The Perfect CV Advice based on 3 Decades of Experience | CORPUSVEC SOVEREIGN TALENTS CHANCELLERY INSTITUTES | ETHiKALCAREERS RECRUITMENT CONSULT CHAMBERS of EXCELLENCE

 

What makes a good résumé? I’ve written this simple eight-minute guide to walk you through the steps. It’ll take you eight minutes to read, probably an hour or two to do, and provide years of benefit in reducing your résumé anxiety.

My recommendations below are for a professional with 10-25 years experience.

For those with fewer than 10 years, you’re likely better off with a one-page résumé, for those with more than 25 years and at very senior levels, three may sometimes be appropriate.

(But seriously, if that’s you, you shouldn’t be relying on your own typing skills to market yourself.)

As with any “do-it-yourself” project, the key to success is to not get in over your head. So the instructions below are a simplified version of my best advice, tailored to be achievable on your own. If you’ve got the commitment, moxie, and willpower for “do it yourself,” here goes!

CV GOAL

First, the goal of your CV is to get you an interview for the job. You may believe your CV has other purposes:

• To showcase your every achievement
• To justify why you’re changing jobs
• To explain why you’ve left so many, or so few, jobs in your career
• To mention when you received promotions, awards, or recognition
• To describe the size of organization or team or budget you had responsibility for
• To land you a job offer without an interview

Trust me, none of those are the goals of your résumé.  The answer is six seconds for the first pass.

The goal of your résumé is to get you the interview.

You get the interview by persuading three layers of HR people that time spent with you will be worth more than time spent with another candidate. I’ll describe below who these three layers are  —  screeners, recruiters, and hiring managers.

You’ll persuade those reviewers by providing quantifiably proven results that you can do the job very well.

CV Structure & Strength 

Your CV will be two pages total. [Again, if you have less than 10 years’ experience: one page only.]

Your résumé will be composed of a professional summary and a chronological detail of your professional success. You should have your contact information at the head of the résumé, and your educational background at the bottom of the résumé.

Professional Summary

Your professional summary is a separated list of two or three lines that summarizes your professional ambitions, background, and talents. You’ll include 12-15 phrases of two or three words each in this section. On your résumé, you should begin this section with the three or four job titles you want most, and then intersperse the skills and successes …

Job Titles

List 3-5 job titles of jobs you would actually accept as your next job. By clearly identifying the title you want next, recruiters and HR people begin seeing you in that role, and that helps give context to a diverse work history.

It does not matter that you have never actually had this job title in the past, but it is important that it is a plausible next step in your professional career. A job search that includes both small and large companies will have a broader range of job titles than one specifically focusing on, say, the Fortune 500.

Examples: VP, Marketing • Director, Marketing • Brand Marketing Leader • CMO

Professional Competencies

List four to six core competencies that you possess that are important to your success in the jobs outlined above. They should be skills you currently possess and should be “level appropriate,” i.e., don’t list competencies that are obvious or would be assumed for your level. If you’re applying for C-suite jobs, listing “time management” or “presentation skills” would be far too junior to mention in your summary.

Examples: Agile Development • Software Architecture • Engineer Recruiting • Technology Innovation

Descriptions of Past Success

List three to six phrases that describe your demonstrated past success. Any type of achievements or attributes for which you have received recognition are appropriate.

Examples: President’s Club • Top-producing Saleswoman • Exceeds Quota • Consultative Selling Expert

Chronological Detail of Your Professional Success

In this section you will provide a chronological detail of your professional success, starting with your most recent job. Notice the word choices here, please. We are detailing your success. We are not listing your past job titles or duties. We are not describing your staff composition or budget size or administrative systems used.

Again, your résumé is a marketing document and needs to persuade your reviewers that time spent with you will be worthwhile, so we are going to detail your success.

You’ll have about 30-40 bullet points across all your current and past positions, and each of these will be a marketing bullet point that will make one persuasive argument on your behalf.

