Professionalism starts with a spellcheck

When you spend days on end looking at CVs, after a while there is very little shock value in what you read. I've encountered the students who have managed to spell the name of their university incorrectly. That mind-numbing sensation when browsing another 'hard working individual' is a constant. And yet this afternoon I encountered a CV which perfectly illustrates how a candidate shoots themselves in the foot and would see their application discarded before a recruiter has even got beyond the first paragraph. Frankly it is a bit of a shocker.

I'll ignore the fact that this person has left an e off the word 'severe', and gloss over the upper case A in Active, and address the bigger problem. If you choose to begin your engagement with an employer by offering a professional profile, you better be damned sure that you can spell the word 'professional'

Hire me please, I'm a Peroffional

Professionalism starts with a spellcheck, Then read through your applications to check for spelling or grammatical issues that a spellchecker has not picked up upon, As an extra safety measure, ask somebody you trust to cast their eye over your documents. There is nothing professional about sending a CV that begins this badly to an employer, or in this case to a Placement Office.

First impressions are king. Candidates with a Peroffional Profile will not find their applications progressing very far. 

4 Ways to Improve Your CV

We all know that a good CV can make the difference in getting a foot in the door with an employer. Judging by some of the drafts I receive from my students, there are varying degrees of interpretation on what makes for a good CV! This guest article courtesy of AllTheTopBananas.com provides 4 simple straightforward ways to improve your CV, and hopefully get you in front of a recruiter.

When it comes to searching for a job, your CV is one of the most important tools that you have. It’s the first impression that you’ll give most employers, and if you want to fight off the competition, it needs to be well written and showcase your skills in the best possible way.

Let’s take a look at 4 ways in which you can improve your CV.

Focus on results, not tasks

This is a mistake that most people make. Rather than simply listing the tasks that you carried out in your previous roles, focus on the achievements that you made. For example, a restaurant manager focusing on tasks might say ‘I managed the restaurant during busy service periods’. If they were focusing on results though, they might say ‘I increased daily sales by 25% over a three month period’. Even if your CV mainly includes trainee jobs without a great deal of responsibility, there will be ways to showcase the results that you helped to achieve.

Include a personal statement

Many people don’t bother to include a personal statement in their CV, but it’s a great way to get noticed and stand out from the crowd. A personal statement is basically a couple of short paragraphs at the beginning that tell the employer about your skills and experience, before they get into the nitty gritty. In this section, back your claims up with brief evidence. Rather than just listing qualities such as ‘team player, strong communicator and problem solver’, explain how you’ve acquired these skills or developed them.

Cut out the waffle

When you’re applying for a job, it’s likely that not everything that you have on your CV will be relevant. If this is the case, be ruthless and cut it out. If you have a Masters degree and ten years experience in your sector, for example, it’s not necessary to list all of your GCSE results and the groups that you were involved in at school. Most employers are inundated with applications for every job that they advertise, so make their job easier for them. Stick to the relevant and useful information, and if possible, keep your CV to 2 pages of A4.

Tailor your CV for each application 

You should never send exactly the same CV to every employer. Recruiters will be able to spot this from a mile away, and it gives out the message that you aren’t really interested in their company or this particular position. Before sending your CV, read through the job description and person specification very carefully. Consider how you can make some tweaks and changes so you’re meeting all of the requirements. It could take less than half an hour to do this, and it could be the difference between being invited for an interview and having your application rejected.

Have you updated your CV recently? What do you think are the most important aspects?

This article was brought to you by Ruth Hinds on behalf of AllTheTopBananas. ATTB allows you to search for and browse through UK jobs in one place, from IT jobs in Cambridge to receptionist jobs in Liverpool. You can also upload your CV to increase your chances of being headhunted.

Greed is good?

Working in Placements, you look forward to your students informing you that they have secured their placement. These are the precious moments where you know that you’ve done a good job and can move onto the next student who requires your assistance. Or at least that is what you hope.

After offering congratulations and finding out all the relevant details of the placement, my next line of questioning relates to any outstanding applications that the student has made. For the vast majority, this is simply a question of tying up loose ends. If an employer contacts them for an interview, politely decline explaining that they have now secured a placement elsewhere and so are no longer available. This leaves things on good terms for the future, particularly if the student wants to pursue opportunities with that organisation later on in their career.

Where my stomach turns, is when a student says they have interviews coming up in the next couple of weeks with Company B and Company C, despite already having signed a contract with Company A. This is a scenario that is thankfully uncommon, but is one that presents a dilemma for a Placement Officer.

On the one hand, you want your students to find the right placement for them. For the next 12 months they will be undertaking the first steps in their professional career and the experience should be one in which they can flourish. However, a Placement Officer has to look at the bigger picture and recognise that their responsibilities lie not just with the students.

If an employer has a negative experience from one of my students, it does not reflect well on the University. We build relationships over the long term with placement providers to ensure that our students have a wide range of opportunities available to them. If one of our students performs a u-turn after signing a contract, it could easily sour the relationship with the employer. At a time when universities across the country are branching out into placements ahead of the 2012 tuition fees, these are employers that we can dearly afford to lose.

For the student, it is also a question of professionalism. Were the roles to be reversed and a company continued to interview until they found a better candidate, the student would rightly be outraged at having their placement taken away from them.

I am sympathetic towards students who find themselves in this situation. In a perfect world, having spent long hours making applications you obviously would want to see all of your options before making a decision. However, once you have accepted a placement offer and signed that contract it is time to step back from the recruitment process. At this early point in their career, is it worth the risk of getting blacklisted by recruiters for the sake of touting for a better offer? I would say not.