Category Archives: CV Tips

Careers Advice, CV Tips, CV Writing, Job Applications, PMO, Project Management

Stating achievements on your CV

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Your CV is a professional document which details your work history and skills – as a project professional you should look to ensure you are demonstrating your ability to add value and administer change. The nature of project management is to achieve a change and as such you should be addressing your achievements in your CV. If you are a seasoned project professional either deliverer or supporter of projects you will have a list of completed and ongoing projects which could fulfil a thesis word count requirement. Therefore it is important to describe the types of projects in your remit and save a dedicated section on the CV to bullet point a few of your key achievements. Personally I would look to create a good long list of key achievements and interchange them on your CV for a more tailored application – ensuring you are highlighting projects which are particularly relevant to the role you are applying for.

The key to writing key achievements is to be clear and concise; consider these points when constructing your bullets:

  1. What is the project / task in hand – give a brief description.
  2. What was your input – remember the aim of a CV is to talk about you not your team, if you formed part of a team delivering XXX it is OK to state this but ensure you state your actual involvement.
  3. What was the outcome – what did you actually achieve from the project / task, talk about the benefits. Increasing productivity or reducing waste, can you add £’s or %’s here?

A CV should look to address 4 to 6 bullet points of key achievements – the aim is to give the hiring manager a flavour of what you can do and there will be ample opportunity to discuss other achievements at interview.

Adding the key achievements towards the top of the CV will assist the hiring manager in understanding your strengths from the outset and lends a nice flow to the document to follow into your most recent role. Try to avoid using achievements which are too old, using more recent examples is especially important for IT roles as technology moves along so quickly – the current work is likely to be of interest to the hiring manager.

If you were a product and wanting to sell well to the consumer the key elements of sales are what you can do – market yourself in the best light possible by highlighting your best attributes to the target audience. Your CV is your own marketing document – if you were to sit in the hiring managers’ shoes, what would you expect to see?

At The CV Righter we work with you to understand your best marketing skills and ensure you are selling yourself in the best light by taking your portfolio and hand picking the parts which are relevant to your target employers. For a free CV review visit: www.thecvrighter.co.uk

Careers Advice, CV Tips, CV Writing, News, PMO, Project Management

Making the right decision about your CV

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I have noticed a couple of warnings about professional CV writing services on recruiter websites which are a little broad in their advice and wanted to address them. There are hundreds if not thousands of CV writing resources and services available today and I agree some are not ideal for the project management domain in that they are services which merely place your current CV into a template and rephrase your information to a professional language for employers and recruiters. This is not ideal and although it may work for some roles it is not the best use of your money for a service which promises to yield you results.

The CV resources available online are somewhat generic for PPM professionals and although they may prove a good starting point – for those who seek such guidance it may be fair to say that writing your own CV is proving a difficult task. This is where The CV Righter can support you; by offering a competitively priced collaborative service which is far reached from the generic professional CV writing services available.

At The CV Righter we understand project management in all its forms and having been a practitioner in the field of PPM and recruited specifically for project management roles across every industry from project administrator to programme director; our consultant is well versed in understanding both what you do and what is required in today’s job market.

Working closely with our clients we spend a good deal of time talking through your career history, how you work and understanding the context. Once a CV has been created (not from template) we then send over a first draft to check that all the information is true to you and has been interpreted correctly. A further discussion takes place to clarify any points and highlight any changes required. The CV is then reworked and sent back to you for further approval / notes. Once you are happy with the CV a final proof reading takes place to ensure it is as clear and concise as possible. On completion of the CV we then discuss moving forward – sometimes candidates wish to understand the current job market and how recruiters view CVs, others require assistance on where to look for roles and how to search effectively. Another service we provide is to target roles which are not advertised – putting you ahead of the game.

Throughout the service you are in control and we are here to bounce ideas off. At no point do we ever endorse including misleading information nor do we put greater emphasis on areas of weakness to enable you to get the job. We believe that in demonstrating your true skills and abilities we can gain you greater success to actually get the role not just get interviews.

