A very popular question people ask is “what should I put in my C.V?”, the problem is, there is no correct answer to that question. There are a few consistent formats I see to the documents I see, but no set pattern I can figure out behind what has caused people to use that pattern.

Two of the guys I’ve worked with in the past and have equally successful careers, following similar tracks, who are of similar age and position in their career, have totally different approaches. Clive goes for the “everything in a good level of detail” approach. Pete’s CV is two sides, and he thinks it needs trimming down.

I think Pete’s CV comes from the approach that it seems a number of managers take, they want to get the details quickly and don’t want to wade their way through a load of self-promoting rubbish to get to them. Clive’s approach comes from the desire to give all the information so that every base is covered and people won’t miss any of your brilliant skills.

Personally, as a recruiting manager, I like to see a good level of detail on a CV. I want enough to really know whether it’s worth seeing the candidate or no. I want to get a feel for the candidate in advance. I want a chance for them to make mistakes.

But not all managers want that. They follow the Pimp Path, they want to find a few keywords, such as 10+ Years C++ experience on Windows Drivers. Or whatever. If they can’t get this information, they’ll reject the C.V.

The big problem is you don’t know what kind of manager your C.V. is going to.

I’m starting to come down in favour of a hybrid approach. The first page of the C.V. should be a totally lightweight highlights and basic facts page. With detail to follow.

Something that is also important to understand is what information you do need on the C.V., what order and level of detail to present it, and unfortunately that changes based on where you are in your career. For a graduate, clearly education history should come first, it’s the most relevant information. For an experienced engineer, the education history gradually becomes less and less important. But I still feel it’s necessary to include that information.

I think a front page should probably detail personal details, in a small contained area, current role and a brief statement of what you’re looking to achieve in your career. If there is room, a brief summary of key technical skills. Brief please, and the key ones. Not an exhaustive list of everything you’ve ever worked with.

Then, follow this with a career history, education history and some personal stuff.

With the later part, people are rather conflicted on too. Some people think a bit of “personal interests” adds something to a CV, others think it’s a no-no. Which seems odd, because technical skills are not everything, you also need to know if that person is going to fit in with your team and company. Are they going to have the right attitude to work? All information that can be indicated very roughly from the information given there.

So, summary, and then a set of detail. Attempting to keep as many people happy as possible. Really, an example would help. But I don’t have one to hand. And this is the worst article I’ve written ever. I’ll try and come back to it when I’m more alert.

Popularity: 70% [?]

This is version 1 of this entry and was posted 1 year ago on Saturday, September 15th, 2007 at 2:09 pm and is filed under Career, Opinion. It's popularity ranking is Popularity: 70% [?]. It has been tagged with Career, cv, jobs, recruitment, resume. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. This is the first version of this post.