5 things I look for in a CV

We’ve been doing a bit of hiring recently, including the planning department. Which means I get to see a lot of CV’s. My CV-to-interview ratio is about 1 in 20. I don’t know if that’s high or low compared to other planning directors, but here are five thoughts why.

1. I’m seeing a lot of CV’s for planners with a couple of years’ experience following a career before (as a client or suit, for instance). If you’re up against planners with 5 years or more planning experience, there needs to be a point to seeing you. Are you a specialist? What’s the holistic benefit of that experience, and what would it do for us?

2. Most CV’s now have a bit of blah at the top – a description or summary of skills and motivation. There all lovely and useful but if was an OCR, they’d all look the same. I’m not being facetious for once. There’s so little sense of the person. Be differentiated, and be yourself.

3. Why us? Don’t rely on the headhunter to craft your submission to the agency or role. Write it into the CV. Perhaps in that description bit. Do you homework on the agency and the role first.

4. Keep it short. I tend to have to read CV’s when I’m not in meetings (which means on the train or early in the morning). That means brevity wins. tend to look for 2 standout things on the CV itself. Relevant experience, and things to talk about if you come in for an interview (stand out projects, not your travels).

5. Put the rest on the web - so the team can have a look at your work in the agency, when it suits them, or we can put it on screen when you’re in for an interview. That’ll take a bit of work, but it’s worth it.

Of course, every planning director will be different (heck, they pride themselves on being different), so this is probably just as unhelpful as it is otherwise.

Photo credit Karim (KJPM) - thanks - at the 'Planning Eye' Flickr group

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