Viewing Thread:
"How to write a perfect CV and Interview Techniques"

You tell me. I'm doing something wrong here - I've applied for about 10 - 20 jobs and only had the one interview, and didn't get that job. I'm not @rsed about that, but I thought the interview went pretty well. Shows what I know.

The problem is all the jobs I've had in the past, and the one I've got now, I've known that I'd got the job before I even sat down to be interviewed. Not because I'm cocky, but because they are jobs that a monkey could do. If you could spell your own name, you were hired.

I've had a few tips from friends, and from the net :

* Write your CV tailored to the job you want.
* Detail what strengths you have brought to previous jobs and how that would help you in your new job.
* Try to convey ambition.
* Be to the point. (My CV is only 2 pages anyway)

Any tips, as I've been out of full time work for over a month, and working evenings/weekends at somerfield is becoming seriously painful. Is a covering letter essential? What do I put in it, apart from being interested in the job? Any tips on interviews, except being confident, looking interviewers in the eye (which I always do), not licking the window etc.

Cheers for any help if you can give it.

Yeah, its a council run to scheme to help people get into work.

Free of charge?

Icarus mk2 wrote:
> How id you squish your CV into one page?

I didnt, the guy at Workplace West did.

How id you squish your CV into one page?

My CV is one page, and it rocks.

My CV is 2 and a hjalf page long, but the main writing stuff is indented halfway into the page for a better layout, and the titles of each part are easier to see.

I want a job because it means my parents will stop saying "Go and get a job£

ßora† §agdiyeV wrote:
> and
> I've got no money."


But isn't that why most people want a job?

Make sure your CV is as short as possible. Use decent quality paper and lay it out nicely. Make it easy to read and keep it simple. An employer gets lots and lots of CVs for each position available and doesn't want to be sat there for hours upon hours reading how you used to push trolleys for Tescos (as an example)

If its short, the employer can see your skills and qualifications and via your covering letter, see what you're looking for making his or her decision easier to make.

Hmm..

It's tough to know what people are looking for, or how you can give it to them.

One thing I found helpful was to do a Skills-Based CV - instead of showing your skills through your previous employment history and those personalish statements, which tend to require the potential employer 'work out' what skills you have, instead you lead into your cv with the obligatory personal details, then a 'skills profile'.

You list a bunch of relevant skills you have, and follow each one with a brief explanation of how you got / proved the skill.

This is also very easy to tailor to specific jobs that you apply for - just work out the skills they want, and put them (along with the generic good ones) onto your list.


That said, although I think it makes an improvement to my cv, the only jobs I've actually got of late have been through an agency, so I've not really been able to test it out fully.

It's frustrating, but it seems the only real way to find out what works is through experience, and in particular, success. It looks like a long slow process...