Adapt and Survive

reality facing applications

Very few candidates have yet managed to adapt the content of their job applications to achieve the impact that will get them noticed.

Some have tinkered with the style of their CV, experimented with slightly daring letters, realised that things have moved on, read a couple of optimistic books and plumped for unconnected bullet points that describe their skills, objectives and achievements in a manner that is now becoming embarrassing to read.

This does not yet amount to a new communications technology, one whose objective is to connect at a suitably high level with the minds of recruiters. A little bit better than your last lukewarm attempt is like saying that the Rover was better than the Allegro having heard of a Mercedes.

an entirely new approach

For the last several years I have been taking other people's CVs to pieces and transforming them. What I have learned from the results is that you score heavily by giving people a narrative to read. What I mean by a narrative includes:

• setting the scene by describing the business context and sector (briefly)
• including change and movement within the organisation/methodologies/technologies
• illustrating the issues and changes that you faced in a particular role
• painting a picture of the structures, linkages and other people involved
• focusing in detail on your own initiatives of whatever kind

What this allows you to do is to show the kind of career you really have had and to pinpoint your own personal value for the future, no matter what actually happened to the company. It allows you to separate your ability and potential from the particular job you have been working in, placing a positive spin on your involvement in events, opening up the possibility to transfer to different working patterns.

the power of being real

When you create this kind of clarity you are further enabled in terms of positioning your CV. The restriction created by following a job definition is gone. The power to prioritise comes into play. All you need do is select the appropriate information to give stress to and slant the narrative towards specific goals, such as:

• pointing in a direction that suits an intended career change
• aiming towards a more senior or more varied role
• emphasising the skills and knowledge that will have most impact
• overcoming issues and difficulties about your career
• engineering shifts from employed to freelance and vice versa
• proving you have the skills to take on new roles such as consultancy
• generating specific areas interest for the interview to come
• illustrating your maturity and communication skills in an invisible and impressive way

The methodology I am describing cannot be regarded as a quick fix to a legacy CV that doesn't work. What I am talking about is a rethink and what I recommend in terms of a starting point is to sit down with someone who can listen and prompt you and either take notes or use a tape recorder to get a casual and unforced version of what your professional record and potential really amount to.

Only when you have it in plain English should you return to the cauldron of CV writing and edit it down, quite savagely. Don't worry, the trace elements of the clarity you have found will come through in the text, which should now be more subtle, more rhythmical and more lucid than before. You can even use the bullet points again once you know what meaning they are supposed to support!

The CV Sage guide has been specially created to help with these issues in detail.