Do employers want to see a candidate’s original CV for individuality or a formatted CV for simplicity?
7th December 2011
A recent book extract in The Sunday Times claimed that job applicants had “30 seconds for a CV to impress.” With more candidates in the marketplace for coveted roles, the book declared that it is more important than ever to make your CV stand out from the competition. However, more qualified candidates means more CVs for employers to read, so is there also a converse case for applications to be formatted identically to make them easier to read and make the shortlist process quicker?
An original CV, diligently prepared by a candidate, can give an employer a genuine sense of the applicant’s personality, despite the constraints of its expected contents and universally accepted layout, such as reverse chronological order. It allows a candidate to make an impact with a personal statement; include the skills, attributes and experience they consider relevant; and can give a sense of whether there will be a good cultural fit between both parties.
On the other hand, an original CV can work against a candidate, particularly if they have taken the “standing out” advice to heart. Crazy fonts or smiley faces won’t even get to the 30-second mark with employers. Irrelevant material, possibly hiding perfectly suitable skill sets and experience, make the employer’s task too difficult and, however interesting the life story of the applicant, they won’t be shortlisted.
The contents of a CV transposed into a standardised format allow an employer to pick and choose what they want to see. If certain qualifications are not important or relevant, they don’t have to be there. If hobbies, family life and summer jobs as students are of no interest to the recruiter, they can be omitted. A standard format also enables an employer to search through more applications faster – handy with high volumes of contenders.
The downside is that a standard format doesn’t do everyone justice. A candidate’s strongest points, skills or previous experience may not technically satisfy the criteria and will have to be left out. There is no scope for individuality, so the chance for any personality to come through has gone, placing greater weight on the interview element of the hiring process.
Catherine Turner of Archer Mathieson’s Interim Finance practice says,
“At the mid- to senior management level I work at, many candidates have been long-term employed and have not considered their own CV for some time. I advise all of them on CV preparation, but they construct it themselves. If they do it well, chances are they will interview well, after spending time analyzing their career in detail. There is an argument that if a client has retained us on a search and is looking for specific details, then the structured format can work, but my preference is for the former.”
With the vast majority of CVs submitted over email or uploaded via a website, and thousands of companies offering to cheaply construct your CV for you, is the art of CV presentation dying and if so, do employers actually care? Let us know what your preference is.
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