4 posts tagged “cv”

One of our consultants today

Here’s an email sent a moment ago by one of our Senior Consultants, in attempt to clarify a mystery:

Hi ______

We saw your details on [internet job site] and you look extremely suitable for a position we have in Oxfordshire at the moment, a _____ role paying up to £50k.

Someone answered your mobile phone number ________ (a female), said that she was you, and asked us to go through all the details of the position and then email them to her as she had lots of offers and was considering all of them.  

As the last position on the CV was at [company], I asked why she’d left [company] and she said it was because she’d been there such a long time.  When I pointed out that she/you had only joined them in September last year, she said that she had to go because she was really busy, but it sounded like she was eating and watching TV.

There’s also the fact that ______ is usually a male name, that the hobbies on the CV included cricket, football etc in India – I just thought you should be aware that, somewhere in a parallel universe, you have a double with lots of job offers on the go!

I called back and asked if she was definitely ______ ______ to which she answered no and put the ‘phone down.

I am also mailing this to your _______ account for completeness.

Are you still in the market for a new job opportunity as you look like a really strong candidate for this vacancy?

Many thanks,

[Senior Consultant]

Hmm!  Why would this female answer the phone and pretend to be some guy whose CV is posted on a major internet job site?  Is she the guy’s daughter?  Has she pinched his mobile phone?  Is she a rival recruitment agent angling for leads?  If so, why is she watching telly at 1pm?

If you click on the email link on this person’s CV, you get the email address of someone completely different.  If you then send an email to this address, you get an out-of-office reply from yet another person.  Add the telly-addict girl into the mix and you've got four people.

(HTS would like to take this opportunity to recommend a 'one CV per person' policy when job-hunting.)

It’s not unheard of for people to go onto job sites, steal someone’s CV and use it to attract the attention of agencies and employers.  But this seems just a touch odder than the usual cases.

Your job

Writing a CV?  Looking for a less grindingly miserable way to eke out a living?  Welcome to the first installment of the Canny Jobseeker's Guide!  It's an informative new series I will almost certainly discontinue before the third installment - if not sooner!  Let's start with a bang, and look at the word 'role'.

You'd be amazed how many people get this one wrong!  Grown adults, no less, educated, non-feral.  But take it from the admin clerk who had to spend twenty minutes this morning correcting your otherwise middling CV - simple mistakes happen!  The thing to remember here is that:

A 'role' is a job.

A 'roll' is essentially a bap.  It's also something that spheres and wheels do.

You can really see the difference if you replace any instance of the word 'roll' on your CV with the word 'bap':

'My current bap involves device driver development using ActiveX'

'I'm looking for a bap within a thirty-mile radius of my home in Birdlip.'

Or try:

'In my present thing that spheres and wheels do, I am involved in interactive voice response and computer telecommunication integration.'

If these aren't the meanings you were aiming to convey, you might want to consider substituting the word 'role' for 'roll'.  Not that I wouldn't be happy to do it for you and seven other people every day; it's easy enough, unless of course your CV also includes words like 'roll-out' or 'rolling contract', preventing me from just doing a quick find-replace fix-it job.

Now, an employer will probably know what you meant to say - but not always.  Consider:

'For ten years I had a roll in a sandwich shop.'  That's serious mastication!  (See tomorrow's Word of the Day.)

OK, I'm being picky.  Role/roll - not the end of the world.  And I'm being hypocrital, given my own horrible spelling and syntax blind-spots.  (Last week I left a comment on someone's blog, and they replied 'What?') 

But this is sort of a recruitment ethics issue, is it not?  Can I, in good conscience, completely overhaul a CV that's riddled with mistakes, non-sequiturs and jokey but plainly pertinent references to chronic alcoholism under the heading of Hobbies, and send this sanitised rehash to our clients?  Clients who, in many cases, would not want a person who can't communicate performing a key bap in their workforce? 

Most CVs are semi-fictional as it is.  Is it right for me to scrub away those unintended traces of truth locked in creative punctuation, tiresome rambling (we received a 24 page CV today) and other typographical coffee-stains?  We do have a duty of care to our clients as well as to our candidates.

Trust me, I can make your CV look so good that companies will fire people just to take you on, and the director will give you her personal parking space and pay someone to rub your feet while you sit at your new desk eating grapes.  But I wish people wouldn't make me feel bad about it.

Any thoughts on this fascinating ethical issue?  How would you feel if your company ended up with some loony whose CV I'd doctored?  If you're a loony and your CV makes it clear that you're a loony, would you rather I kept my nitpicky mitts off your venal verbiage?  Are you only looking for jobs with companies who favour loonies?

Drop me a lion!

Candidate

Just thought I'd give you a quick candid insight into the private e-life of our esteemed boss.  I've omitted the one-word email she sent round the office subsequent to this delightful exchange.  Names have been removed and the mails arranged in chronological order.

From Boss

To [old candidate on database]

Hi [old candidate on database]

You are registered on our database but we haven't heard from you in a while. Are you looking for a new career opportunity right now?

We are receiving many new vacancies from all over the UK on a daily basis at present and in order to match your details correctly, we need the most up to date information. We would appreciate a current CV, which you can email direct to recruit@hts.co.uk and/or you could call us on 0121 766 6626, where our team of Consultants will be happy to speak to you.  [Etc. etc...]

Look forward to hearing from you.

Kindest regards

[Boss]

From [old candidate on database]

To Boss

Subject: RE: Job opportunities at HTS

I'm in South Korea if you have a job over here then let me know otherwise remove me from your obsolete databas.

Hi

Have removed you from our obsolete databas as requested.

kr

[Boss]

* * *

Incidentally, our database has nearly 100,000 candidates registered.  We've been going for nearly 17 years.  A bit of obsolesence is par for the course.  Most 'old' candidates we contact for an update are very polite and are glad we're thinking of them.

If people are going to be rude, though, they should at least be able to spell.

April fool

Nobody in recruitment likes April Fools' Day.  It's hard enough telling whether the CVs some people submit are intentional jokes at the best of times.  So it was nice to get this unambiguously jocular email from the company who recently did our web stationery.

Best get back to work.  I have to format a CV I've just received from a Mr Yehudi Mantlepiece of Nether Scratchbottom.