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mynameistallulah

I prefer CV1, it is very attractive and readable. I think CV2 looks terrible, but I agree with others that neither show any personality. Also, the personal statement is just fluff, either get rid of it or qualify what you are saying with examples from your experience.

Evilm

Format of 1 is better but put work before education.

Here comes the criticism so sorry, take a deep breath:

Find a better way of saying "doing a great job" in your profile. That made me wince even though I understand what you mean.

If you are looking for catering work take out the the detail of the content of the courses - you don't need those 9 lines as people are going to either know what you should have covered in the course or will ask at interview.

If there is something in particular that you covered that is relevant to the job you can always make a paragraph in your covering letter about it.

Put in the grades of your school studies (Since its in another country you could use "equivalent to GCSE A-C grades in..." or similar. Assuming those were the equivalent grades of course.)

Also I note here that you have changed the date format from February 2006 to 02.2006. Use one consistent format all the way through for everything on dates - I suggest February 2006 is better.

Take the company names that you worked for from being a bullet point and put them beside the job title (in the same font and bold too)- In fact change that whole section round to something similar to the other CV:

Dates - Job Title - Employer .

• duties
• duties

State month and year for the start and end dates.

Then separate out your duties into a few different lines. Add information in there to include some metrics (such as how many rooms for the hotel for the porter job, how many dishes on the menu or meals served per hour* on the kitchen job). You want the employer to be thinking "wow, he's dealt with a 200 room hotel's demands before... thats just what we are looking for!" or similar. Currently it doesn't give any indication of scale and it could be small places or huge places.

*not sure if it is a real metric that is actually used but the point is to show achievement and level. For financial you'd be talking how many customers on the ledger and how much revolving debt was involved for example.

The "social" sentence in Skills also seems a bit fluffy but I'm not able to restructure it right now.

Get rid of the "organisational" sentence - that tells me that if I give you 10 things to do and you could easily do 20 in that time you are going to make the 10 stretch out rather than coming back to me when the 10 are complete for more work.

"Leadership abilities" also means nothing and is fluffy - tell me somewhere else (say in one of your jobs) how you have managed a team of X people or lead a team of X people.

Get rid of the Languages table and make it into a sentance in the skills section. Something like:"Fluent in reading, writing, and speaking English and Bulgarian. Basic knowledge of Russian."

"Selective interests"? Call this "Hobbies and Interests" - If it needs to be there at all. Rule of thumb is that unless it shows relevant skills to what you are applying for then it doesn't need to be there.

"Other" - what are you applying for that they need to know you have a driving license for? You will either be informed in the job advert or asked in the interview if it is an issue. Not being on your CV won't be a problem.

Also there is no need in this day and age to put the line about references - employers will assume that you have references and will ask you for them when it is appropriate. (It is however an idea to have a typed page to hand which you take to interviews that has this information on so that you can hand it over straight away.)

You can breathe again now..

CYPER

Linton wrote: »

IMHO CV2 looks easier to read, but I think you need to focus your CV to the job you are after. If you want a cheffing job there's no point in listing your computer experience in detail. If you want a computer job suggest you could explain how you got your knowledge and cover your kitchen work in a paragraph.

If I have to be perfectly honest I would say I want a job in a company that has clear and open management structure, where one can easily advance on the career ladder and not stay in the same position for years. In most cases that would exclude companies with less than 100 employees. And yes I am ready to devote myself to give what is needed in order to achieve this goal.

The problem is I am a fresh graduate and all my work experience is unrelated to what I'm looking for. Basically it was just any job to support me during my studies, so I find it extremely difficult to relate that previous experience to any management position I would be applying for. IT/Tech positions would be even harder to compete in.
Then again I can't just remove it, because that would leave with no previous work experience on the CV - how would that help me?

Linton wrote: »

I feel your assertions of being a perfect employee need some evidence in the context of the type of job you are after. So if you want a kitchen job perhaps you could use the OU and computer knowledge as evidence of your enthusiasm, ability to plan etc and for a computer job use your kitchen experience as evidence of hard work, ability to get on with other people, understanding of customers etc.

I definitely do not want a kitchen or any other catering related job if it's not some sort of management position, which I perfectly understand is something borderline impossible to get in my first job hunting run.

Thank you for the pointers - I would include them in my CV in some form or another.

Slinky wrote: »

Presumably you want to use your business studies degree, tell people in your statement what it is you are looking for as all the work experience you have at the moment is not really relevant.

Like I said above the work experience is not really relevant, but that is all I got and I don’t think it would be beneficial to remove it.

Lovelyjoolz wrote: »

Your personal statement is lacking. It tells me nothing about what you are looking for, or what you are hoping to achieve. The first sentence is ok, if a bit of a cliche, but the second sentence is just flannel. Sharpen this up because the reader may decide whether to bin or continue reading based on your personal statement.