After you list company name, employment dates, and your title for each role, the bullet points will be distributed as follows:

• Your most recent, most important job gets eight bullet points.
• Your next job also gets eight bullet points.
• Your next two jobs get four bullet points each.
• Everything else  — all of your past jobs together, even if they were your favorite, most nostalgic, most enjoyable times in your life  —  get just ten bullet points total. Nobody is hiring you today for the job you had a decade ago.

It’s important to note that this distribution is across each job or title, not company. So if you’ve been at the same shop for 20 years, you should be splitting up your 30 bullet points across the different job levels and titles you’ve had.

The basic structure of a marketing bullet point is a success verb and a number.

Every bullet point in your success résumé must include a number expressed in dollars, percentages, or a simple, “plain old,” straight-up number.

Importantly, every bullet point in your résumé must include a success verb. These are verbs that show success  —  something got better. So verbs such as increased, decreased, improved, reduced, etc., are what we are looking for. Explicitly forbidden are static verbs  —  “managed,” “my responsibilities included,” “I was hired to …,” etc. Verbs that merely describe a fact of the matter rather than show you in a heroic light.

Rather than leave you wondering what success verbs might be, I’ll give you a precise list of 24 verbs you can use on your résumé. The simplest way to do your résumé right is to use these, and only these, verbs.

This seems boring, but it really doesn’t matter. Unless you are applying to be a thesaurus writer, nobody cares how clever your success verbs are. The millions of hours lost each year to professionals like you looking up synonyms for “improved” is a complete waste of time  —  none of the three layers of reviewers are grading you for verbal facility.

 

Success Verbs Shortlist

Achieved
Added
Awarded
Changed
Contributed
Decreased
Delivered
Eliminated
Exceeded
Expanded
Gained
Generated
Grew
Improved
Increased
Introduced
Maximized
Minimized
Optimized
Produced
Reduced
Saved
Sold

So your typical 8-bullet point job achievements on your 8-minute résumé will read like this:

• Increased x by %
• Decreased x by %
• Improved x by $
• Reduced x by $
• Introduced new x that led to # more …
• Eliminated old x that led to # less …
• Successfully added # new x …
• Achieved the removal of # new x …

“X” can be profits, costs, clients, vendors, products, practice areas, strategies, risk, volatility, etc.

And, of course, it’s important to have a number, dollar, or percentage increase / decrease mentioned in each bullet point. You’ll be surprised at how many you can write using this template, and how this process jogs your memory for all the great stuff you’ve done …

• Increased new customer visits by 17% without increasing ad budget.
• Decreased AWS bill by 42% through improved architecture (vs. 19% industry average).
• Improved revenue per SaaS client by $4,250 through consultative sales training.
• Reduced cost-per-hire by $7,010 through employee referral program.
• Introduced 2 new products that led to 2,500,000 increase in MAUs.
• Eliminated old systems that led to a 75 FTE reduction in offshore headcount.
• Successfully added 3 productive warehouses to our nationwide network.
• Achieved the removal of 5,000 external firm billable hours per year by reorganizing internal staffing.

But, you might say, I brought amazing non-quantified value to the organization! I introduced Agile Development, led a huge bond offering, brought innovative logistics strategies to bear, or reorganized our selling methodology.

Yes. I agree those are impressive and important achievements.

But they are only impressive and important to the extent they are quantifiable. New methodologies, exhibiting leadership, or bringing innovation to a company are interesting to your bosses’ bosses only to the extent they improve, quantifiably, the outcome of the company  —  more users, more revenue, faster turnaround, higher client satisfaction.

Ideally, every bullet point has a number. I’d strongly prefer if you had 100% of your bullets “quantified.” During the past year, I’ve seen a lot of members struggle with this advice, so let’s say this about numbers in bullet points:

• 100% is ideal
• 66% is pretty good
• 50% of your bullets quantified is minimum

Most everybody is able to achieve at least half of their bullet points mentioning a number or a percentage or a dollar sign, so I’m pretty confident you can get there.

