Survive form a bad picture – yours - Part -2

Have you ever seen a girl who does not hire a beautician or a parlor for her make-up on her marriage day ?? Then why they think they can do it all by themselves when making a resume which runs for many years and the trade itself is an art, no less than a art-full beautician’s job, which is to show you in the best possible looks or the job of a professional photographer which is to show you in the best possible light, angles and poses ? Professional CV-making is an art that takes a lot of experience and clear understanding of the psyche of the people who will screen the CV or of the people who will be taking the interviews based on the CVs. This is a problem with many professional agencies also where inexperienced greenhorns make the CVs in an assembly line system, without any personalized or customized analysis or viewpoint on the strength / weak areas, tilts and slants, and most importantly the overriding objectives of the candidate. While there is no perfect CV is alright, the “one size fits all” is a devastating rundown to the candidates. In the last 2 months, we have created (or rather recreated from scratch) at least 3 CVs which were previously made by “Naukri”, who charge a higher rate but use mostly junior fellas, who have never seen the industry themselves, on the job.

But CV have their limitations too, just like a photograph. It may be a brand image projection, but you should also relate to that photograph. Otherwise every girl would have sent a picture of Angelina Jolie for their marriage negotiation. A top-class photographer (with a team including a hot-shot make-up man) can show any girl to be beautiful, but cannot make you look like Jolie that all the companies will make a queue at your door next morning for a, well, autograph. CV-making is no magic and do not expect a Harry Potter job. Life is not Hogwarts, it is the hogwash that one needs on her face and anything more than that and the overdose of paints will make her look like a cheap hooker (and a liar, of course). You only market yourself thro’ the CV, not overdo it and lose your credibility. A CV, of a pretty successful pro who were dissatisfied with the service of another agency, came to us for re-creation. There was quite a list of qualities given in that CV, almost anything under the Sun. Our Associate who provides the service, a top-notch HR pro with decades of high quality experience, smiled and said “all these qualities should have made him the President of USA by this time !!”.

A CV has to have a clean formal professional look that must show you methodical, neat and well-organized. It also indicates the written communication skills, your self-assessment (often people make so much wild claims about their qualities that the CV itself can become a laughingstock) and the realistic position. Each word must be chosen and all fats cut out so that it can be easily scanned and the words you want to highlight (often many things must be told in a subtle indirect way) should come up very easily. Traps must be created in a way to lead and lure the interviewer in your strong areas where you can play most of the time of the interview and the interviewer will be automatically timed out about probing you deeper about your weak areas and angles. A CV should reflect your best angles, but also reflect how you can fulfill the employers needs in the position you are aiming for, and that is the exact place where your CV needs a personalized strategy. Copying the best-looking CV available among your friends will never best serve your purpose. But still do it, Kamalakanta advises, if you are smart - it will probably save you a day’s salary for the position you’re looking at.

For a few days, I went over some of the CVs to make a list of the major and common problems, which are:
1. Not easy for scanning or reading
2. Too much colour or shading and lines in the format
3. Overall strategy is missing
4. Will not provide direction for the interview
5. Too much information is given
6. Not CV, it should be a profile, of max. 2 pages
7. Cliché and vague statements given as objective
8. Personal statement vague and high-sounding
9. Silly email addresses or filename (ex. supersexy2010.doc or rockstar.doc.)
10. Real objective and targeted area of work unclear
11. Direction of career not apparent. Qualification and projects on one direction, experience on another
12. High focus on knowledge rather than skills
13. High claims on skills and attitude, without any proof or even auto-suggestion by the education or experience backing. E.g. one writes “excellent communication skills” which is plain laughable
14. Side margins very less
15. Photo should not be there
16. CTC / salary info. Must not be there
17. Declaration at the last need not be there
18. Cohesiveness is not there, overall idea is disjointed
19. Poor choice of word
20. Spelling mistakes
21. Grammatical mistakes
22. Written in past tense or in third person
23. Too much of shading / embossing / colour / lines
24. Important points not highlighted
25. Strengths are not apparent and not highlighted
26. Weaknesses not covered
27. Extra-curricular /interests is over-mentioned or not proper for the role / job targeted or negative

So, be happy and start making your own CV, even if it closes the doors that were half-open, till now.