I thought mine was. I said last week that I was going to take a look at it since it seemed not be generating a lot of calls from agencies, even for jobs I know I can do.
It follows the recommended format – not too long, the front page summarises my profile, skills and key achievements followed by two pages of freelance history by client. Focuses on the last five years. Not too many buzzwords and TLAs. No great long list of languages, operating systems and platforms, educational history and pets’ names. All very professional.
And though I say it myself – mainly because nobody else will – it’s not a bad history. It’s got some fairly significant successes in there and some serious clients. Certainly it’s good enough to demonstrate I can hack it at the top of an IT department or drive a complex programme to a conclusion. So why isn’t it working?
Then it occurred to me. I’ve written the CV for the wrong audience.
Think about it. If you’re dealing with the bigger agencies, the first point of call for the CV is with a researcher who’s looking for the skills on a list from the client. If he doesn’t see the keywords, clearly you’re not suitable. If he does, the CV goes to the “Account Manager” – aka the sales person – who repeats the process but with a bit more awareness of what the client is after. This is the guy who will call you back if he thinks your skills are a close match for the role. Assuming he does and assuming you say the right things he’ll put you forward to the client.
At the client it goes to someone in Human Remains HR who vets it to see if your skills match the role, which they understand pretty well. They’ll also be looking for your soft skills, are you likely to be a good fit in their organisation and do you have a solid career history. Most of that is irrelevant, of course, especially for technical roles, but it keeps them happy.
If it passes all those hurdles, it finally goes to the hiring manager. Who is the guy the CV was written to impress.
So the problem is to write the CV in such as way as to get through all those lower layers of filtration so that you get it in front of the guy with the chequebook. But since to do that your CV is now full of acronyms, buzzwords and technical jargon to satisfy the needs of the box tickers, the manager is not going to be too impressed with it and you go in the reject pile…
It’s interesting to note that most of the calls I get from agencies after putting in the CV forward have been from people who have been in the game a fair while and usually work for the smaller agencies. They’re also the ones who get me the interviews, since they usually have the ear of the hiring manager and know exactly what it is the client is looking for. Sadly, in out target-driven, sales-oriented agency marketplace with a vast oversupply of candidates, they are becoming rare beasts indeed.
Interesting challenge, isn’t it? I’m off to think about how to write a three-dimensional CV that will get to the hiring manager and still make sense when it does…