In the Resumè, less is more!
An effective resumè is a short one! Do we want employers to read our CV? OF COURSE!
Try to imagine receiving a document that is several pages long; imagine receiving hundreds of them, and having to go through them in a very short time in order to single out those that better respond to a very complex job description.
Then imagine being a driven manager who is completely focused on his competitive and constantly challenging business and having one of these scrolls in your hands.
Or again, imagine being a common person who receives an endless email from an ex colleague - a nice, clever colleague, but still someone you don’t “owe anything” to.
How much time and effort do you think you will devote to a document of this kind as a recruiter, a manager or an ex colleague?
If the document is concise, well-organised, professional as well as engaging, you’ll read it, even though you might only do so quickly. On the other hand, if it’s too long, vague, verbose and not well-targeted, you clearly won’t bother.
So: make sure you write a 1) professional, 2) concise and 3) targeted document! no worries about the format: european, chronological or skill-based.
1) Professional
For a professional CV, please consult our other post entries for a recommended template (the european one, the classic one and the skill-based one).
2) Concise
Less is more! Your CV should be no more than two pages long. Yes, you can do it, even if you’ve changed companies repeatedly or you’ve been in employment for the past 30 years. All you need to do is put your mind to it and prioritise the information on the basis of the following criteria:
- Your contact details (how are employers going to call you otherwise?)
- Your work experience (this is always preferable to listing courses and general skills)
- Your education
- Further info.
A further criterion should be that of focusing more on your latest experiences and less on the previous ones, in a sort of “funnel” progression.
You may list your experiences in a chronological or anti-chronological order, depending on your age: if you’re younger than 30-32 years old, a chronological order will be more appropriate to show your evolutions; if you’re older, and thus have a fairly developed career, you should choose an anti-chronological order.
The assumption is that you’re selling your latest experience, so this is what’s most relevant for prospective employers and their companies.
3) Targeted
A good CV must be specifically targeted to the recruiter as a person, as a member of a specific business and as a worker in a specific functional area. If you want to catch your recruiter’s attention, you should focus on facts that are relevant to the business and avoid digressions, comments and remarks that are too self-centred. You should be honest, that is, you shouldn’t lie. You should write correctly without making any grammatical mistakes. And you should be coherent and credible.
Department heads will certainly be interested in the companies you’ve worked for and the positions you’ve held (which must be hierarchically below that of your recruiter: for instance, you won’t submit your application to a Finance and Control Director if you’re a CFO. But most of all, they will be interested in the projects you’ve managed, the initiatives you’ve taken and the results you’ve achieved.
You should apply to a company if you’ve got something to offer their business, not because you like the sector in which it operates. If you love fashion, you can apply to a fashion company if you have some previous experience in that field, e.g. if you’ve worked in retail, in Accounting, Financial Management and Control, or, at the most, in Information Systems. If you’ve worked in the marketing area for an IT company, a fashion business simply won’t be interested in you!
What matters is not what’s interesting for you, but whether you are interesting for the company!
Believe me: there’s no situation in which putting yourself in someone else’s shoes is as useful as when you’re trying to sell yourself on the job market.
