I recently read the Economist’s article
on writing the perfect CV/resume, and agree with so many points. It acknowledges “[y]our audience is made up of recruiters and hiring managers,” and confirms we “spend an average of 7.4 seconds skimming a job application.”
Valid recommendations to follow:
- Do not “put the reader off.” The format should be clean and simple, no unusual fonts, colors, typos, or weird language or factoids. (An example of a weird factoid: “You may think including your ranking on ‘Overwatch’ is a quirky way to illustrate how quick you are on your feet. A recruiter may conclude that it shows you spend hours on the sofa tethered to a gaming console.” Yes.)
- Distill and prioritize relevant work experience, tailored to each application. Quantify accomplishments. I agree with the exact example given: “A second-year law student who just completed his summer internship having worked on six M&A deals? Put that in.”
- Don’t stress about gaps (or as said in the scholarly British voice of the Economist: "Reasonable gaps in a resumé are not cause for concern."). Employers know a pandemic or downturn happened, and understand people may take three months off to travel, though a “ten-year gap” or “constant job-switching” can be viewed as a “red flag.” The Economist (unhelpfully) says about those situations: “if this describes your work history then you probably have bigger problems that a CV alone, no matter how masterful, will not fix.” For gaps, I recommend you to indicate any relevant work done in that period like projects for old clients or certifications completed. For job changes, indicate if you can objective reasons for them like headquarters moved or you were recruited by former managers/clients or your employer was acquired.
- Things to avoid. Don't include a personal statement. Don't email prospective employers asking if they received your application (“You risk coming across as that annoying person who texts to see if their previous texts have got through.”). Don't be self-focused; instead, show how you would fit in and help, e.g., through your history of impact. The Economist says (with literary flair) that David Foster Wallace, the American novelist, "used the metaphor of fish oblivious to the element surrounding them in order to point to the dangers of the 'natural, hardwired, default setting which is to be deeply and literally self-centred.' Your life, he implied, should illustrate an acute awareness of the outside world. So should your CV." In other words, don't list what you do in the order you do it, but instead highlight what you're done that the employer would care about.
