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CV Writing Services



Westdene Seagull

aka Cap'n Carl Firecrotch
NSC Patreon
Oct 27, 2003
20,938
The arse end of Hangleton
So are they worth the £400 or so ? I ask as a recruitment agency is suggesting my CV is tired and should be written professionally ?
 






Biscuit

Native Creative
Jul 8, 2003
22,205
Brighton
Nope. A friend of mine had it, thought it was laughable. Just write it yourself using an online template. Make sure it's legible, relevant, well layed-out and one page.

You've not been charged £400 for this advice!
 


nwgull

Well-known member
Jul 25, 2003
13,653
Manchester
So are they worth the £400 or so ? I ask as a recruitment agency is suggesting my CV is tired and should be written professionally ?

Do the recruitment agency offer this service by any chance?

It's a load of bollocks charging so much. Your CV can only be as good as the experience that you're able to (truthfully) put on it.
 




strings

Moving further North...
Feb 19, 2006
9,965
Barnsley
I had one done (for free) by an ex-colleague, who had previously worked as a CV writer.

I wasn't too impressed and ended up re-editing it myself afterwards. It was well laid out and clearly laid out key skills, which was good. It just looked a bit, um, tacky.
 


TWOCHOICEStom

Well-known member
Sep 22, 2007
10,546
Brighton
Pro Tip: Always have a page at the end of your CV with every skill you can think applied to you in a long list. It can be 2 pages long if you like. List everything that's even slightly relevant to your skillset.

Usually, when you upload your CV to a site, it parses the doc and adds those skills it finds to your generated profile in whatever system it is they use.

I know this because I work within IT at a recruitment company. You're welcome :thumbsup:
 


surrey jim

Not in Surrey
Aug 2, 2005
18,085
Bevendean
In a previous job I had as a recruitment consultancy one of the ways of sifting candidates out at the first round was to get all CVs electronically and search by key words. if the said words/phrase was not present then the candidate would not be progressed to the next round (things such as MBA / Black Belt six Sigma etc).
 




Trufflehound

Re-enfranchised
Aug 5, 2003
14,104
The democratic and free EU
Mrs Trufflehound, who works in recruitment, just told me about a CV she saw this morning, from an engineer who included his star sign among his personal details.

My hot CV tip: do not do this. You have not been charged £400 for this information.
 


Badger

NOT the Honey Badger
NSC Patreon
May 8, 2007
12,750
Toronto
As has been said, for online recruitment it's all about keywords, I used to work for a company that create recruitment websites.

There's quite a good tool on http://jobs.theguardian.com/profile/ that you can use to fill in your details and it gives you a formatted CV to download at the end. I do have a certain bias because I wrote a lot of the tool (if you find any of it is broken then that obviously wasn't a bit I wrote). Recruiters who use these tools tend to be quite lazy so you need to make sure you've got the important words in your industry.
 


hybrid_x

Banned
Jun 28, 2011
2,225
Mrs Trufflehound, who works in recruitment, just told me about a CV she saw this morning, from an engineer who included his star sign among his personal details.

My hot CV tip: do not do this. You have not been charged £400 for this information.


ones sign is completely relevant, if an office had too many fire signs, or too many air signs the balance would be weird......a good blend of all four sign types would help balance and make things more rounded.

you have not been charged for this advice.
 




Westdene Seagull

aka Cap'n Carl Firecrotch
NSC Patreon
Oct 27, 2003
20,938
The arse end of Hangleton
Do the recruitment agency offer this service by any chance?

It's a load of bollocks charging so much. Your CV can only be as good as the experience that you're able to (truthfully) put on it.

Actually they recommended someone else. I've just rung up three recruitment agencies all of whom have given me advice, for free, and more or less the same advice. So thank you all for the advice - you were all correct that paying for it is b*llocks.
 




Tom Hark Preston Park

Will Post For Cash
Jul 6, 2003
69,884
So are they worth the £400 or so ? I ask as a recruitment agency is suggesting my CV is tired and should be written professionally ?

Not worth it at all.

Biggest tips I could give you are, having been an IT contractor for yonks and having had to sell meself via a word copy of my CV:

1. Potted summary of your personal details,education/qualifications on front page with one line per job in most recent order first
2. Write it in the third person, that is, don't say I did this, I did that, say Mr Smith did this, Mr Smith did that (saves agency having to rewrite it for the prospective employer, looks like they wrote it themselves, they're lazy like that)
3. Devote most space to your most recent experience. Not many prospective employers interested in what you were doing six jobs or ten years ago.
4. Keep it short, no more than four pages max including summary sheet
5. Run it through a spell-checker before sending it out
 
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Westdene Seagull

aka Cap'n Carl Firecrotch
NSC Patreon
Oct 27, 2003
20,938
The arse end of Hangleton
Not worth it at all.

Biggest tips I could give you are, having been an IT contractor for yonks and having had to sell meself via a word copy of my CV:

1. Potted summary of your personal details,education/qualifications on front page with one line per job in most recent order first
2. Write it in the third person, that is, don't say I did this, I did that, say Mr Smith did this, Mr Smith did that (saves agency having to rewrite it for the client, looks like they wrote it themselves, they're lazy like that)
3. Keep it short, no more than four pages max including summary sheet
4. Run it through a spell-checker

Thank you - interestingly, with the conversations I've now had today, a majority of agencies are suggesting a hard hitting two pages is the best way to write a CV. They also mentioned dumping qualifications to the bottom ( unless they are specifically requested for the role ) and only putting any detail for jobs in the last ten years. They all mentioned writing in the third person which is a first to me but I can see why.
 


Tom Hark Preston Park

Will Post For Cash
Jul 6, 2003
69,884
Thank you - interestingly, with the conversations I've now had today, a majority of agencies are suggesting a hard hitting two pages is the best way to write a CV. They also mentioned dumping qualifications to the bottom ( unless they are specifically requested for the role ) and only putting any detail for jobs in the last ten years. They all mentioned writing in the third person which is a first to me but I can see why.

Gah! You caught me mid-edit about the ten years thing. See me updated post. Two pages may or may not be enough. Depends if you're forever doing six month contracts or only move jobs once every thee/four/five years. If the latter, then two pages may be enough, though three - including potted summary - would be better IMHO to give a good account of your recent experience. Good luck!
 


Eric Potts

Well-known member
Jul 26, 2004
1,853
Top o' Hanover
ones sign is completely relevant, if an office had too many fire signs, or too many air signs the balance would be weird......a good blend of all four sign types would help balance and make things more rounded.

you have not been charged for this advice.

Really hydrid_x ?

You are a gift that keeps on giving.

Keep up the good work.
 



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