cvservices.net : a better career : the world keeps changing

Now we have the customer facing, learning organisation with a flat structured matrix management style, virtual teamwork, enterprise resource planning, integrated logistics, 360 degree appraisal-driven succession planning.

Middleware technologies link legacy back end database systems with an SAP materials and accountables application and functionality is about to be enhanced with an e-commerce business model through a new global network providing 24 by 7 synchronised knowledge updates and a CRM based marketing engine providing geographic, demographic and undemocratic end user profiling that influences new product development strategy as the company's creative base is focused into new channels and workstreams allowing end-to-end synergies in collaboration with suppliers and alliance partners, not to mention 3rd party solutions consultancies.

we are all managing projects and going to meetings

We are all engulfed by the tidal wave of change. Around four years ago, when I was writing a CV for an American client, I often found it virtually impossible to discover what they actually did for a living. Now the disease is here and the majority of the people I encounter have in recent memory been subjected to takeovers, mergers, restructures, strategic repointing, consultants, more consultants, ERP systems that don't work properly, sudden reversals in management style, often redundancies, broken promises, forced relocations, disappointments and ultimately - the feeling of not being valued.

No sooner had they fixed something and made the organisation leaner and meaner than the entire process started over, this time with even more challenging targets, this time with 3 people doing the work of 15.

Many people spent the last decade in projects that did not necessarily work, including the improvement of their own career position. Once everyone did a time management and communications skills course; now everyone is working their way to or through an MBA. That's the trouble with change and improvement: if everyone does it there is no particular advantage.

implications for the individual

All this stuff has to appear somewhere in your CV because they'll be searching for it and you're going to be lost if you can't match the cute jargon in the job advertisement.

But you were made redundant because your company adapted everything in its style and attitude but not its products. So it gradually sank, to be taken over by venture pirates who brought in their own even more aggressive management group.

you did the job they asked you to but you didn't get the results

There's nothing all that positive to say about the last few years. You're afraid it looks bad to potential recruiters. You long to find a stable old economy employer where you know what the job is and can stick to what you are good at.

What you need now, with apologies, is a new style of application where your CV reflects the positive values that you have stood for, despite the chaos you have lived through. You may need to be talking about your success in slowing down the death of the company rather than success being always a matter of growth percentages. You may need to be painting a picture of the variety, ingenuity and humanity with which you handled impossible situations. You may even need to comment on the fact that you advised against a certain strategy and were proven right, and it may be justified to talk about what you have learned, what you would have done, how you have adapted and survived and what tools this gives you for the future.

reach forward in time

Many employers have no idea where the company will be in three years time. In a world of chaos, people are looking for some certainties, they are looking for solid colleagues, people with ideas who can get things done. No matter what has been the pattern of the last decade in your working life you now have greater maturity, better judgement, deeper knowledge, enhanced insight and more subtle human skills.

Now is the time, again with apologies, to scrap your legacy style of job application and start to actually address ways of selecting, combining and presenting information in which the focus is you and the qualities you have to offer (please see my article Adapt and Survive for more on this theme).

These topics are covered in greater depth in CV Sage with examples and exercises.
Take a look!