The Pinged Hobbit

In my day job I deal with the installation and support of IT software for businesses. I share the role of managing the department with a colleague. As part of my responsibilites I have to recruit new engineers from time to time. Personally now that I have experience of both sides of the coin I have no more liking for the recruitment process than when I was looking for a job. As a candidate its an awkward process, from the start when you first apply you are never sure to get a response from an application and even if you get to interview you are going to probably be nervous as hell. From a recruiter’s point of view, looking at a CV does not always give an accurate picture of the candidate and when you get them to an interview you might get the wrong impression due to nerves.

I am currently involved in recruiting for a new engineer (anyone interested in hearing more leave me a comment asking for details ) and as such I have a heap of CV’s to look through. I find looking through CV’s at times one of the most boring things in the world and at other times it is highly amusing when you see what some people consider a good application. So for those of you who are applying for a job I thought I would give you some suggestions from some one on the other side of the fence, hopefully a little insider information will help you find the job you want

• Presentation – When you send an application to some one make sure that it looks the part. With the amount of desktop publishing applications out there now a days it isn’t too hard to put together a good looking CV. Studies have shown that it can take as little as 3 seconds for someone to dismiss your application based on its presentation. My advice is to follow similar principles as the Web 2.0 designs, keep it simple but spaced out nicely, don’t make it too complicated.
• Spelling & Grammar - The application is the first impression you make with a possible employeer. Second to how it actually looks the next thing they are likely to notice is examples of bad spelling, grammar and punctuation. If you don’t take the time to have your application proof read at least run a spelling and gammar check on it. I recently got a CV and covering letter where the applicant had not put in spaces after comma and full stops, not capitalised letters after full stops or when they wrote ‘I’. Your application is your chance to sell yourself, if you make a bad job of the simple parts then no matter how much your experience matches their needs there is a good chance you will be passed over as your CV wont be fully read.
• Have cover letter – Most people will be applying for more than one job at a time. If you are applying for jobs in just one job sector then chances are you just have a standard CV for that sector. You shouldn’t just send a copy of your CV as an application however. In most cases it is a good idea to send a covering letter. The cover letter allows you to give a unique application for that particular job. In the cover letter you can highlight the details from your CV that you feel make you a stand out candidate for that vacancy. Use the cover letter to entice the recruiter to read your CV. There are a few sites on the Internet that can give you examples of good covering letters, make good use of them.
• Keep it relevant – A good section to include in your application is a list of skills you posses. It may well help a recruiter decide to ask you to come for interview if you have a skill they are looking for. So list your skills, but don’t go overboard. There are some skills it’s not worth listing. For instance one of my recent applicants gave a list of softwares and his level of expertise in them. A good idea on the whole for an IT job, however I had to question some of the softwares he listed, I don’t really see how being a pro level user of Nokia PC suit will be helpful in a business setting. Similarly VLC/iTunes both of which he listed himself as pro in using. A skills list is relevant and helpful, but listing unimportant skills will make your CV look worse rather than better. It makes it look like you had to pad it as it did not hold much.
• Don’t just copy and paste - Obviously you are probably applying for a few jobs at once. Any half intellegent person will realise that. Your CV will probably stay fairly static between applications but each one will is likely to have a slightly modified version of your covering letter. By all means have a template for your cover letter and just modify it for each application, but if you are going to do this make sure you actually remember to modify the letter. Again a recent applicant sent me a cover letter that was dated over a month previously and was a titled for a sales job rather than technically support. Simple mistakes like this make it seem like you are just applying for any job you see.
• Make sure you apply for the correct vacancy - This should be an obvious one, but its an easy mistake to make when applying from jobs from a website. Be sure to check you are clicking the correct apply button. I’ve had this happen a few times where a person is trying to apply for a particular vacancy and have actually ended up clicking for my vacancy which is in a completely different area. In all honesty it wont make a difference to the recruiter you send your CV to by mistake but it will mean you might miss out on the oppertunity you are looking for.

The most important aspect of job hunting is patience. Chances are that you wont get the first job you apply for and probably not the next few after that either. Don’t be put off, keep putting your CV out there, keep applying. There are a lot of other candidates out there chasing the same jobs as you.