I want to achieve a successful career in management, where I excel in my duties, bosses are fully satisfied and I get a good paycheck for my excellent results. But yet I don’t think that is something to be written on a CV. Or maybe I am wrong?

Lovelyjoolz wrote: »

You make statements that you do not provide evidence for. For example, you state that you have leadership skills - what skills? Where did you learn them? What achievements in leadership can you put down on your CV to impress me?

Well, that might be far-fetched, but I am good at organizing events and people and I have some non-work related examples, which I am not sure if I should include. Work related, I’ve never been in charge of other people, but I’ve been involved in organizing work-related events and giving advice and direction to people who I worked with. Does that count?

Lovelyjoolz wrote: »

There are some spelling and grammatical errors that you need to address, especially the American spelling which really sets my teeth on edge. Your sentence structures are wrong. You write as if you are chatting to someone, where a CV needs to be formal.

I studied American English in school, so it is impossible for me to see these errors, even though I’ve been in the UK for over 7 years. Can you point me to where I’ve made mistakes. Thank you.

Lovelyjoolz wrote: »

As Linton says, your computer knowledge is irrelevant if you are looking for a kitchen job. Decide what job you want and then tailor your CV so that the relevant skills and experience you have that fit the job spec are foremost in your CV.

Obviously I’m looking for a job, related to my education and catering is a no-go area. But I lack experience in management and that is the reason I put education first. We fresh graduates have to start from somewhere.

bluenoseam wrote: »

CV 1 has potential, however the layout is not as clean as could be (for example one job is split over a page break - not major but it's something which when added to others will mark it down).

Where is this? In CV1 there are 2 jobs on page 1 and the third one is on page 2, so no job is split between 2 pages, at least not on my screen.

bluenoseam wrote: »

You have listed selective interests, but that could have been written with a lot more passion & been used to highlight your multi language skills, but do you believe that every job will be looking for a native Bulgarian speaker with a basic ability in Russian too? That's not going to be relevant for every job.

I’ve included these as a bonus at the end of the CV. I mean even if the job doesn’t require it is something that might turn out to be useful in one situation or another. Why remove something, that doesn’t impede?

bluenoseam wrote: »

CV2 is far too cluttered, looks as if it's been knocked up in 5 minutes and in a situation where there's only one piece of paper left in the entire world.

CV2 was recommended to me in the Student Room forums, where I submitted CV1. I don’t like it too, but decided to see what other people think about it.

jfh7gwa wrote: »

Neither of them screams "this person would be perfect for X position"... and that's nothing to do with lack of experience, it's all about selling yourself.

I perfectly realise that I am far from being perfect for anything other than a kitchen position, but how do I start in management then?

jfh7gwa wrote: »

Others have highlighted some of the more obvious things such as focusing down on one aspect when you do the applications (if you're doing something with your business degree, why does a recrutier care for so much detail of your catering experience? Why, if you're applying for a lower level kitchen job, would they care for your computing studies?)... etc etc

That would require removal of the whole employment history section. I don’t think that would be beneficial. Basically I am trying to step up on my education and use it as a base. Employment history is there, because it has to be there.

Kynthia wrote: »

The personal statement isn't very personal. It doesn't tell me much about you and could be written about almost anyone. I'd prefer it to say about what your career aspirations are, what type of job you are looking for. If it's different from your prior experience perhaps why you've changed direction or why you think you'd be good at the new work.

So maybe write something in the lines of me being a very purposeful person, who would like to achieve professional development by being given the right opportunity. That sounds too sugary, doesn’t it? I

Kynthia wrote: »

With your employment history I'd also expand upon the roles you had and the skills you learnt that are transferable to any job. For example "dealing with customer requests/complaints" could be expanded to say that this gave you face to face experience with customers' and taught you how to find out more information on what customers needs were which allowed you to meet their needs, also you learnt to diffuse tense situations and resolve conflict. Did you cash up your till when working as a cashier as this would show you were responsible and have a good level of maths/mental arithmetic. When working with the chef did you perform some kind of quality control which maintained high standards and prevented disappointed customers.

Great pointers here. I would make sure to include them in my CV, as they are indeed relevant to my work experience and probably group them under some sort of a business term such as S.M.A.R.T – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely.

Thank you.

Kynthia wrote: »

I think you can take less room to show your language skills, as it looks odd to show it in table form when your competency is the same for each language. I'd maybe just say that your written and aural skills for English and Bulgarian are excellent, plus you have a basic level of Russian.

Just write it as a single sentence?

Kynthia wrote: »

You don't want a bland CV that is forgettable and the same as everyone else's. Try to ensure that everything you are including is useful, specific, makes you stand out but lets a potential employer you can possibly do the job so they should interview you.

That is a hard thing to do when my previous work experience is very distant to the employment field I am currently looking to establish myself in.