For a free CV review – please feel free to get in touch and learn how your CV reads to others: www.thecvrighter.co.uk

CV Tips, No

Recruitment insider – what they won’t tell you

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So you decide it’s time to start applying for a new role; you are excited about the prospect of starting a new job and all that it holds. You get your CV sorted and start applying for jobs which look interesting; some go direct to employers but a lot go to recruitment agencies. What does this mean? On the whole, most reputable recruitment companies are honest in that they often state they cannot respond to every application. They also encourage candidates to keep applying for roles as the sheer volume of candidates getting in touch means their databases are overwhelmed. Others say they respond to every application with individual feedback. I have yet to see this and if you think the rejection email you received was written just for you, it probably wasn’t. Apply for another role and receive an uncannily similar response to your application. These types of agencies also claim to place you in a database which is being managed effectively; so you do not need to apply for every role which comes in, that is relevant to you as they will “find” your CV and get in touch – a rarity. So what is it these recruitment businesses are doing with your CVs, yes all your information is sat in a database – all the effort made on your part as a prospective revenue earner for an agency is often dismissed and even when chasing up applications you are palmed off with generic spiel (if you can even get to speak with the recruiter). Have you ever started getting e-shots randomly shortly after applying for roles?

Unfortunately you are in a catch 22 situation with recruitment agencies – they form the interface to the employer.

However you can bypass the recruiter, as the reality is that only a very small percentage of jobs are run through them (only 10-20%). Saving the employer £’s you can do a few things to increase your chances of success and avoid giving all your details to a database which claims to only have your best interests at heart.

  • Ensure you have a LinkedIn profile which is up to date and reads more like a CV than a sparse profile. That way, employers can see what you’ve been up to and make contact should they feel you may be of interest based on the info supplied.
  • Create opportunities – networking and research are key to finding that next role.
  • Research organisations you wish to work for and set up searches to keep an eye on movement; you do not need to wait for a role to be advertised. Go one better and identify change within the organisation, as project management is all about change you are likely to hit on something which you could apply for speculatively – well before the organisation has even considered advertising for a role.
  • Make sure your speculative applications are tailored to the organisation and any changes in the news (see above comment). Take time to match up your skills and expertise to the potential role and needs of the employer.

As the employers are becoming more frugal in how the take on recruitment campaigns it is a prime opportunity for you to approach them, saving valuable time and money for the employer can stand you in good stead.

It is important to make sure you are moving with the times and as recruitment agencies are increasingly coming under scrutiny for how they treat their candidates coupled with employers’ wishes to reduce recruitment costs, there is prime opportunity to divert to a more effective way of applying for work.

The CV Righter not only provides a professional CV writing service – we also provide careers advice to candidates which is tailored to your needs and with our insider knowledge of how employers view varied approaches, we can advise on what works best. www.thecvrighter.co.uk

Careers Advice, CV Tips, CV Writing, PMO, Project Management, Q&A

CV Length – Questions answered

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In-line with my regular Q&A sessions this week we have a good question from a candidate who wants to understand what the acceptable length is for a CV.

Can you please answer me how long my CV should be – I have lots of experience in the PPM domain covering an expanse of different types of projects and programmes, when it comes to writing a CV I find I am not able to keep the document down to a short list.

Sharon, Programme Manager; London.

Hi Sharon, many thanks for your question – it is a question often asked and one which can simply be answered by stating “2 or 3 sides”. However as you are finding it difficult to keep the document to a length deemed acceptable in the recruitment field I would like to address a few things:

When compiling your CV you should look to take the following guidelines on board.

  1. It is important to include all your employment history; however I suggest you keep the bulk of the detail to your most recent roles. Roles over 10 years old need only be a line on the CV including dates, employer and job title.
  2. When writing the detail in your remit for the more recent roles – look to address the following: number and type of projects, stakeholders, benefits, how you deliver, size and complexity. Additional information such as any major issues – simply stating delivered on time and to budget doesn’t tell us a great deal. For example you may have had to gain “buy in” from teams / senior management etc. or globally dispersed stakeholders with cultural differences and availability may have been a challenge.
  3. Rather than adding achievements to individual roles; you could look to address “key achievements” at the top of the CV – these can be interchanged for particular job applications, ensuring you have relevant detail available to the hiring manager for that role.
  4. The key achievements must not be too lengthy, try to keep to a structure of describing what the project or piece of work was, your input and the results achieved – employers like to see how you can add value so £ and %’s are good to add here if appropriate.
  5. Do not list skills in a separate section, integrate them, thus adding context to the role remits.
  6. Ensure to use terminology common to project management, especially if you have been working through a structured method such as Prince2, Agile etc.
  7. Treat the document like MI; clear and concise – do not say in 30 words which can be stated in 10 or 15. Keep to the point but do not just write a job description.

The good news is that you have too much information – now it is time to edit the document back down to a shorter version, you can keep the long version as a master copy and pick and choose relevant information for specific applications. By creating more than one version of your CV you will be in a position to swiftly apply for a range of roles specific to your skill set.

At The CV Righter we provide a free CV review and career guidance to project professionals and those wishing to enter into PM. Send your CV through our contact page at: www.thecvrighter.co.uk