to the owner, he/she went a step further and added that section to the CV. He/she was interested in a career in HR and included core skills required for a career in HR, drawing from his experience gained from extracurricular activities. Impressive.

Also, going back to the work experience section, notice that although the positions were not HR roles, he/she managed to list responsibilities in a manner that highlighted the core skills required for a career in the HR.
Please do a research on the core skills for your chosen career and ensure that your CV highlights these skills.

Notice that he/she did not do the usual listing of skills but he backed it up with those activities (evidence)...
As I stated in a previous post, anyone can list skills as follows:
Excellent Communicator
Effective customer relationship and service quality.
Ability to integrate quickly into a new team.
Willingness to learn new skills and to adopt new progressive ideas.
Good negotiation and interpersonal relationship skills.
This is a VERY ineffective method of portraying your skills and should be avoided. Always portray your skills with activities on your work history section, that is, responsibilities/duties.

Finally, notice that I relocated the section 'Computer Education' from the first page of the CV. Now, I may have considered leaving that section on the front page if he/she had a career path in IT. I moved this section away to page 2 under the heading courses and training. Looking at this CV again, it really should have been named Computer/IT skills instead.
I usually use the heading 'Courses and Training' only for trainings that are relevant to a career path.

I advise you use the changes highlighted on this CV and see if you can make improvements to your CV.

Have a great weekend!
RELATED POSTS: Creating a CV: An Additional Guide Illustration - Creating a More Effective CV (Part 3) Illustration - Creating a More Effective CV (Part 1)

CV Review Note (Part 2)

In the first part of the review notes, I talked about Career Objective. I gave a guide with examples of how to achieve a proper Career Objective (as about 95%+ of the CVs I reviewed had poorly structured Career Objectives)

In this part of the CV Review Note, I'll cover a subject that affects every aspect of your CV - Clarity.
Next week and the weeks to come, I'll go through every section of the CV in turn and clarity has a major impact on the overall image of your CV.


CLARITY
Clarity has to do with neatness, understandability coherence, intelligibility etc.

How can you achieve clarity on your CV?

-Keep the information you include on your CV brief and simple.
-Avoid use of ambiguous words and phrases
-Arrange items properly (Page layout, Bullet point style and size, text alignment add to how well your CV is received)
-Use a readable font size and style
- Separate items properly and avoid clustering information (which most people do in a bid to have fewer pages on their CV)
- Avoid the use of too many bold characters (this could be distracting)



I understand it is really quite tasking to sit down and write about things you’ve done a while ago, so give yourself time. Perhaps use a day to work on each section of your CV and in a week you should be through.

Always bear it in mind that you are not the only one looking for a job; thousands of people may have applied for that same job opening (and trust me when I say this usually is the case in Nigeria because there is a high rate of unemployment).
Help the recruiters to understand your CV - arrange item properly, choose a readable font and space things properly.

Do you expect a recruiter to believe you are good at using MS Word (as stated on your CV) when you have submitted a CV that is poorly presented? - Poor use of bullet points, uneven lines and unreadable fonts. etc

Do you expect a recruiter to believe you have good communication skills when you have several grammatical errors on your CV as well as long and unclear phrases?

I was impressed by about 2 CVs I reviewed recently. They were so neat, I almost didn’t know where to start from with reviewing these CVs. If I were a recruiter, I'd have been interested in reading them.

Then there were other CVs with really scattered arrangements BUT with good content - very good skills but things were written all over the place.

Please refer to our last CV illustration where it became evident that the value of the content of a CV is greatly reduced by poor clarity.

Always bear the previous paragraph in mind, the value of the content of your CV is affected by overall clarity.

Please take the time and get it right.

ILLUSTRATION: Creating a More Effective CV (Part 1)

So it's the weekend... *yay*

I know for most job seekers, it's the best of days to do the job hunt. Hence, I've decided to give picture illustrations of achieving an effective CV.  

Effective CV= Effective Job hunting!

I have used a CV I reviewed recently, making some changes to personal information for privacy reasons.

The first image is the original CV that was sent to me for review and the second CV is the reviewed one. Can you notice any differences?

Now this is the CV that was sent in....

Notice how the CV above is packed full will TOO MUCH information. The owner of this CV used all the tricks in the book to make this CV fit into 2 pages - reduced fonts, adjusted margins and little spacing between different sections (Perhaps he did this to remain compliant with the so-called "2 Page CV" rule. I'll do a post on this soon)

The message he sent with this CV was "I was told no HR can read it because it's too comprehensive"

I'm beginning to see that the keyword with CVs is CLARITY, CLARITY, CLARITY!

For a start, I removed unnecessary information - of which this CV (above) had ALLOT. The next image shows the reviewed CV. Continue reading to see my notes on what was changed and why.

