GUEST COMMENT: One thing I hate about your CV
For various reasons, I've spent much of the last week reading entry level CVs. A number of people seem to think that they can tell me that their employer or university is a good one.
They're wrong. I have my own prejudices, and you're not going to fix mine, or those of anyone else. I am presented with junk of the form "4th best economics department in Egypt", and "I worked for a $50 million firm that is the 2nd largest dog shoe maker in the world". (for confidentiality I've changed these a little, but the real words are just as bad).
Not all are that bad or funny. Nor am I entirely unsympathetic to CV black marks. Of the firms I've worked for, a couple are gone without trace and one major project was such a disaster that it is used in case studies to warn future generations. I can't fix that, and nor can you.
Each manager has his own prejudices. Recently, I found one newbie who like me had worked at IBM's Hursley labs, although it was hidden amongst dreary irrelevancies. This raised him up substantially in my estimation. That was a process in my head that he could neither predict nor affect; most people in banking have never heard of the place.
The moral is, that faced with what you can't change and can't know, don't waste space on trying to change an employer's mind. Focus on what you have done, and what it proves you can do.
I recall meeting a Microsoft manager who'd previously run successful projects at London Underground. Anyone who can overcome the spiteful level of incompetence there, automatically gets my respect. Conversely, the sheer volume of horror stories I hear about JP Morgan technology would affect my decision to hire anyone who's occupied a senior position in that business. Your prejudices are different, and I doubt if I can change them, which is the point of this article.
Some of you work for firms like RBS, which is not ideal, but can be spun well at interview. You've had to deal with things that others have not, this may have left scars, but some people are impressed by scars.
However, this kind of spinning is for the interview, not the CV. Someone who gives the air of being able to cope in troubled times scores vital points, but it's almost impossible to convey that in two lines of text, and it risks making you look mildly hysterical.
If you want an employer to consider you, you will need to build credibility. Writing junk he doesn't take seriously hurts you and wastes space. Every word on your CV must support the proposition of hiring you, so swap the blurb about employers and universities for experience and skills.
Dominic Connor is a quant headhunter at P&D Quantitative Recruitment
