Reply to: CVs, PDFs and References

[truffy]

There's a story of a prospective AirBnb employee who really wanted to work with the company, got interviews but no further so they made an online resume with a focus on how they'd help the company grow rather than their past achievements, got in the news in the Independent here, if you make a one-page online resume, not just a resume but also a sales page for yourself almost how you can help people get from X to Y, can really help stand out from the crowd. Also tried psychometric tests, free ones like these it's general reasoning skills but when you get a curve ball interview question thought they might help, peace.

[Spikeh]

The often remove age and sex to avoid discrimination....

But they will leave in the names so people can ensure they get the right 'quota' of foreign sounding people.

I've seen names being left on CVs. I am British-born, but have a Hungarian surname, so maybe I've been a diversity hire in the past

Leaving names on a CV leaves savvy clients open to contacting contractors directly via LinkedIn / a Google search. I have never seen this, though - and tbh, I would probably think less of a client that did it - plus its against most contract terms / agreements.

[WTFH]

The often remove age and sex to avoid discrimination....

But they will leave in the names so people can ensure they get the right 'quota' of foreign sounding people.

They'll leave the names in so that clients can ask for someone by name. It's not about your imaginary quotas or real xenophobia.

[original PM]

I thought, or was led to understand, that many CV's have to be presented by agencies with no details of sex/name/age on them these days because of the data protection shenanigans?

The often remove age and sex to avoid discrimination....

But they will leave in the names so people can ensure they get the right 'quota' of foreign sounding people.

[Spikeh]

I thought, or was led to understand, that many CV's have to be presented by agencies with no details of sex/name/age on them these days because of the data protection shenanigans?

They remove contact details to reduce the risk of the client contacting you directly. It has little to no bearing on GDPR, as by virtue of applying for a job, we give consent for an agent / client to contact us about the job.

[Lost It]

I thought, or was led to understand, that many CV's have to be presented by agencies with no details of sex/name/age on them these days because of the data protection shenanigans?

[bmb]

As others half jokingly suggest padding your CV with white text of the advert would probably get you past the computerised filter!

Ha! Hadn't thought of this. Will give it a go with my next search.

[DeadEyedJacks]

My impression is that the agencies are now routinely parsing submitted CVs into a database and expect every "job" to have a title and list of skills against it for this to work.
Then it's just a keyword search to filter applications.

If you upload your CV to the various jobsites and CV libraries you'll see how it's processed and what gobbledygook comes out!
They definitely aren't designed with contractors or non-traditional CVs in mind, just linear career histories.

Your average agent doesn't comprehend the whole working on your own account concept.

As others half jokingly suggest padding your CV with white text of the advert would probably get you past the computerised filter!

[ladymuck]

you did post in Light Relief so I'm surprised at how sensible the responses have been!

[Spikeh]

I know, hence the

Sorry, I can be too serious for my own good at times

[ladymuck]

Whether you consider yourself a business or not, it's still a CV!

I know, hence the

[Spikeh]

I've never bothered putting my marketing material into PDF format. Considering people scrape whole profiles off LinkedIn and pass them off as their own, I figure I have no control over it once I've let it enter the devil's database.

I will tweak for a role though as I've done lots of different stuff so if a particular phrase/job title is still accurate but more amenable to the end client then I am going to use it.

Now its a lot shorter, I'm considering tweaking it for each engagement - I could probably do with 3 distinct CVs.

Whether you consider yourself a business or not, it's still a CV! My "marketing material" is different - branding, website, leaflets, mail shots etc. I do try to distinguish it from a run of the mill CV by writing it differently and clearly using the word "client" and "engagement" - I've had agents tell me not to do that before now as it might put some clients off, but I like to be completely unambiguous and tbh... I'd rather not work for clients that look at me as a temp employee as it causes me no end of headaches.

The main reason I want to keep it in PDF is formatting - Word was driving me nuts; anything more complex than a standard list format and you might as well chuck it in the recycle bin - at least PDFs retain their formatting.

[ladymuck]

I've never bothered putting my marketing material into PDF format. Considering people scrape whole profiles off LinkedIn and pass them off as their own, I figure I have no control over it once I've let it enter the devil's database.

I will tweak for a role though as I've done lots of different stuff so if a particular phrase/job title is still accurate but more amenable to the end client then I am going to use it.

[Spikeh]

Many agents (including reputable ones) like to format CVs so that it has their logo on it, their contact details at the bottom, and to remove your contact details, so the client needs to go back through them to get in touch with you initially.

If it's a big concern to you, ask the agent to send you back a copy with their bits added so you can decide.

Oh yeah, I know this - I've never asked them for a modified version, but will do from now on - this one guy in particular seemed very shady, didn't know how to answer the simple question. I've seen copies of my CV where the agent has rewritten sections before now - so I'm quite weary.

If an agent introduces me to a client and the client contacts me directly, I will of course talk to them - but I'll make sure the job goes through the agency as it's only fair. I wouldn't have known about it otherwise, and if I did, I doubt I'd have gotten in to speak to the right person. Agents have their uses and I appreciate them

[WTFH]

Many agents (including reputable ones) like to format CVs so that it has their logo on it, their contact details at the bottom, and to remove your contact details, so the client needs to go back through them to get in touch with you initially.

If it's a big concern to you, ask the agent to send you back a copy with their bits added so you can decide.