Agents who ask you to adjust your CV before putting you forward

[BrilloPad]

What d you do in this case?

[SueEllen]

I often ask agents can I adjust it to make sure it's using the language the job spec uses.

The majority of the people who do the first level of shifting are HR people who don't have a clue.

[Yonmons]

I never do it, I * USED TO* but it never acheived anything, if an agent ask me now I just say no. Thats one hoop to many for me to jump through these days

[northernladuk]

I never do it, I * USED TO* but it never acheived anything, if an agent ask me now I just say no. Thats one hoop to many for me to jump through these days

Ah... Bolshie would be so proud.

[LondonManc]

Depends what job I'm applying for. With two core skills and different contracts wanting different mixes, I have three master cvs (one each for the specialisations and one as a combined) and chop down the appropriate cv to fit the gig. (as well as the generic cv that is out there with agents anyway). If benched, I'll always put a lot of effort into cv tailoring; it seems to work.

[MrMarkyMark]

What d you do in this case?

Ask for one of Bob Shawadiwadi's CV "templates".

[Antman]

I'm another who tends to think more like Yonmons. If they say something like "add more stakeholder management because this role is really stakeholder management-y" then it's either I don't have the experience and I'm being asked to blag it or they don't understand stakeholder management and want to see the words "stakeholder management" written more on the CV (not RACI, not expectation management, not requirements prioritisation, not walkthrough reviews not UAT, just stakeholder management).

In this case you start thinking that after the agents and HR have filtered the CVs, the end client will get three CVs with the names, daily rate and stakeholder management written in different colours.

And then they say we don't have enough trained people in the UK.

[ContractorHardman]

I am the same as LondonManc.

I have 4 CV's to reflect different parts of my ability. I have BA, Dev, Data Analyst, MI Analyst and one specialised within the area I work within. I have always seen myself as a business. I can offer different products depending on the clients needs. I also have an opening paragraph which I can tailor towards the clients job description.

I will only tweak it if I agree with the client. If they are asking me to completely alter my CV to the extent I turn up to the gig and I wont have a massive clue to what I am doing then I decline. No point wasting time and getting a bad reputation in the process.

There is actually one contractor I know in the central belt of Scotland claiming to have years of experience in SQL but can not write a simple query

Select BS from DB_LyingContractor
Location = "Central Belt Scotland"

[SimonMac]

I always ask for a job spec so I can tweak my CV to reflect, for example I have pretty much used every Source Code Repository in existence, if the spec ask's for TFS I make sure TFS is highlighted, if it asks for SVN I make sure that is, if they can't give me a job spec I tell them I can only submit a generic CV

[billybiro]

Depends what job I'm applying for. With two core skills and different contracts wanting different mixes, I have three master cvs (one each for the specialisations and one as a combined) and chop down the appropriate cv to fit the gig. (as well as the generic cv that is out there with agents anyway). If benched, I'll always put a lot of effort into cv tailoring; it seems to work.

But how do you know it works?

I assume you've reached this conclusion by comparing your "tailored" CV's against a control group of untailored ones?

Or have you tailored your CV and got a role, then declared that you got the role as a direct result of your tailored CV when it could just as easily have been as a result of you having 2 instead of 3 slices of toast that morning, or the fact that there was a letter Y in the day etc. etc.