Writing a CV – Making Your CV Effective

Nel post Writing a CV – Basic Elements abbiamo visto quali sono gli elementi base da includere nel nostro curriculum vitae – CV, oggi, invece, vedremo come rendere il nostro curriculum più interessante, grazie a questo video di Monster UK & Ireland.

“Now that you have written the basic elements of your skills and experience down, you need to make sure your CV has the X factor that will have employers queuing up for your services.

The first thing to remember is that business people usually have the same objectives:

• making profit
• getting a bigger market share
• developing their business
• creating new products for their

Of course, they will look for candidates who will help them achieve these objectives.

How can your CV make the reader believe you are a worthwhile product?

You must show what you have done or have the potential to bring to the table.

However, achievements come in all shapes and sizes and are different for every job. For some jobs achievements can easily be proved with concrete evidence such as percentage increases in sales or money saved by streamlining. For others you will need to work harder to show that the influence you had on a project or task made a major impact.

Try to pick at least one specific example per job you’ve held and explain briefly how it improved the business.

Don’t forget that your CV is designed to get you the interview NOT the job, so remember:

• not to delve into too much detail
• provide enough information to entice your potential employers to call you in
• not to give valuable space to insignificant achievements
• discard any content that is not selling you in the right way.

Management talk to obscure abbreviation, the world of business is packed full of clichés and most of us hate them. Phrases such as “team player”, “results orientated”, “good communicator” are worthless without evidence.

Be very careful of using abbreviations especially if you are changing industry. The first person who evaluates your CV is usually somebody in the HR team who may not be an expert in your field.

Technology has made everyone’s life easier when it comes to recruitment. From uploading your CV to an online database, so employers can pick out your skills, to recording a video CV that gives employers a visual overview of what you can offer their company, your only limitation is your own creativity.”

Let’s take a look at some vocabulary related to jobs and business used in the video:

achievement = something accomplished especially by great effort

business = the activity of making, buying, or selling products or providing services for money

business people = people active in business

customer = someone who buys products or services from a business

(to) entice = (to) attract someone especially by offering or showing something that is appealing, interesting, etc.

HR (Human Resources) team = a department within an organisation that deals with finding new employees

increase = growth in size, strength, or quality

industry = any general business activity

management = the people who control or direct a business, department, sports team, etc.

market share = the percentage of the market for a product or service that a company controls

objective = something that you plan to do or achieve

profit = money that is made in a business after all the costs and expenses are paid

recruitment = the process of finding and training new people to work for a company

results orientated = concentrated on achieving results

sale = the act of selling

(to) save = (to) keep money instead of spending it

streamlining = making as efficient as possible

team player = a person who works well in cooperation with others

worthless = having no use or value

worthwhile = good or important enough to justify spending time, effort, or money on

X factor = a quality that you cannot describe that makes someone more interesting or special.

And here are two interesting idioms too:

(to) bring to the table = (to) provide something that will be a benefit

(to) delve into something = (to) examine or study something carefully.

Ricapitolando, quando scriviamo il nostro curriculum dobbiamo tenere bene a mente l’obiettivo: convincere il potenziale datore di lavoro a concederci un colloquio. Perché il curriculum risulti efficace, dobbiamo mettere in evidenza ciò che abbiamo fatto nei nostri impieghi precedenti, in termini di risultati e successi conseguiti,  ma anche ciò che abbiamo da offrire.

E parlando dei nostri achievements, è bene fornire almeno un esempio specifico per ogni incarico ricoperto.

Dal momento che, il più delle volte, i responsabili delle risorse umane hanno solo pochissimo tempo per leggere un curriculum, la sfida è riuscire a valorizzare il nostro profilo e catturare l’attenzione del potenziale datore di lavoro senza entrare troppo nel dettaglio e perderci in informazioni che non sono rilevanti e/o non danno di noi la giusta immagine.

Il tutto cercando di evitare quelle espressioni standard che sono talmente abusate da aver perso ormai qualunque significato.

Al prossimo post per scoprire quali sono queste espressioni “incriminate” e trovare delle soluzioni alternative. A presto, j