A day in the life of a hiring manager reviewing CV's
What can I do to grab a hiring manager's attention when they are reviewing my CV?
A CV is your first introduction to an organisation. They are trying to understand if you are the right type of person with the right skills to join their company, yet for some reason, it's the one thing that most people put minimal time and effort into.
Many people will spend time working on that one template, then send the same version to multiple vacancies at once. Weeks have passed by and they are left wondering why they are applying to so many jobs that they know they’re capable of doing and getting absolutely nowhere! Frustrating, but a common trend that happens.
To understand this further, let me tell you about a day in the life of me as a hiring manager to see if we can help understand why a rinse and repeat CV is not catching my attention.
To set the scene, I am two headcount short in my team and another one has handed in their notice. I am working a ton of hours to keep things afloat and the rest of my team are feeling under pressure and asking for an update on how the recruitment is going.
I guess I better put on my 15th hat of the day which is that of a hiring manager and try and break this cycle and grow my team!
After chasing recruitment almost daily for an update, I've now been sent a batch of 10 applications to review. How on earth am I going to get through these when I've a growing to do list and people are pinging me for answers on everything else that’s outstanding! It's for the greater good though so let's make a cup of tea and sit down, give them a read and see if any of these prospective candidates can help get me out of this mess!
I’ve written the job description, I know my team’s level of experience so I recognise the gap I crucially need to optimise the teams’ performance. I value transferable skills as well as experience so despite having a long day, I'm going to keep an open mind and see how I can try and get some interviews scheduled with some good candidates.
Application 1 - I've given it a thorough read, but I’m struggling to find the right experience. They've done some related work in this field so let's put them as a maybe.
Application 2 - Great! They work for a competitor in the same role I'm advertising for. Totally worth an interview as they have the experience of the role and the industry. A no brainer.
Application 3 - Internal application, seems to have really interpreted the job description well and tried to tie their experience to date in with the requirements of the role. Already has the company knowledge so worth an interview.
Applications 4,5 & 6 - Has typos and errors multiple times throughout the CV. Attention to detail is really critical for this vacancy so if they cannot quality check their own application, I'm worried about their ability to do that in this role - declined.
Application 7 - They've sent a cover letter too, so not scared to put a bit more effort into their application. I can see from the CV that they have some of the skills and it definitely is in the transferable skills pile vs direct experience, but the cover letter has mentioned the skills gaps they have and the work they've done recently to address those. I want to know more, so let's meet them and see how it goes.
Application 8 - Why in this day and age is a CV 7 pages long!??! They’ve clearly done no research on how to write a good CV and I’m not interested in reading half a page on their unrelated job 12 years ago that was 3 months long - declined.
Application 9 - How did this one get through recruitment vetting? Nothing relatable at all - declined
Application 10 - (by this time my tea is cold and I've been pinged by 4 people on Teams) This is a two page essay…There are some good candidates so far…I shouldn’t need to search to find this info - declined.
(I’ve now forgotten about Application 1 which i left in the maybe list!)
You might read the above and think this is an unfair approach or that I should be doing more diligence, but this is reality…and this emphasises the need to put the time and effort your application deserves in order for you to deserve to get to the next step and prove to this hiring manager that YOU are the gap they are looking for to help this team improve and succeed.
So with all of the above considered, what are the top tips for ensuring that your CV stands out?
Let's start with a framework which we can break down into segments and use as a guide to help.
Your CV should be formatted in the following order to have the best chance of getting the attention of that hiring manager.
A bio/personal statement - something that summarises your skills, experience and motivations for the role in roughly 150 words or less that entices the hiring manager to read further.
A list of skills and experience - a bullet pointed list of skills which relate to the role you're applying for which shows the hiring manager you've got what it takes to succeed in this role.
Career History - a description of the roles you have done to date which clearly articulate how you've got the skills and experience described above.
Education / Professional Qualifications - A list of the relevant courses and education you've achieved which is relevant to the role.
Finally, a proof-read is needed to re-read the job description of the vacancy you're applying for to check that your CV matches the role. This is a good opportunity to read through the CV and make sure there are no errors either. In determining this, you might decide that a cover letter is needed to help back up your application further.
I'll be publishing more blogs this week which covers all of the above in more detail, so if you'd like to learn more, subscribe to my mailing list or follow me on LinkedIn.
Alternatively, if you would like my help to work with you on a one to one basis to transform your CV from good to great, get in touch to learn more about how I can help.
