Thoughts on professional CV writing?

[Brussels Slumdog]

Agency advice and my advice

Has anyone tried using an agent for CV proofreading ? At the end they are the target audience ...

I wrote my first improved CV based on free advice from the Watford
job Center back in the 90s.
Maybe your local one can give you some advice on your CV.
One agent gave me feedback on how to improve my CV and a French
agent sent me a template on rewritting my CV to attract the French market.
I now use my French template as standard.

If you have the right skill then the last thing an agent wants is a badly
written CV with spelling mistakes.
He needs to present you to the client the best he can.
But with so many suitable candidates currently on the market it's now not
worth his time to modify your CV.

Page one is a summary of my IT skills,Accounting skills,languages,education
and industry sectors.
The rest of the CV relates to my work experience from current to earliest.

[Langkawi]

Hi CP James,

It was The CV Centre. Found them on one of the websites affiliated to CUK - Technojobs or Jobserve or one of those.

Not sure if I'm allowed to post URL's here but you can google them easily enough.

Like I said, what they sent me was ok. But I kept my own CV as it had more technical detail and used some of thier language but I'd say my CV is definitely better for it. (That said the phone ain't exactly ringing a lot but I'm blaming the market for that!)



Cheers,
Alan

[Support Monkey]

When you get to the interview it is up to you to sell yourself, your CV is the door opener to get that interview so you need to sell yourself on paper

So why would you hand over the writing of the most important selling tool you have to someone else who has no idea who you are and what you do.

surely you have to tell them what to write so why not just do it yourself, you yourself will get a feel for what is right or wrong with your CV when the phone starts or stops ringing

[SueEllen]

Post your CV on here and we'll tell you what we think

This has been done with others CVs.

Post a link to another site but remove all personal details and anything that could specifically identify you i.e. if you did some unique roles, have some unique qualifications then remove them.

You also get a few other people who will be happy to post you a copy.

Oh and most of the comments you will get will be via PM.

BTW I've never used a CV writer for my CV I've used people who recruit others instead. Also when I've been involved in recruiting others it's obvious who has just used a CV writer and not put anything it it themselves.

[JoJoGabor]

You can get a feel of what works and doesn't by the number of calls you get. I have tweaked mine recently and suddenly started getting a lot more calls, so I feel mine is ideal at the moment for the roles I am looking for.

Post your CV on here and we'll tell you what we think

[cpjames]

Hi CP,

I'd imagine this is a subjective one.

I think a lot of the CV writing firms just take your current CV and add a lot of proactive verbs and language.

Therefore the paradox is that unless you have a decent CV to start with then they can't do much with it.

I'd spent a while on my CV and whilst it was in pretty good shape I figured it was worth a punt using the CV service. (After all it's a tax deductable expense, right?). I thought my own CV was better than what they sent me. But I did like a lot of the language they used and incorporated some of it into my old CV.

Also, £300 wraps sounds pretty pricey to me. I think mine cost about £70.

Cheers,
Alan

Can you remember who you used? There are so many of these types of services that it would be good to use one that someone had experience of.

Chris

[Muttley08]

I have used the same cv for past 15years for contracting all I do
is add the latest role at the top and delete the old role at the bottom.

cv is always 3 pages, also i tweak the skills or highlight them more based
on the job spec and tend to use the same words as the job spec, I put
in more technical buzzwords and especially the latest and greatest stuff, this
usually impresses the agent and increases your chances of him/her forwarding it to the the client.

I would never put a picture of yourself on the cv unless your an attractive
page three model!

I've got a cracking pair of moobs coming on...does that count??

[Bright Spark]

I have used the same cv for past 15years for contracting all I do
is add the latest role at the top and delete the old role at the bottom.

cv is always 3 pages, also i tweak the skills or highlight them more based
on the job spec and tend to use the same words as the job spec, I put
in more technical buzzwords and especially the latest and greatest stuff, this
usually impresses the agent and increases your chances of him/her forwarding it to the the client.

I would never put a picture of yourself on the cv unless your an attractive
page three model!

[mace]

Used to get up to 8 calls a day until an agent suggested I bullet point my CV and make it shorter. After that, got no new leads at all. So just go with whatever works best. For me, it was providing a large amount of info on what I did in my last job and 1 paragraph max summaries of all previous jobs.

[scooterscot]

At the end they are the target audience ...

Good luck with that. I've never encountered an agent that understands what I do.

[Muttley08]

Wouldn't have too much confidence in them - 9/10 aren't that bright or barely literate. They don't understand the context of terms, and I'm sure couldn't actually be bothered.

When I've been recruiting, had a few CV's with really bad spelling / grammar, and suspect its the agents playing about with the CV's to fit into a standard format.

[Lumiere]

Has anyone tried using an agent for CV proofreading ? At the end they are the target audience ...

[Lumiere]

Read this thread, change your CV following the recommendations there, then use a proofreading service which offers "suggesting improvements in both expression and organisation".
Should cost you no more than 20 quid.

[Langkawi]

Hi CP,

I'd imagine this is a subjective one.

I think a lot of the CV writing firms just take your current CV and add a lot of proactive verbs and language.

Therefore the paradox is that unless you have a decent CV to start with then they can't do much with it.

I'd spent a while on my CV and whilst it was in pretty good shape I figured it was worth a punt using the CV service. (After all it's a tax deductable expense, right?). I thought my own CV was better than what they sent me. But I did like a lot of the language they used and incorporated some of it into my old CV.

Also, £300 wraps sounds pretty pricey to me. I think mine cost about £70.

Cheers,
Alan

[cpjames]

Hi All,

Current contract is coming to an end after a year and a half and with the market the way it is I am thinking about getting my CV professionally written.

What are peoples thoughts on this, is it worth it? Most of the sites I have had a look at charge aroud £300 - £350 for a complete CV. Just out of interest I got a free review done (you know the one where they tell you your CV is terrible and say they can fix it for £300 quid)

Has anyone gone down this route, what did you think etc?

Any advice is as always greatly appreciated.

Chris