The majority of organisations in today’s job market will request an email CV rather than a hard copy in the post.
In smaller organisations your CV will probably be assessed by a manager or if they have one the Human Resources department in which case the immediate impact is made with the presentation. If your CV is poorly presented, with a bad layout and poor spelling then the chances are that no matter how brilliant you are for the job an employer may reject you for interview. It is important to remember that a CV will say far more about us than we think it does. Once the reader is satisfied that it looks like a well-presented CV they will then be assessing your CV as discussed in Why do I need a CV?
Most Career Management Consultants will advise that a CV needs to get your message across within 30 seconds and this is very true. But in reality HR professionals can assess a CV much quicker than this, usually within the first few lines. At SLCV our aim is to help you make that impact.
For large organisations - who may have hundreds of applications - and for recruitment agencies the primary method of assessment is a computer based key word search that seeks to identify a certain percentage of the main functions that the position requires. For this application you must ensure that you have used the correct commercial terms required or else your CV will not be ‘found’ by the computer.
This method is also used by Human Resource departments where someone will match the key words of the job specification and selection criteria against your CV.
In either case if the cut off point is 80% then anything below that will probably be rejected.
At SLCV we are here to help you get through these all important first assessments.
You may have already started exploring the many online recruitment services available and may very well have posted a CV on-line with them.
Most of the sites are the ‘shop window’ for recruitment agencies and your application is more than likely to be going to one of these organisations, though companies do use the service directly. When the site asks you to post your CV on-line and wait for the jobs to come flooding in it is important to remember that your CV will be key word assessed by a computer. These resources are superb and can give you access to a vast job market but you must always remember to do the right thing with your CV in the first instance.
