I promise, I shall make this my last post on CVs and recruitment for a while. (see notes, and more notes)But I just wanted to mention the only useful book I read about CVs when researching the CV book market. When I read this book I gave up on writing a CV book because it pretty much covered the notes I had made (previous 2 blog posts) and gave useful information for building up an effective CV.
Pitch Yourself, by Bill Faust and Michael Faust.
( amazon.co.uk | amazon.com )
The basic summary: You have less than 30 seconds to impress. You're CV needs to answer the question "What can you offer me?". CV needs to provide evidence, create interest. Make your next employer buy you.
Change your CV from a linear reverse order snapshot of where you have worked. Turn it into something that says where you can go.
A traditional CV hides competencies and looks the same as everyone else applying for the job.
Write an elevator pitch. Based on your "Transferable Assets" - competencies you have demonstrated in multiple situations. Who you 'are'. What you do. How you do it.
Identify competencies appropriate to the role. Identify times when you had capability for that competency, what you did, what happened as a result. See also HRSG articles
Create a career DNA - table with the columns:
- company name
- dates worked for them
- short desc of company
- job title
- job dimensions
- responsibilities
- benefit of your job
- education, training, received
Develop a list of competencies by deconstructing your career using an Objective-Analysis-Action-Results (OAAR) approach
- Objective - task you had to deliver
- Analysis - your thinking and evaluation of the options you had to deliver the task
- Action - implementation of your chosen options
- Results - outcomes of your actions
Actions may lead to other objectives and help you expand the competencies and evidence
Group the OAARs identified into competencies.
Identify transferable assets to group OAAR into.
A very practical book, which results in CVs that I would want to read. Recommended. The only CV book you will ever need.
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