CV Do's and Dont's - a shortlister's perspective

I've already spent an improbable amount of my life reading CVs as part of recruitment processes. From my perspective on the recruitment side of the process, the first phases from application through to shortlisting are all about finding out who can do the job to the level you need. As an applicant, your number one objective should be to make sure the shortlister has good evidence to conclude that you can do the job. Here are my tips on how to make sure your CV helps you do this the next time you apply for something.

Tailor: Tweak your CV for the post you're applying for. If your CV comes across as a piece from a completely different jigsaw puzzle you're already in trouble.

Give evidence and demonstrate ability: If the job asks for experience of managing large teams, please don't just put 'I have managed large teams'. It might allow the shortlister to say you meet the criteria but you'll certainly be up against others who've given some insight into what makes them good at this, or shown enthusiasm for it. Space is always an issue but you can do clever things to get a nuanced picture of yourself across. For example:

I co-ordinated the work of a large team
I was responsible for appraising, directing and motivating a team that included a range of roles

Both take one precious line on your piece of paper, but the second is so much more informative.

Avoid excessive personal details: This can be really counter-productive as it can seem over-familiar and undermine an otherwise professional CV. The biggest crime for me is putting your date of birth. I can honestly say that I've never taken any notice of seeing this on a CV. Experience and ability is what counts. A colleague recently told me how having put '10 years experience' on an application she was asked if she had 10 years experience of doing different things or 10 years experience of doing the same thing over and over again for 10 years.

I've also seen people put their picture at the top of a CV. It partly feels old fashioned to say this in the age of LinkedIn, but if an employer is asking to see your CV then the black and white facts are going to be your main selling point, and a CV with your picture on it does not tell me that you've got the skills and abilities to do a job and it won't make your CV any more likely to get nearer the top of the pile.

The same goes for whether you are married, have kids, have a dog or have hobbies. Employers are likely to be searching your CV for demonstrated evidence that you have a customer-focussed attitude or something similar, and taking up space on this sort of personal information can just get in the way.  Keep if short and put it at the end if you really want to include it.

Typos: It will really undermine your application if on one hand you express your dedication to attention to detail whilst on the same page you leave glaring typos, unfinished notes like "[insert more here]", or my personal favourite, you copy-and-paste in a reference number and/or job title from a completely different job.

Don't linger on past glories: Your GCSE grades may be exemplary but if you're applying for a professional post it's probably your degree and postgraduate experience that matters. Include them if space allows but keep it brief.

Summary

Many posts do not require a detailed application form and your CV might carry a lot of the weight in demonstrating that you're worth calling to interview. Shortlisting is in my experience a surprisingly mechanical process, driven by a list of criteria that the shortlister is going to be measuring your application by. If you bear this in mind and present to them the right information - ideally demonstrated evidence that you can do the job - then you'll maximise your chances of your application making the impact you want it to.

If at first...

This week I learned that a conference proposal that I'd jointly made with my friend and former colleague Natalia was unsuccessful. We were hoping to talk to a wide audience from across the library and information world on how we feel so-called 'generic' skills are underplayed in their importance to contemporary and future librarianship. I like to think we'd have given a positive and provocative take on this.

The initial disappointment has now passed, but I found myself thinking soon afterwards that maybe it would be interesting to blog the proposal anyway. Librarianship is a remarkably open profession so it feels comfortable doing this. The paper contains no big secrets, and nothing that Natalia or I haven't ever said out-loud or on twitter before, so why not give it some exposure on here?


The profile that a slot at a major conference can give your ideas is certainly very desirable but it's no longer the only way to reach an audience. As I stand by the ideas that we were putting forward, it would be a shame for the proposal to end here. Perhaps others will find the proposed content interesting and maybe it can be useful elsewhere. 


I'm hopeful that by sharing it and taking any comments that I might be better prepared for the next time. In that spirit I was surprised and pleased then to see the Library Camp people doing the same already via Google Docs. It's also reassuring to see that we're in excellent company in not making the programme this year.


So here it is via a Google Doc. Please let us know what you think either in comments here, on twitter or on the document itself!

Earning a capital M

In late 2011 I applied for and was awarded a funded place on LSE and Imperial College's joint sponsored Diploma in Management, a level 5 qualification awarded by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI).

I didn't really know what I was getting myself into, but people I trust recommended the course and before I knew it I was at the 1st workshop in January. A blink of the eye later and the 10th (and final) workshop has passed and I've hugged goodbyes to group of new friends.

One thing I haven't done is finish the course yet though. It requires a series of written assignments that are based on a range of management theories and practice, and a large assignment to be completed within 6 months of the final workshop. I have plenty of work to do yet but this feels like a good time to reflect on the experience of the workshops.

My peers on the group are a mix of managers from all sorts of departments across both institutions, and I was the only librarian/information professional. This was undoubtedly one of the best aspects of the course. So often we live in the bubble and echo chamber of library-land and hearing about the challenges of managing people, resources and services across higher education was hugely valuable to me. I was able to draw great encouragement from hearing how people in very different roles to my own were facing familiar challenges and potential pit-falls. I was grateful to be able to learn from them the various techniques they had all individually learnt or developed to cope.

The course facilitator did an excellent job throughout of using our experiences to compare to, and test against, best practice concepts and techniques from the best management literature. We were able to see how our real-life work could be changed by paying really close attention to how we were going about our work. Throughout we were constantly reminded that anyone can learn to be a good manager, and even a leader, if they are mindful of how people and organisations work and apply the knowledge gained on the course.

The modules we covered included reflecting on our own learning preferences and styles, and how those affect our interactions with others. We covered the range of general management responsibilities such as planning resources, managing services, ensuring quality, performance management, projects and the differences between management and leadership.

One theme seemed persist throughout the workshop - using common sense. It's remarkable how much more straightforward so many of the issues we discussed seemed in the workshops compared to dealing with them in the workplace. I think all of the workshop participants felt afterwards that they were now much better prepared to deal with management issues in their stride. For all the theory out there, it feels that the skills of listening to people, being open to new ideas, being honest, and thinking carefully about what your place of work is there to achieve will get most managers through the average working day, and beyond.

I've pondered a lot recently about the range of skills that librarians need today to forge a career, and I do  feel that a lot of the skills I learnt through these workshops, such as people skills, communication skills and the ability to influence and negotiate with others, that ultimately makes the library world go round. I think they  deserve recognition of their importance alongside the information skills we all value so much in the profession.

I'm lucky to have had a lot of exposure to professional development activities in my career so far, and right now it feels that this programme has pushed me further than anything else I've done before. The fact that the skills I've learned about are non-library specific, or in CILIP's recent 'Professional Knowledge and Skills Base' terminology, generic skills, is really significant to me.

A great number of librarians have 'Manager' in their job title, but how many feel confident in stating those skills with anything like the confidence they do their 'Librarianship' skills? I hope the capital L continues to come first for me, but I feel empowered now to use the capital M more often as well.

A good incentive then to finish those assignments and complete the qualification! If you see a need to develop your management skills I can highly recommend this level of qualification, and undertaking it in an environment with peers from elsewhere in higher education has been a really invigorating and rewarding experience.

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Postscript: I could write a whole separate post about changing jobs - twice - during the programme. I'm indebted to (and extremely grateful for) the support given to me by LSE Library and now Information Services at the University of Kent.