Overall, the above outline is remarkably simple because the job search process, despite all the anxiety and confusion, is remarkably simple. You want to do work similar to the work you’ve done before but at a new place and a new level. To do so, you need to explain to new people what can give them confidence that you will be able to contribute to the new team. The easiest way to do that is to share numerical data that show you have contributed in the past and can, therefore, contribute in the future.

Your Targeted Audience

Your CV is a marketing document that needs to get past three people to get you your interview:

A Junior CV Screener who is comparing your CV to a List of Skills, Titles, or Companies that he or she is given by the recruiter. Overly clever CVs or cutesy positioning can really kill you with this person, because they don’t understand the nod and the wink that comes with writing “Chief Bottle Washer” when you really mean “Co-Founder.” For these reviewers, the choice of phrases in the professional summary is especially important.

A Recruiter, whether internal or external, who, on average, will give your résumé six seconds first screening. And then, later, another 2-3 minutes to make sure you’re worth presenting to the client or hiring manager. By giving them easy-to-digest numbers they can share with the client or hiring manager, you make it much easier to present you, rather than a different candidate, for the interview.

The Hiring Manager who will be interested in finding out “what can this person do for me and my team in the next year or two.” This person will review your résumé in more detail. She will be looking for indications that you have previously solved the types of problems this job will have to deal with.

Your GOAL is to quantifiably prove that YES YOU CAN.

Numbers are the most persuasive friends you have in this situation. Every bullet point spent on describing historical circumstances, promotions, or scope of responsibilities is wasted and lost on a hiring manager. They already know what the role does. The task at hand is to establish whether you have what it takes to successfully function in the role and deliver.

To your Quantum Careers Leap.

 

 

Flying High At Interviews – 32 Smart End-of-Interview Questions to Put to Your Interviewers at the End of Question & Answer Session – CORPUSVEC SOVEREIGN TALENTS CHAMBERS

Always keep in mind that every interview is an opportunity for mutual assessment by Candidate and Employer for fit and synergy that would lead to Optimised fulfilment of the Functions of the Role.

You should be assessing the employer just as much as they’re assessing you, because you both need to walk away convinced that the job would be a great fit.

So when the tables are turned and the interviewer asks, “Do you have any questions for me?” take advantage of this opportunity. It is the best way to determine if you would be happy working for this employer and whether your goals are aligned.

Undoubtedly, the foregoing introduction is the ‘ideal world’ pitch which may not be applicable in a world where far too many heads are chasing after the same one role. Nevertheless, it is important to be in the know of the following for preparations to become Employment-Ready.

“The very process of asking questions completely changes the dynamic of the interview and the hiring manager’s perception of you,” said Teri Hockett, chief executive of What’s For Work, a career site for women. “Asking questions also gives you the opportunity to discover details that you might not have otherwise unveiled.”

Amy Hoover, president of Talent Zoo, says there’s another reason you should always prepare questions: “It’s expected — and if you don’t ask at least two questions, you will appear disinterested, or worse, less intelligent and engaged than a prospective employer would like.”

You should have at least four questions prepared in case your original two are answered through the course of the interview.

But don’t just ask questions for the sake of it, Hoover says. To benefit from them, you’ll need to think carefully about what you want to ask. And you’ll want to avoid certain questions.

“Your questions can, in fact, make or break an interview,” she said. “If they’re not thoughtful or if you ask something that has already been addressed, this can hurt you way more than it can help. Asking smart, engaging questions is imperative.”

Here are 31 smart questions to choose from — if they weren’t already answered — to help you get a better sense of the role and the company and to leave the interview with a positive, lasting impression:

Have I answered all your questions?

Before you begin asking your questions, find out if there’s anything they’d like you to elaborate on. You can do this by saying something like: “Yes, I do have a few questions for you — but before I get into those, I am wondering if I’ve sufficiently answered all of your questions. Would you like me to explain anything further or give any examples?”

Not only will they appreciate the offer, but it may be a good chance for you to gauge how well you’re doing, says Bill York, an executive recruiter with over 30 years of experience and the founder of the executive search firm Tudor Lewis.

