CV giving you the ick? Try these

Resumes and CVs can really be a pain in the neck - they can

• Suck time

• Be torture to write – and read

• Be jargon jungles

• Reduce your life to a shopping list

• Be ten pages long and still say nothing about you

  
  

Which is weird because you’ve just spent five pages and a whole weekend doing nothing but talking about yourself.

Equally, Resumes & CVs can really sing - they can

• Be a great read

• Tell people who you really are

• Speak about things you’re proud of doing and being

• Be weeding tools for agencies, AI and HR people – and that’s actually sort of OK

• Remind you that there really is only one you

If you're stuck, try these things to get you going. This isn't linear, but I have found all of them have helped my clients and me.

Warm up -go back over your list of gigs and edit. It’s a good task to start with and gets the energy going.

AI can't help you if you don't have any idea of what you did when.

LinkedIn or a master document is a great place to keep dates and job titles. Because I, for one, do not like to spend any time thinking about what I was doing on 10 January five years ago. That is like another country.

Check the dates are right - it's like an automatic debit. You only have to do it once if you are storing it all somewhere sensible.

Sure, throw it into AI and see what comes up. Notice how much you sound like every other person going for the same opportunity. Fix that.

Flip your timeline in a short bio paragraph – what are you doing right now? See what happens when you start with that.

Please, for the love of all that is good in the world, try to avoid listing your hopes and dreams. Employers are selfish - they want to know what you can give, not what you want to get.

Write a three paragraph bio about yourself – read it aloud and record it. Play it back. Anything “off” will pop out straight away.

Find your narrative arc – try writing your story as just that. Answer this question for yourself  Who am I really, and how did I get like this ? You don’t have to use this anywhere, but it will uncover ideas and might shape what you present.

Write your farewell to work speech – what would you want someone to say about you? Make it someone whom you respect. If they don't exist, make them up. You might be surprised at what leaps out. And no, you don’t have to be 20 years in the workforce to do this  - it is just as helpful when you are leaving Uni or school.

Translate or explain your sector to adjust reader bias or perceptions. You’re a scientist? What does that even mean? It doesn't matter if you are never moving outside your sector; this habit is good for clarity and takes the whiper snipper to the jargon weeds.

Remember, your resume is like a garden or a dog - neither do well when neglected.

Photo by Wilhelm Gunkel on Unsplash