This is the CV after I reviewed it...

Take a look at the "Competences" Section of the original CV (first image). On the post "How to Show off Your Skills on Your CV" (to be uploaded soon), I talked about the most effective ways of conveying information about your skills to recruiters. I advised to avoid using vague statements to describe your skills. Such statements include:

- Superb in results-oriented, self-motivated, decision-making, planning and organizing skills

- Understanding and approacthing techincal isses coupled with an enthusiasm for technical challenge

- Superb in ading value, pro-active, hard working, dynamic, critical thinking and problem solving skills

- Good in basic Mechanical Engineering Services and good in making researches on critical/difficult issues

- Commitment to safe working practices desire for continuos learning, strength of character and stress tolerance

This CV had about 14 of such statements. I don't think any recruiter out there will sit down to read all these. Hidden somewhere in the middle of these 14 items, important information on IT Skills had been hidden:

- Superb in Corel Draw, PDMS and AutoCAD for design

- Knowledge of Microsoft suites such as Ms Word, Ms Excel, Power Point and internet (I have highlighted the "internet" in red because I really don't see that as a skill a recruiter will look out for in a CV)

I moved these IT Skills away to a new section "Computer / IT Skills" and deleted the remaining 12 items.

After the "Competencies" Section, there was another section with yet another listing of skills in a rather ineffective manner. The "Qualities and Skills" Section.
This section listed about 12 items in the same ineffective manner described above.  Listed items included:

- Ability to recognize problems in some engines and communicate ideas

- Ability to work with little, without direct supervision and work under pressure

- Ability to follow instructions accurately and ability to evaluate jobs periodically

- Abiluty to schedule tasks and events and ability to monitor project programmes

- Ability to carry out quality inspections and ability to oversee zero break-down engines

- Ability to monitor the functioning of all engines and quick response to engines breakdown

If you look at these items properly they appear to be the fall out of duties on a job. These skills are better reflected through the entries in your work experience section. When you list skills in this manner, it looks like tales which anyone can cut and paste BUT when you reflect these skills through your duties ona job, a recruiter can immediately picture your ability to do these things.
I deleted this section.
Moving on to the "Employment and Work Experience" Section, notice that duties have been listed. However, some of the listed duties are irrelevant and were deleted from the reviewed CV.

I have noticed that some people hide the "Personal Information" and "Education" Sections of their CVs at the bottom of the CV.

I really don't see  any reason why Personal Information should be hidden at the bottom of the CV.
As for the "Education" Section, I've noticed that the practice of keeping this section at the bottom of the CV is much more common among people with advanced career history who perhaps have a  Career Path that is different from their Education.
At entry level (which the owner of this CV is at) I advise you keep your "Education" Section a the top of your CV. Most jobs requirements at entry level insist on certain Education/Academic requirements and recruiters in such cases will need to see this foremost when they look at your CV.

The final section of the CV under review - "Reference". I am not a fan of detailed Reference on CVs mainly for the sake of confidentiality. It really is not good sending someone's contact information all over the place. Recruiters will usually contact your Referee after some test and interview stages. They will ask of it when they need it. For the CVs I've reviewed so far I have removed from some and other times I haven't. This really has no real effect on whether or not you get a job. I advise you remove it from your CV unless a recruiter states that it should be included. The "Available on request" signoff is good enough.

I highlighted the "Career Objective" Section in red because it is a poorly written Career Objective. I usually use red highlights on CVs to note things I need a CV owner to work on.
Please refer to my post on Career Objectives under the title "CV Review Note (Part 1)".

I advise you do some initial work on your CV before sending it in for review. I'm sure if you work with this example and the ones o come, you should be able to achieve very good improvement on your CV.

Happy weekend!

Cheers


RELATED POSTS:
 Creating a CV: An Additional Guide
Illustration - Creating a More Effective CV (Part 3)
Illustration - Creating a More Effective CV (Part 2) 

Why Didn't the Recruiter Receive Your Application?

So a few days ago, I noticed a couple of emails (41) held up in the SPAM folder of my email. I've had to reply these emails with an apology for not getting to their CVs on time because I DON'T normally read my spam box.

However, I looked at some of the email addresses for the mails that got trapped in the SPAM box and could not help but assume that perhaps, these emails were treated as junk because of the nature of the email address. Most (not all) of them were in the form of: yemibigboiz@xyz.com, fiercebabe01@xyz.com, chinew_@xyz.com (there is an underscore "_" on this email but the hyperlink won't let you see it)

Could your Email Address add to the reasons why you don't get replies from recruiters? Ever wondered if perhaps your email didn't actually get through to their inbox OR they replied you but you didn't receive it because they sent the mail to the wrong address? (I'm not trying to stir up worry in anyone).