If they say, “No, you answered all of my questions very well,” then this may tell you you’re in good shape. If they respond with, “Actually, could you tell me more about X?” or “Would you be able to clarify what you meant when you said Y?” this is your chance for a redo.

Who do you think would be the ideal candidate for this position, and how do I compare?

Hoover recommends this question because it’s a quick way to figure out whether your skills align with what the company is currently looking for. If they don’t match up, then you know to walk away instead of wasting time pursuing the wrong position, she says.

Who would I be reporting to? Are those three people on the same team or on different teams? What’s the pecking order?

It’s important to ask about the pecking order of a company in case you have several bosses, Vicky Oliver writes in her book “301 Smart Answers to Tough Interview Questions.”

If you’re going to be working for several people, you need to know “the lay of the internal land,” she says — or if you’re going to be over several people, you probably would want to get to know them before accepting the position.

How has this position evolved?

This question lets you know whether this job is a dead end or a stepping stone.

Who do you consider your major competitors? How are you better?

This question is not for the faint of heart, but it shows that you are already thinking about how you can help the company rise to meet some of its bigger goals, says Peter Harrison, CEO of Snagajob.

Beyond the hard skills required to successfully perform this job, what soft skills would serve the company and position best?

Knowing what skills the company thinks are important will give you more insight into its culture and management values, Hoover says, so you can evaluate whether you would fit in.

How would you describe the company’s culture?

Hoover says this question gives you a broad view of the corporate philosophy of a company and of whether it prioritizes employee happiness.

Do you have any hesitations about my qualifications?

While this question puts you in a vulnerable position, it shows that you are confident enough to openly bring up and discuss your weaknesses with your potential employer.

What do you like most about working for this company?

Hoover says this question lets you “create a sense of camaraderie” with the interviewer because “interviewers, like anyone, usually like to talk about themselves and especially things they know well.” Plus, this question gives you a chance to get an insider’s view of the best parts about working for this company, she says.

Can you give me an example of how I would collaborate with my manager?

Knowing how managers use their employees is important, so you can decide whether they are the type of boss that will let you use your strengths to help the company succeed.

Can you tell me what steps need to be completed before your company can generate an offer?

“Any opportunity to learn the timeline for a hire is crucial information for you,” Hoover says.

Asking about an offer rather than a decision will give you a better sense of the timeline because “decision” is broad, while “offer” refers to when it’s ready to hand over the contract.

How would you score the company on living up to its core values? What’s the one thing you’re working to improve?

Harrison says this is a respectful way to ask about shortcomings within the company — which you should be aware of before joining. As a bonus, he says, it shows that you are being proactive in wanting to understand more about the internal workings before joining.

What are the challenges of this position?

If the interviewer says, “There aren’t any,” you should proceed with caution.

If you were to hire me, what might I expect in a typical day?

This shows your eagerness about the position, Harrison says, and it gives you a better idea of what the job would be like on a daily basis so you can decide whether you want to pursue it.

“A frank conversation about position expectations and responsibilities will ensure not only that this is a job you want, but also one that you have the skills to be successful in,” he says.

What have past employees done to succeed in this position?

The main point of this question is to get your interviewer to reveal how the company measures success.

What type of employee tends to succeed here? What qualities are the most important for doing well and advancing at the firm?

This question shows the interviewer that you care about your future at the company, and it will also help you decide if you’re a good fit for the position, Oliver writes. “Once the interviewer tells you what she’s looking for in a candidate, picture that person in your mind’s eye,” she says. “She or he should look a lot like you.”

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Becca Brown, the cofounder of the women’s shoe-care company Solemates, interviewed 20 to 30 job candidates a year in her various roles at Goldman Sachs. She told Business Insider she wished candidates would have asked her this question.

“I like this question, and yet no one ever asked it because it’s difficult to answer,” she says. “It’s an important question for anyone to be asking him or herself, and so if ever a candidate were to ask this question, it would have stood out.”

She continues: “I think this is a good question for interviewees to ask because as a candidate if you see where the person interviewing you is headed, you can decide if that trajectory is in line with your career objectives. While they don’t have to be completely correlated, it’s helpful for the candidate to have some indication of the interviewer’s direction.”

