What Does It Take To Get A Job?

[Urban Ranger]

Rich,

Downloaded your CV. A quick glance showed it needed reworking.

[Tingkai]

How about this for How Not to Get a Job. True story. Happened today.

A woman works as a secretary for the IT section of a large corporation and then quit last year. Now she's applying for a translator job with the financial division of the same corporation, but on her resume she claims was a copywriter for the online division.

She gets called in for an interview and the manager, my girlfriend, says "So you worked as a copywriter for the online division until May 2001?"

The woman goes "Yes."

"Well that's funny," my girlfriend says. "I was the copywriter for the online division last year and I don't remember you."

Now at this point, you would think that the woman would realize the gig is up and she might as well leave, but instead she says: "Well, I used to just help out from time to time."

My girlfriend was a little stunned by that response, but finally said: "Let me get this right, you claim you worked as a copywriter, even though you didn't and now you're trying to say you occassionally did my work even though I know you never helped me?"

No response.

Needless to say, the interview ended at that point.

[Urban Ranger]

Why did your girlfriend bother to call her in?

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Why did your girlfriend bother to call her in?

A bit of office politics, but mainly to see what the person would do. She's got a bit of a cruel streak.

I'd do the same thing just to see who would be stupid enough to tell that kind of lie on a resume and to see how the person would react.

[Urban Ranger]

I suspected that.

[Tingkai]

Times are tough here, but that's no excuse for such stupidity.

[Urban Ranger]

Yeah, that woman's stupid, but also unlucky.

Some people have gotten away with bigger lies than that. No, not me, but there's one person I know did.

[Provost Harrison]

Well I have tried to rewrite it but it seems there is no pleasing you lot...

[MikeH]

There you go being negative again.

The first rewrite was better than the original and you'd get better interview ratio from it.

The better your CV is the more chance you have of getting a job and it's something you can really do something about. You're getting some really good free advice here, you can either dive in and learn as much as you can and get a great CV and loads of interviews or get pissed off, have an adequate CV and maybe stay unemployed and miserable for longer.

I rewrote mine at least 5 or 6 times as people suggested improvements.

[Saras]

http://editorial.careers.msn.com/articles/resumedonts/

[Sten Sture]

I have a pet peeve against multiple page resumés. It may just be a cultural thing, but if I get a two or three pager it better be from someone with twenty years of experience. You may want to try to create a version that really boils it down to a few bullet points that sound powerful.


While not in your field at all, I think you have a pretty good background and if I didn't know you better, I would think you would make a good employee. Keep the chin up, and maybe do some short-term stuff to fill the time.

[Kropotkin]

Originally posted by Sten Sture
...if I didn't know you better, I would think you would make a good employee.

[Urban Ranger]

Rich,

You are a complete bum. You should keep rewriting your resume until people fall over it. It won't take you more than a couple of hours per day.

I rewrote your CV quickly for you. Several points:

1. I tried to simplify it. Most of the time your CV is first read by a HR flunkie, so it doesn't pay to kill that person by including massive amounts of medical terms and jargon. Keep it simple.

2. Make a more comprehensive resume after you got through HR - for the techies.

3. I included a bunch of comments in it in italics

4. The formatting is entirely my subjective choice. YMMV.

You should try simplying your resume until you can't do it anymore. Omit the less important details and information. Use bullet points whenever you can.

If you don't like it, tough

[Caligastia]

Its also a good idea to try and keep your resume down to 1 page if possible.

[MikeH]

I like Ranger's layout and the way he's simplified things.