I know multinational companies recruit using online forms but what of those cases where you send your application by email or even visit recruitment consultants?

(For this write up, lets assume my name is Apple Head)

When I got my first email addresses I tailored it to look just like those of my siblings.  I wanted it to sound 'cool'. My 2 email addresses were apple4real@xyz.co.uk and realapple4life@xyz.co.uk.

Sadly, I thought this was 'cool'. Fastforward a few years, I was now at University, 100L and in the heat of IM and all that, it just seemed laborious trying to get people to understand my email address. I changed email ads to adapt to a style I had come across. The address was in the form lady_name@xyz.com. I decided to adapt my new address to this and started using miss_apple@xyz.com (there is an underscore "_" on this email but the hyperlink won't let you see it). However, when I started filling forms, I noticed how hard it was sometimes to recognise the "_" part of the email address. Some people that were not familiar with the underscore character "_" thought it meant there was a gap, some used a "-" instead and all sorts while others excluded it all together.

I recall being called by a recruitment agency for an interview at their office and after filling the form the lady struggled to understand my email address as she reviewed my form. I explained to her that it was an underscore "_" . As I walked out of that office, I prayed she or whoever was going to be responsible for emailing me about the outcome of my interview will remember that my email address had an underscore.

Obviously as I got home without even taking off my shoes, I sat by my laptop and created a whole new email address applehead@xyz.com (that is in the format firstnamesurname@xyz.com)

Now even though I have a very weird name, anyone that has a difficulty with my email address can easily cross check it using my personal information where I have details of my fullname.

Anyway that was my simple opinion on email until I bumped into several articles talking about email address and the image they project.

I came across the following article. Read the full thing at http://www.jumpstartyourjobsearch.com/email.html

Does your e-mail address project the right image?
Your e-mail should not be silly or playful, but professional. Do not use cute or "personal" e-mail addresses like queenmother@abc.com, JohnsonFamily@123.com, harleyhunk@abc.com, cat-luvR@)xyz.com, and so on.

Is your e-mail address short and intuitive?
Avoid e-mail addresses with long strings of numbers and letters. Try to select an e-mail address that's easy to remember and get the shortest e-mail address you can find.

Does your e-mail address include digits like L, I, 0, or O?
The digit 0 looks like the letter O and a non-capitalized L (l) looks like a capitalized i (I). Avoid using these letters and digits.

Does your e-mail address include underscores?
Underscores are not visible if the text is underlined
Is your job search confidential?
Protect your identity. Don't let your e-mail address give you away

Read more about this at http://jobsearch.about.com/od/jobsearchtips/a/jobsearchtool.htm

also see http://www.savvysugar.com/Job-Search-Tip-Get-Sensible-Email-Address-3052970 and try to read the comments on the last link.

I need an IT expert to help me and perhaps those interested to check if the following are myths or facts.

I have always had the following opinions about spam boxes:

 - they also trap emails originating from email addresses with "funny" or "cool" texts
 - if your email address has been blacklisted by several people, your mails will by default be delivered to the SPAM folder. (I have this thing I do where I blacklist email addresses that constantly send me chain emails and those annoying FWD: messages as I dislike receiving unnecessary mails. ) Now imagine if several people have blacklisted you. Most email providers such as yahoo have maintain a database of emails reported as spam, so imagine what may have happened to your Email address. The same one you use to submit applications.

...oh and one other thing, how do you access your replies from recruiters if you receive 60 new mails in your inbox everyday? - 30 notifications from facebook, 10 from twitter etc. I had a dedicated email address for my job searches and I used my miss_apple@xyz.com for facebook, twitter and all other social networks.

Again I'm asking, Could your Email Address add to the reasons why you don't get replies from recruiters? Ever wondered if perhaps your email didn't actually get through to their inbox OR they replied you but you didn't receive it because they sent the mail to the wrong address? (I'm not trying to stir up worry in anyone).

Cheers

CV Review Note (Part 1)

In the past 2 months, I've reviewed over 80 CVs. In the course of these reviews, a couple of items have caught my attention. I've realised that most people have been trapped using CV templates and even contents they may have received from the usual typist at the business centre/cyber cafe.

In my opinion a CV is  a tool to convey to a recruiter, information about your skills and abilities.Therefore, I will be posting notes derived from my findings while reviewing CVs


In this post, I will talk about the 'Career Objective' section of your CV and how to make it more effective. Future posts will cover:

   - Personal Information (Relevance/irrelevance of State of Origin, LGA, Religion etc)

   - Clarity of CV

   - NYSC and Industrial Training work experience
   - Professional Qualification and what to include under Education and Qualifications

CAREER OBJECTIVE

Do you really need one? Most of the ‘career objective’ I came across while reviewing the last set of CVs were really NOT Career Objective; infact, they bent towards the side of Personal Statements.

