CV Help please :)

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Can someone please give me some feedback on my cv im applying to entry level helpdesk jobs, thank you guys.

 

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View attachment 2541

 

Hi Dan,

Must State: Personal Advice, it has helped me get my job in first-line IT and I feel confident with it, but it isn't necessarily a view of a professional CV reviewer

1. Remove Nationality and DOB. Recruiters aren't allowed to discriminate, so they shouldn't be basing an opinion on this and therefore removing it only makes their job easier.

2. Personal Statement: I think every sentance begins with 'I am, I have, I will' etc... Provide more variation, perhaps even less sales speech. Give them your current situation which takes less than a minute to read.

• In my CV I have a quick 2 sentances of the sales speech (educated to degree level with good communication, passionate about IT, eager to learn).
• Followed by, where I'm currently where I am and want to be in life. ie: Looking for my first full time role in IT.
• Finally: I put a comment about my training process 'outside of work I'm currently studying for my A+, aiming to sit the exam in X'

This gives them an overview of who I am, what I want in life and how I'm working to get there.

3. Education: looks good, but remove the primary school details. Perhaps provide the grades (if they're C+), if not, leave it as it is.

4. Work experience (title needs to be on the same page!):
Placement, Date from-and-to, Position held. These need to be at the top of each heading as it should (hopefully), be relevant to your application.
Then in small bullet points, let them know what you did there. I would remove the large spacing in between the points (keep it concise)

5. I'm not too sure on the skills/personal qualities: you defintely could list/chart the hardware/software you know about, not sure whether you can get that in your previous work experience or a small chart/table.

6. Finally, remove the personal interests, save it for the interview - oh, and check spelling of hobbies ;)


Overall, you should know that you get between 9 and 20 seconds for an agency to look at your CV; Perhaps a bit more time if you're applying directly to a company. So for a better chance to get into the interview, keep your CV short and sweet. I wouldn't go over 2 pages, mine just about goes over 1.5.

Try get keywords and information on your first page, anything IT related and job specific. If you don't capture them on your opening statement then you won't even get past that first page.

Hope that helps, good luck!

 

Personally I save the personal statement for the cover letter but I think Boffy has you pretty much on the right track with what he says.

However, bearing in mind that I am no recruitment expert, I would bin your CV if it landed on my desk even after the improvements suggested.

Here's some of the reason:
Bnq, do you mean B&Q?
Microsoft office. Uh-uh, it's Microsoft Office. Everyone has MS Office skills anyway.
...best products to suite their needs??
pc skills. No, it's PC skills.

Strange you got all those wrong but JavaScript right. But where did your JavaScript etc knowledge come from?

I'd also like to know what you did for 4 years at Westminster University. You were studying for a degree but I don't see any mention of you getting one. Perhaps expand on what you actually did do and achieve.

You may think I'm being pedantic with the correct capitalisation but someone with 50+ CVs sitting in front of them that need narrowing down to half-a-dozen or so before COB is going to look for any reason to put your CV in the "No" pile. You might not think it matters because when you're doing the job it won't matter. but it does. Firstly I would want to see you can get the details right when you have the time and luxury to look over your work. Secondly, it does matter sometimes. Our logging system used to put all our comments in CAPITAL LETTERS which made for some confusion (i.e. are we talking about CDs or CDS, PCs or pcs).

Perhaps you could update the CV and post the new one.

 

Can't agree more with what's been said. I've done CV filtering for my boss before on a few occasions (for helpdesk roles mostly as it happens) it's a pain in the ass and I'd probably bin that as well.

If you are going for your first real IT job your CV should fit on a single page. If it doesn't you better have a good reason or you make it fit. It should highlight relevant experience e.g. any tech jobs and skills and any customer focus. It should show that you are keen, willing to learn and have done so off your own back as much as possible.

In amoungst the abuse on Why your tech CV sucks ? The Register there are some good basic tips. If you follow these and think about some poor sod who has read 50 odd CVs and what he's looking for you'll be on the right track.

I honestly wish I'd had this kind of facility when I left Uni, cos my CV back then would have been binned as well by many .

 

That Register article was great. I have only once had to scan CVs and it does hit the nail on the head

 

My favourite bit of that Register article is still this:
"Why did you send the file as a Word document? That may not sound too bad until you realise that every damned word you spelled wrong is underlined in red on my screen and your grammar is also ridiculed by a £70 bit of software that is apparently smarter than you."

 

Some of these mistakes are really embarrassing lol next time ill make sure I look over it thoroughly. I don’t think your comments were pedantic I would prefer people to be completely honest rather than telling me what I want to hear. Thanks for the feedback guys ill make amendments to repost.

 

Tell me what you think of this so far guys am I on the right track? I View attachment 2544 still need to add some more skills in the skills section. thanks in advance guys.

 

Here it is