Elvisia wrote: »

Do it skills based maybe, so you list your skills? I would never put my education ahead of my work experience on a CV. You look to me as someone who has a business degree but little work experience and wouldn't be looking for a particularly high up job.

Almost correct. I am someone who has a business degree and little work experience, but I am definitely looking for a high up job. You got to start from somewhere, right?

Elvisia wrote: »

Having said this I have seen far worse CVs out there, so well done you for being able to competently use a template! You'd be surprised how many people can't.

Thank you. I too believe CV1 template looks rather good.

MissSarah1972 wrote: »

Organizational, with a z?

Thanks. Will be fixed. MS Word is set to English U.K, but doesn’t suggest it is a mistake, because it is not.

KiKi wrote: »

Your whole CV needs to be more more specific to any role you apply for.

KiKi

I haven’t started applying yet, so that is why it not tailored to any specific position, but will do.

Evilm wrote: »

Format of 1 is better but put work before education.

Education is much more relevant to the type of work I will be looking for, hence its position.

Evilm wrote: »

Find a better way of saying "doing a great job" in your profile. That made me wince even though I understand what you mean.

Any suggestions on that part?

Evilm wrote: »

Then separate out your duties into a few different lines. Add information in there to include some metrics (such as how many rooms for the hotel for the porter job, how many dishes on the menu or meals served per hour* on the kitchen job). You want the employer to be thinking "wow, he's dealt with a 200 room hotel's demands before... thats just what we are looking for!" or similar. Currently it doesn't give any indication of scale and it could be small places or huge places.

I might try to add some metrics, even though I am sceptical It would be helpful, because it is unrelated to my future job position.

Evilm wrote: »

Get rid of the "organisational" sentence - that tells me that if I give you 10 things to do and you could easily do 20 in that time you are going to make the 10 stretch out rather than coming back to me when the 10 are complete for more work.

I wouldn’t do that for sure, because most probably I would enjoy what I do and I will come for the other 10 At least I want it to be that way.

Thank you everyone for the contributions.

Evilm

CYPER wrote: »

I might try to add some metrics, even though I am sceptical It would be helpful, because it is unrelated to my future job position.

It may not be as unrelated as you think. Showing you have worked in and managed a kitchen that is putting out a high level of meals gives an indication you can cope under pressure.

Number of rooms in a hotel also will speak to some level of organisational skills - the higher the number of rooms the more likely you are going to need to multitask and prioritize the requirements of the job.


Can I give you a suggestion? Can you find somewhere to volunteer? For example the Mind charity round here often need extra help with their admin and that sort of thing.

short_cake

I say No. 1 too

but like others have said education should be put on later previous jobs first

heretolearn_2

hi

it's always a problem when you are trying to change careers but you need to make this clearer on your CV. I agree that your personal statements etc are just woolly cliches - bring your own real strengths (that you can demonstrate) and your own personality to the fore. Otherwise this is a very blah CV with nothing to make you better than any of the other 1000s of new graduates. I prefer number 1 as well.
Some specific points

BA (Hons) Business Studies - this is the right way to write it, don't spell it all out as per cv 2. did you achieve a good grade? If it's a first or 2:1 then put it on there!

Bulgarian website - don't casually drop this in at the end as a mention of a hobby, include it somewhere as a demonstration of your IT/web skills.

Languages: Fluent in spoken and written English and Bulgarian, intermediate spoken Russian (or whatever the case is. Basic I wouldn't expect you to be able to really communicate in it at all, so not worth mentioning. Or you could put 'currently learning Russian?')

Statement: you need to explain what you want and can offer, without too much emphasis on what you want. And to explain your situation, so something like 'Having supported myself through my studies by working in catering, I am now looking for a graduate entry position for a long term management career in X field (whatever industry it is the employer is in). My work experience has given me an insight into blahblah and developed my skills in blah blah and this, combined with my business degree, blah blah blah

What events etc have you organised? You should put voluntary experience down as well as 'work experience' and it may be a lot more relevant to most graduate jobs than having worked as a kitchen porter.

On the kitchen jobs, keep the details brief, and emphasise the skills as you have but try to be more specific to show useful skills, for example worked in a team of X people, or 'had sole responsibility for X' (to demonstrate ability to work in teams rather than saying 'I can work in a team or alone'). Other than that the kitchen work is most useful for demonstrating that you understand the world of work, can get yourself out of bed on time, etc etc and haven't existed in a school/uni bubble and will get a horrible shock when it's time for your first real job. If you can bring that out in your personal statement then it'll lift you above other new graduates who have never worked.

tinkle

Is that your real name, address and phone number? I would delete that off here if I were you.... :-)

ska_lover

Hi

CV1 is more attractive - but other posters are right, the personal profile is pretty wooly, it is almost like something you have cut and paste of a poor CV advice website.

This especially ''Doing a great job andachieving the desired end results is my primary motivation, which makes me avery dedicated worker'' really does need to be revised imo

good luck