A Career Objective is NOT the same a Personal Statement.

I am not a fan of the Career Objective section. Removed mine from my CV ages ago.

However, I noticed that most people prefer having the Career Objective section on their CV so I decided to do a quick research on it.

Before going into the Career Objective bit let’s get the Personal Statement issue out of the way.

A personal statement is simply an About Me. It tells the recruiter who you are and what you can do for them.

Now back to Career Objective...

Here are some hints on Career Objective I found from about 5 websites put together. (please google career objective if you need further information. There are loads of free samples out there)

A career objective, as it pertains to your curriculum vitae, is a statement of purpose which targets a specific job within a particular industry. It should provide clues as to why the candidate might be suitable to work in his/her target industry.

Here are 3 POORLY structured Career Objectives I've come across during CV reviews;

- To continuously develop myself to be relevant and successful contributor in my chosen profession while helping to achieve corporate goals as an individual and as a team player. (this is not a career objective)


- To be active and creative in the achievement of the organisation's goals. To add value to the corporate organisation through the display of excellent administration and persuasive skills, as results strengthen my intellectual prowess (this is not a career objective)

- I am honest, conscientious, proficient, dedicated, proactive and having good interpersonal skills thus possess the ability to contribute positively to my employers organisation (this is not a career objective)

Now, using our definition of career objective above, lets look at a step by step guide on writing an effective career objective with examples:

'To apply my five years' experience in personal training, and master's degree in sports psychology, to a role as physical education instructor'.

From this example we can note the following components of a Career Objective:
Target industry/specific job – Physical Education/instructor
Why is this candidate suitable for this job? – Has five years experience in personal training and a master’s degree in sports psychology.

Career Objective functions to offer a rationale for the submission of your CV to the recipient, by defining the job you want to acquire, and highlighting the qualities that make you ideal to attain it.

So, in simple terms a Career Objective states:

 - The job being applied for (eg instructor)
 - The industry (eg education)
 - Qualities that support your goal (eg qualifications, previous work experience etc)

Hints and Tips for Compelling Objectives

 -Stay short and sweet. About two lines is all you need.

 - Be specific, but not exclusionist. Stating that you want to work as a computer programmer is fine; stating that you want to work as a computer programmer specialising in relational databases coded in XML is restrictive in the extreme, and may prevent you being considered for any other computer programming position.

 - Ensure that what you say in your objective is born out by the content of your CV, and vice-versa.

More examples of effective career objectives:

For an entry level accounting position:

   - A position in the accounting field where excellent analytical and technical skills can help to improve the company's profitability.

If you have two years experience:

   - A Data Entry position where skills in spreadsheet development and troubleshooting can improve efficiency and enhance profitability.

If you are changing areas of employment:

  - A position as Assistant Engineer where construction knowledge, high mechanical aptitude and commitment to safety can contribute to profitable operation.

If you are a creative worker:

  - A Graphic Design position where advanced graphic and creative skills will produce a quality product for agency customers.

Career Objectives are quite limiting and may have to be edited each time you need to send you CV for a job (to adapt to the position you are applying for).

 Please continue to read more on Career Objective using the following link http://www.cvireland.ie/articles/instruction/career_objective.htm

Look out for CV Review Note (Part 2) where I will be discussing - Personal Information (Relevance/irrelevance of State of Origin, LGA, Religion etc).

Cheers

WELCOME...!

Hello and welcome to My CV Clinic blog.

In Novermber 2011 (Just about 2 months ago), I  started a thread on Nairaland, inviting students and jobseekers to send in their CVs  to my email mycvclinic@gmail.com for a free CV review. From the responses I've received so far, I've decided to create this blog to act as a central  base to discuss various CV and Career issues.

For those of your that do not know about My CV Clinic, here is a little introduction of what it is....

I can help review your CV FREE

For confidentiality purposes, I suggest you exclude your address and Personal Information when sending your CV to me. When I return it to you, you can simply input it.  

Send your current CV to mycvclinic@gmail.com and also include your career path.

What led to my idea to review your CV?  I was at work and decided to look through my email sent box. I noticed my first ever CV and it made me laugh so hard.

It was a very horrible CV. Luckily at my university, I had access to a career advisor. I had never worked before and had no idea what I should put on my CV. She reviewed my CV and from a one page document that in her opinion 'told recruiters that I lacked skills and shouldn't be employed', she was able to give me very good pointers and I had a lovely 2 page CV.

Your CV is a picture of your career; it sells more when it is beautiful.


So, lets continue what I've started,

Send your current CV to mycvclinic@gmail.com for a review today.

It is FREE. Don't forget to tell a friend and don't forget to help a friend.

Cheers