Is there anyone else I need to meet with?/Is there anyone else you would like me to meet with?

Hoover says that knowing whether the company wants you to meet with potential coworkers will give you insight into how much the company values building team synergy. In addition, if the interviewer says you have four more interviews to go, you’ve gained a better sense of the hiring timeline as well, she says.

How do you help your team grow professionally?

Harrison says this question shows that you’re willing to work hard to ensure you grow along with your company. This is particularly important for hourly workers, he says, because they typically have a higher turnover rate and are looking for people who are thinking long-term.

When your staff comes to you with conflicts, how do you respond?

Knowing how a company deals with conflicts gives you a clearer picture of the company’s culture, Harrison says. But more importantly, asking about conflict resolution shows that you know dealing with disagreements in a professional manner is essential to the company’s growth and success.

Is this a new position? If not, why did the person before me leave this role?

This might be uncomfortable to ask, but Harrison says it’s not uncommon and shows you are being smart and analytical by wanting to know why someone may have been unhappy in this role.

If you find out they left because they were promoted, that’s also useful information.

Will I have an opportunity to meet those who would be part of my staff (or my manager) during the interview process?

Getting the chance to meet with potential teammates or managers is essential to any professional interview process, Hoover says. If they don’t give that chance, “proceed with caution,” she says.

What are some of the problems your company faces right now? And what is your department doing to solve them?

Asking about problems within a company gets the “conversation ball” rolling, and your interviewer will surely have an opinion, Oliver writes. Further, she says their answers will give you insights into their personality and ambitions and likely lead to other questions.

How do you evaluate success here?

Knowing how a company measures its employees’ success is important. It will help you understand what it would take to advance in your career there — and can help you decide if the employer’s values align with your own.

What’s your timeline for making a decision, and when can I expect to hear back from you?

This one tells them you’re interested in the role and eager to hear their decision.

“Knowing a company’s timeline should be your ultimate goal during an interview process after determining your fit for the position and whether you like the company’s culture,” Hoover says. It will help you determine how and when to follow up, and how long to wait before moving on.

Where do you see the company in three years, and how would the person in this role contribute to this vision?

Asking this question will show your interviewer that you can think big-picture, you’re wanting to stay with the company long-term, and you want to make a lasting impression in whatever company you end up at, Harrison says.

What’s your staff turnover rate, and what are you doing to reduce it?

While this question may seem forward, Harrison says it’s a smart question to ask because it shows that you understand the importance of landing a secure position. “It is a black-and-white way to get to the heart of what kind of company this is and if people like to work here,” he says.

I read X about your CEO in Business Insider. Can you tell me more about this?

Oliver says questions like this simply show you’ve done your homework and are genuinely interested in the company and its leaders. (It doesn’t have to be Business Insider — any reputable news provider will do.)

What’s one of the most interesting projects or opportunities that you’ve worked on?

“I like this question because it gets me thinking about my own experiences, and my response changes depending on what I was or am working on — and in theory, should always be changing if I’m challenging myself and advancing,” Brown tells Business Insider.

Brown says that by asking for a specific example, candidates can get a better picture of what the job entails and how people function in certain roles.

“I always liked getting this question because it would make me reflect on what experiences I was excited about or proud of at the time, and it would make me want to create more of these types of opportunities and experiences,” she says.

Is there anything else I can provide to help you make your decision?

This simple question is polite to ask, and it can give you peace of mind to know that you’ve covered all your bases, Hoover says — “it shows enthusiasm and eagerness but with polish.”

Do you need me to clarify or elaborate on anything I said or that you read on my résumé?

Offer to go into greater detail on any answers you may have given, or any jobs or accomplishments on your résumé. The hiring manager will likely appreciate it.

Is there anything we haven’t covered that you think is important to know about working here?

Hoover says this is a good wrap-up question that gives you a break from doing all the talking. She says you may also get “answers to questions you didn’t even know to ask but are important.”