Over the course of the bank holiday weekend I have been tinkering with my CV to bring it up to date. At the moment I’ve got a full time job where my employer has to give three months’ notice, but given the economic climate I think it’s prudent to have a CV ready just in case.
I’ve produced two generic versions of my CV, one with bullet points and one with paragraphs.
The things I am thinking about/looking for feedback on are:
- How can I make more of my current job? It’s the most senior role on my CV, but I want it to be more than just a list of the systems I’ve implemented.
- How can I make more of my various directorships? They are all at small companies, but together they total 8 years.
- Should I cut back my education section further? My impression is that employers outside specific industries care more about experience than academic qualifications, and I don’t know if anyone still cares about my GCSE results.
I’d be grateful for any feedback, either via the comments or email. Both CVs are generic as whichever one I use (currently the bullet point one) will be on my website, rather than tailored to any specific role, and for the same reason I have left off any details of referees.
I’ve had a very quick scan over both of them and I very much prefer the one with the paragraphs. I feel it gives more information in less space and doesn’t seem as cramped as the bullet point one (you’d think it would be the other way round really).
A few quick points:
1. You don’t mention any of the technologies used in your jobs. You currently have a manager’s CV, not sure if this is deliberate? If you’re looking for more of a technical role, I’d want to know how many years of real world experience you had of a particular programming language or environment.
2. Squish the contact details a bit and add a two – three line blurb about yourself, mentioning the 8 years of directorships and what direction you are wanting to go into (e.g technical/managerial, etc).
3. Education seems fine in the second CV.
Thanks for the feedback – I feel the same way about the bullet points vs paragraphs.
The management bias is deliberate, whilst I have a mostly technical job at the moment I want to gradually move towards the business/management side. I’ll try and put a few more references to Java, PHP etc. in though as I think that would be useful for now.
Hey Paul,
not sure if you’re still looking or not, but I’ve had a quick look and here are my comments below:
1) Single Page – with your experience to date I’d recommend having a single page CV
2) Include a personal/professional profile giving an overview of your skills and areas of expertise to date
3) Objective – list one or two sentences describing what it is you’d like to do
Personally the bullet point CV is better, but I don’t think either version really sells you enough.
Hope this is of some help, but just contact me if you’d like more feedback.