Selling yourself with your CV

Despite the plethora of advice and guidelines available, many young people are still missing the point with their CVs.

This year TelstraClear had 865 applicants vying for 20 positions on its graduate recruitment programme. The successful applicants are the creme de la creme of this year's university crop, heading for management positions in the company.

Around 50 will get final interviews after undergoing initial screening and psychometric testing. But to get that far, the candidates had to have a CV that said the right things.

"It is quite amazing," says TelstraClear HR manager Ken Goodwin. "Here are these very talented people at university spending all this time going through their study and their work and then they put themselves into the job market and they have appalling CVs."

This year the company worked with careers services at universities around the country to impress upon young graduates the need to spend more time on their CVs.

"A bad CV says this is who I am and these were my grades," Goodwin said. "A good CV is one which says this is who I am, these are my interests, these are what I have achieved at university, these are my experiences outside of study, whether it be hobbies, involvement in university activities or whatever it may be.

"It is actually painting a picture of you as a person and giving us a feel for you as an individual," he said. "We are looking for a CV selling the whole person, not just the academic results."

Obvious things to highlight in a CV include playing a sport, having a part-time job, being involved in community or volunteer work, and helping run a club.

But less obvious skills learnt during university years - such as meeting deadlines for work, planning team or solo presentations, public speaking in front of other students, writing reports, and budgeting for the flat - are just as important.

These activities display time management, team work, confidence and leadership - all things employers are keen to see.

"A lot of graduates have a lot to sell, they just forget about it," Goodwin said.

There's plenty of advice on writing a good CV available, people just have to find it.

Auckland University's Careers Centre provides free weekly two-hour workshops on job applications, which include guidance on writing CVs. People needing individual help can see an adviser for 10 minutes with no appointment or book a half-hour CV check.

There is no one way to write a perfect CV because it depends on job and what the applicant has to offer.

"The key thing is to customise it to the particular job. Eighty per cent may be common to every CV you do, but the way you present the information may be different," Careers Centre director Bob Porrer says.

People get it wrong as they don't think it through or go back to basics.

The first step to applying for a job is not writing a CV and cover letter, but analysing what the employer is looking for, Porrer says.

"If people haven't done their thinking beforehand, it is usually pretty obvious from the CV."

Before putting pen to paper to do a CV or cover letter, people need to list the key selection criteria and then, in note form, scribble out the evidence they have against each criteria.

Employers receive a variety of CVs with any job advertised and scanning them is the only information they have to go on.

An average employer would probably not spend more than about 90 seconds looking at a CV.

"People with a heap of CVs to go through are desperately looking for reasons to reject people," Porrer says. "So very simple things like poor spelling, poor grammar, poor layout, just not the right information where you can see it easily, will very quickly get you eliminated, as it is just too much hard work to read between the lines."

CV tips

* Make sure it is well-presented

* Don't use abbreviations or jargon

* When describing previous experience, use action words and give a bit of detail for credibility

* Keep it simple and straightforward

* Always get someone else to read it

Covering letter tips:

Three necessary things:

* Identify what you are applying for.

* Specify what you would bring to the job and summarise what you have to offer against the employer's criteria.

* Say why you want to apply, which is a chance to show you have done some research on the employer.

Jazzing up a CV can have pitfalls:

* A bright purple CV might be acceptable for an advertising job, but not for law or accountancy.

* Fancy fonts can backfire if they don't format correctly on the employer's screen.