Kill all the CV Writers

In Shakespeare's play Henry VI, Dick "The Butcher" while plotting rebellion voices his idea of what to do as soon as he is in power. He says, "First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."

He is undoubtedly suggesting this course of action because he has found himself on the wrong side some legal action.

As I read posts on LinkedIn I have felt to alter Dick's sentiment and say, "First thing we do, let's kill all the CV Writers." I say this after seeing many "professionals" offering to write a CV for a fee as part of their service. The short story here is that you are the only one who should be writing your CV and you should never pay or permit anyone else to do it.

CV stands for the Latin phrase Curriculum Vitae and it means "course of life." This means that your CV tells the course of your life.

"CV Writers" are either willfully or ignorantly conflating the notion of a CV and a resume.

Your CV is a wonderful resource for your resume. It is also helpful to have on hand when filling out all those pesky questions in a job application. Your CV will have a lot more information than your resume ever should.

While your resume is a short (1 or 2 pages) document that focuses only on your accomplishments, skills, education, and history which is relevant to a specific job or industry, the CV is much more inclusive and, necessarily, longer.

Your CV is the place to list your employer, your job title, the name of your boss (or bosses), and coworkers, along with their contact information (so you can use it for references later). Your start and end date and starting and ending pay. List your responsibilities and your accomplishments. Not just your greatest hits, all your accomplishments and include the details of the numbers.

How many customers did you deal with each day? How many sales did you make over a given period of time and how much were they worth? How many people did you supervise and what were their names? What was the dollar value of the budget you managed and did you have to plan and manage it? What articles have you published, what books? I could go on and on, but I hope you already take my point.

Just in case, let me give you an example of an accomplishment I have, which, although it is actually relevant, doesn't appear on my resume. In 1996, while working for a bank subsidiary, I authored a "Project Methodology Handbook" for the subsidiary. Parts of the handbook were later included in a much larger methodology handbook that was rolled out to the entire enterprise as part of their Project Management Community of Excellence.

While I am proud of what I authored and what was done with it, my project management accomplishments since then make that publication (which never had more than about 20 copies printed in three-ring binders) insignificant, by comparison.

So, what qualifies me to write about resumes and CVs? Well, for more than a dozen years I ran my own business providing job search coaching and resume writing. During that time I helped hundred of people to get and keep the job they wanted. When I wrapped up that business, I poured my expertise into books which I published and make available to everyone via Amazon, at a much lower price than I charge for my time to communicate or apply that knowledge (see my links at the end of this post).

I have used this same knowledge to manage my own career to rise to a six figure income. You can too. Just, don't buy snake-oil from any so-called "CV Writers."

(C) Copyright 2019 Thomas K Sheppard and A+ Results, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Tom Sheppard specializes in leading large ($10mm+), high-risk, high-profile projects for US financial services companies.

Here are the links I promised above.

Career Management Books from Tom Sheppard

Strategic Career Management: Get and Keep the Job You Want

Don't let your career be a victim. Get and keep the job you want, today.

Benjamin Franklin is credited with saying, “by failing to prepare, you prepare to fail.” Strategic Career Planning is the ultimate form of career preparation. It will help you to navigate your career to the level of success you may only be dreaming about right now.To help you prepare, in this book I am going to teach you how to use a powerful process that many companies have used to survive and prosper in both good times and bad. Applying it to managing your career will require you to apply a proven effective business management tool to your career management.If you cannot conceive of how the skills needed to run a business can help your career and you are a quitter, then stop reading now and give this book to someone who has the will and imagination to succeed. For any of what follows to help you, you will need to change the narrow way you have thought of yourself, your job, and your career. It may be a bit uncomfortable, and it may not seem like a perfect fit at first, but if you will give it real effort, it will produce amazing results for you, and for anyone who applies these lessons. Read it now to get and keep the job you want.

Fire Yourself: Get the Job You Want a No BS Guide - DON’T READ THIS BOOK unless you want to TAKE CONTROL of your career, DOUBLE YOUR INCOME, and LIVE THE LIFE YOU WANT.

Career Insurance reveals how important education is to a successful career. Learn what you need to know to get and keep the job you want regardless of what is happening in the job market. The author successfully used these techniques to go through layoffs, mergers, and acquisitions while growing his paycheck and not suffering from a single day of unemployment for more than 25 years.

The Job Hunter’s Primer: Get and Keep the Job You Want Vol 5 Covering tips for effective job searches, resumes, cover letters, interviews.

Tips for Effective Job Searches: Get and Keep the Job You Want Vol 1 How to use the resources available to you to find the job you want.

Tips for Effective Resumes: Get and Keep the Job You Want Vol 2 Having a resume that succeeds in getting interviews for you doesn't happen by accident. It takes both excellent content and presentation to help you get the job you want.

Tips for Effective Cover Letters: Get and Keep the Job You Want Vol 3 Now that you have found a job you want to go for, don't send your resume to school naked. Add a powerful cover letter to let your prospective employer know which job you want and how you can deliver results for them.

Tips for Effective Interviews: Get and Keep the Job You Want Vol 4 Nailing the interview so that you can get the job offer begins before you walk in the door and doesn't end until long after you have left the building. Your interview will either get you an offer, or it won't. Don't leave that up to chance. Do what it takes to get the job you want.

Interview Like the President: Master the Video Job Interview by Learning from US Presidents You won't want to skip this essential on how to prepare for and succeed with video interviews. (ebook only)

Your Career - Your Business: Using Small Business Tactics to Successfully Manage Your Career - If you want to get and keep the job you want, you need to change how you think about your career and your job. This article (approx. 4,000 words) will change how you think about your career. Instead of relying on others or just thinking about your career as a series of jobs, it will teach you how to look at yourself as a 1 person business and to use small business tools to boost your career to where you want it to go. (ebook only)

Come Out On Top: Goals To Live By (article) - Setting written goals magnifies your performance. This article (about 3,500 words) will help you learn how to set challenging, but attainable goals that will change your life. (ebook only)

Acres of Diamonds (Annotated) - discover the fortune in opportunity in your own neighborhood or town. (ebook only)