CV help

[lnr]

Extract from recent letter from Sally, head of personnelish stuff for the dept:

As we discussed, the period of your current contract expires on 28 February 2005 and, because of your illness and in view of the modified work pattern we agreed with you to support your gradual return to full-time work, it has not been possible to carry out the normal assessment of your work and consider you for confirmation in your post. I am, therefore, arranging for the Appointments Committee to meet, hopefully in mid-December, to consider extending your initial period of appointment so that this assessment may be made at a later date when, as we hope, you will have returned to work on a full-time basis and be undertaking the full range of duties appropriate to the grade of your post

The committee want an up-to-date CV and two references, so Sally wants them by Monday. As a result I've been hacking on my CV.

Current version in progress: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~eleanorb/cv/cv.pdf

I'd apprciate any advice.

Comments

[uitlander]

CVs are very personal things. That all looks fine to me. But there is a typo in your current employment section - "usres" which I expect you'd like to fix. Good Luck! Hopefully this is all just a formality.

[lnr]

Thanks!

I hope so too, but will have to wait and see.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

I'd ditch the bar work (it was almost a decade ago, does it add anything? You have plausible 'customer service' from IT support roles) and societies where you didn't do anything noteworthy other than be a member - playing an instrument is good, climbing a mountain is good, going clubbing is not so good.

[mhk.livejournal.com]

On the contrary, I'd leave the bar work for now: it shows she wasn't swanning around doing nothing in her vacations ie work ethic. In 10 years' time when the cv is unmanageably long, some bits will have to fall off the beginning of it and then it can go.

I agree that the clubbing doesn't add much.

[aldabra]

I think: lose "Dissertation still to complete". I know I'm edgy about these things, but I think it looks like you're over-running. If you know what it's called or what it's about say "Dissertation in progress: Remote Tracking of Dolphins" or whatever. Otherwise just say "MSc (part-time, ongoing)" and gloss over dissertations altogether (including losing the "taught courses" distinction).

I think you've got some punctuational inconsistencies in your lists of courses, but it may just be my dodgy monitor. I use semi-colons between courses, but that's partly because I have course titles with commas in ("Graphs, networks, and design"). OTOH it means the reader doesn't have to work out whether or not some of those commas are within course names rather than between them.

I'd say "GCSEs: 7 at grade A", and list them perhaps (you've got space) and forget the grade C. It's all a long time ago now. I routinely forget my History.

I think your computer officer duties sound increasingly impressive as you go down the list; I'd start at "Answering postmaster queries" and stick the bit that was at the beginning at the end.

IT assistant: s/is/was/ throughout.

Interests: Typo: particpated. 1992 was a long time ago, can you lose the date or say "when I was at Oxfrod" or summat.

Computing: do you have to say "minor" programming?

Looks good. These are all quibbles. YMMV.

[rillaith.livejournal.com]

and list them perhaps (you've got space) ... It's all a long time ago

I'd specifically not list them exactly for that latter reason. It was a long time ago. Just leave in the number.

[angoel.livejournal.com]

I am unconvinced by the bit that says "Participation in several newsgroups and maintenance of my own webpage: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~eleanorb/", as to me, it reads as if you're looking for padding.

[mikewd]

I would tend to put the education section after the employment section now that you have a reasonable amount of post-graduation employment.

It might be worth separating out the skills bit into a summary section at the beginning with emphasis on stuff relevant to the job (e.g. Perl scripting, Exim filters, UNIX etc.).

If there are any specific projects you've had a significant role in then it would be worth adding those into the current employment section.

If you've been on any work related training courses it would be worth adding a "Training" section to list these.

These are just my thoughts and as others have said a CV tends to be a matter of personal preference. Although it is usually sensible to target it at the likely audience (never having been involved with university appointments boards I can't comment on what sort of things they expect).

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Most CVs aren't read: they are scanned and binned in seconds so the core skill goes at the top in BFO bold letters:

Tactical Developer, Equity Derivatives

...or whatever that particular job happens to be. Then three lines listing the skills, and I really do suggest that this is composed with the job specification and the employers' known activities as a guide - not written for your own convenience in listing stuff.

Then comes Employment history (oo look, she's proved she can do this stuff elsewhere), then education (oh yes, we can tick the box 'graduate' and HR will wave it through).

On the other hand, this is for an academic institution. Maybe the academic part of the CV is the bit that they scan before deciding to bin it or put you on the shortlist.

And on the gripping hand, this isn't a job application at all: it's an administrative review that you'd do well investigate discreetly, so that you have some idea what it is that they actually want to hear.

[(Anonymous)]

Brief techie thing: can you make the underlined blue things into hyperlinks so that Acroread can follow them?

(S)

[bjh21.livejournal.com]

Typographical whinges: You're using n-dashes when you want hyphens in "part-time", "real-time", "Anti-virus", "user-agent", "A-level", "in-house", "Re-cataloguing", "part-time" (again), and "Role-Playing". It's traditional to use un-spaced n-dashes for number (and hence date) ranges. You've got a double full stop at the end of the "GCSEs" section, and no comma after "Allerton Bywater" or "Shaftesbury Road" (though note that Royal Mail recommend not using punctuation in addresses anyway).

I also notice that the postcode you list for Caroline Blackmun is reported to be invalid by royalmail.com, and that you only list the postcode for one of your employers.