CV clinic

Katie Shimmon
Saturday
February 3, 2007
The Guardian

Caroline Davis graduated from the University of Nottingham in 2004 with a degree in psychology.

She is currently working in elderly mental health in a day hospital. Her ideal job would be in the promotion, provision and development of mental health services within either the NHS or one of the major mental health charities.

How can Caroline improve her CV to conviince prospective employers that she is a good candidate

for the role?

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Presentation
Rick Edge, Consultant, EdgeCVs.com (www.edgecvs.com) 

Evidently, Caroline is very ambitious and to match her career aspirations and secure a competitive edge the CV must be exceptionally well written and presented.

The Profile is vital to capturing employers´ attention and a factual account of achievements will appeal far more than a potentially biased, subjective description.  The key to a good CV is to be explicit, yet succinct.  Given Caroline´s level of academic achievement, it is expected she will have “excellent verbal and communication skills” - these does not need underlining.  A better option would be to make clear her objective to work within the NHS or with a mental health charity.

Caroline´s strength is the relevancy of her BSc in Psychology to her career aim.  By placing this achievement directly below her Profile she is providing credible, factual evidence of her level of competency and transferable skills.

I recommend Caroline adopts a `functional´ style of CV - placing the healthcare experience that dovetails with her career goal on the front page - thus demonstrating most relevant skills.   It is disappointing that Caroline has not included details of her two latest directly related healthcare roles. Consequently, the reader is led into a “guessing game” as to the skills she has gained and this could cause her to miss out on opportunities.

Caroline is right to display her voluntary role in detail as this adds credibility and a third dimension to her background - which employers appreciate - and this will help differentiate her from two-dimensional rivals.

Turning to design, Caroline could assist readers in navigating the CV and accessing key information by streamlining the format, tidying the margins, using one font and only emboldening to highlight the best.  Finally, with new legislation it is unnecessary to include date of birth and nationality

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Katie Shimmon
Saturday
December 9, 2006
The Guardian

Christina Al-Nofal completed an MA in journalism (broadcast pathway) at the University of Westminster in July.  She is applying for a variety of jobs, including researcher, reporter, trainee positions, public relations and administrative roles.

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Presentation
Rick Edge, Consultant, EdgeCVs.com (www.edgecvs.com) 

Given Christina´s career aim, her CV has to be more than perfect! 

As the Profile is key to capturing and sustaining the reader´s interest, Christina should keep her address separate and omit her nationality and age – which is irrelevant.

To gain credibility, the Profile should be “factual” and be written in a less self-congratulatory style. The Profile is the perfect opportunity to demonstrate written communication skills; therefore, grammar and punctuation must be spot on, and the language varied – three `moderns´ in one sentence are a definite no no – particularly within journalism!  The Profile is the ideal place to draw attention to her bi-lingual and technical skills.

Christina´s strength is the relevancy of the MA in Journalism to her career aim.  By placing the MA and BA directly below her Profile, the CV would provide credible “factual” evidence of her transferable skills.  The `Direct Transferable Skills´ heading could be replaced with `Media Experience´, and highlight the journalistic aspects of her Radio Presenter role in terms of research, planning, producing and editing.  Moreover, by including her internship as a Newspaper Correspondent in this section, Christina could further emphasise her written and verbal communication skills.  Implicit within both roles would be the crucially important ability to successfully meet timescales.  By strategically focusing on media, the front page would have far greater impact.

If Christina commenced the second page with the heading `Teaching Experience´,  she would further underline her media-related skills in terms of analytical thinking, organizational planning, performance assessment and administration, together with an ability to communicate with multi-cultural people of different age groups.

Finally, Christina could assist readers to navigate the CV and access key information by creating a streamlined format: avoid too many indentations, eliminate underlining, keep to one font style and only embolden to draw attention to the best. 

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If you are an undergraduate or recent graduate in need of some CV surgery,

send your CV to rise@guardian.co.uk