CV Review

Thanks for the

It has to be said though, that all the advice is as nothing if your CV is "improved" by an agency before it gets to the HR slush pile.

A rather fun experience involving an IT agency called Computer F*****s, where they reprocessed my CV before sending me for an interview where I was completely unsuited, not having the requisite skills, led to me always carrying a copy of the original CV with me. It also meant that when I hit the heady heights of management, a lot of CVs sent via CF went straight into recycling.

I suppose the moral of that one is, pick your agency/job website wisely...

My recent blog item (below) fits this thread nicely, hope you don't mind the shameless plug!

Writing Your CV - Tips For The Ambitious

I'll admit it's been a while since I had to trawl through CV's, and longer since I had to write one, but in this brave new world, is the paper CV still king?

I was under the impression it was all online profiles now and keyword searches. Is there still mileage for the snail mail CV printed on posh paper?

I know in the IT world at least, it just a bunch of emails you print out from the agency. When I did do a lot of interviewing, I can't remember anyone handing over a professionally written CV at the start of the interview, which is something I always did. Even if it didn't get read, it was still smarty points with your potential boss

If you go through the recruitment agency route, you'll need to take into account keyword searches - if you apply directly to the employer you probably won't.

That said, if you're aproaching employers directly and they're large or work in IT it's obviously worth checking with them whether they use keyword searching software when sifting CVs. Ask politely and they'll probably tell you!