Any graduate employers here?

[David Martin]

What do you think of CV formatting sites like https://enhancv.com/ ? Obviously the content is king rather than presentation but would this kind of presentation be a positive or a negative?

(I know the example given up front is trite and would get short shrift, but that is due to the content, not the layout.)

I can see this going through a phase of use very soon and want to be able to advise students whether to be ahead of the wave, or to avoid like the plague.
 

[Dibdib]

I thought I put a lot of thought/effort into making my CV look good -- after nailing the content -- but a fiver a MONTH? Sod that.

I don't make hiring decisions but in the past I've had some input on our hires, and I'd definitely say that presentation is impotrant. Or at least, claiming to be "proficient in MS Word" on a CV in Times New Roman using the built in CV template makes me question a candidates level of imagination.

As for the template on the site... IMO it put far too much focus on non-work-related topics like marathon running and looks more like an infographic than a CV. I don't like it, but there are some nice influences like the use of colour, plenty of whitespace, etc.

[tatanab]

It is 20 years since I last interviewed anybody and I would find that presentation off-putting.  I prefer a traditional approach, but I became very cynical and found I had to detune CVs for 30% BS, or 60 % if they were American.  I interviewed quite  a few Americans.  My personal CV was always 100% straight, which I know would leave me open to being detuned by somebody interviewing me.  This sort of CV would be very high on my BS quotient.  I was always interviewing technical people in electronics/avionics, so perhaps something like this would work better for non-technical positions.  Perhaps my opinion is irrelevant because none of the people I interviewed were fresh graduates, most had at least 10 years experience.

[rogerzilla]

Graduates can't make an impact in the role as they usually have no experience and need to be trained.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Depends upon the job market area.

In any STEM area of work, those formats are to be laughed at. Not enough space or emphasis on skills. Where is the space for listing prog languages/technical packages/other tech skill?

Recommendations from professional recruiters are not to have your photograph on CV. Either you look professional or you don't and if you are in the 'older' bracket, it counts against you. Plus there is the sneaky prejudice getting there; so many of use will get judged on appearance. Maybe we are lucky and we will fit the demographic that the reviewers like. Maybe the reviewer hates people who look smiling, handsome and happy. Just leave off the photo.

[Jaded]

That looks like something to be taken to pieces by the Dragons in the Den.

[Kim]

I thought I put a lot of thought/effort into making my CV look good -- after nailing the content -- but a fiver a MONTH? Sod that.

Stands to reason that if you're selling a subscription service to people to improve the layout of their CVs then its in your interests that they don't actually get the job.

[ian]

I certainly pay attention to the formatting and layout of a CV. I'm looking for tidy, organized, and neat – and one that focuses on the job description – don't send me generic, I'll bin it while cackling evilly. It's an A4 advertisement. For recent graduates, it's less about the experience (because they don't have any, and to be cruel, they're mostly indistinguishable so I'm looking for anything that makes them stand out from the crowd). Obviously, once people have more experience, that grows in import, but I'm still looking for the ability to present it. Six pages of size 6 type etc. formatted by mad application of the tab key and space bar? Hold on, is that Comic Sans? To the bin, Batman.

Of course, there's a line when it becomes gimmicky. Templating also quickly becomes cliché. Really, I'd expect someone to be able to sit down with a word processor and blank page and assemble a CV without having to resort to something like this. Google CV or resume layout and you'll get hundreds of ideas for neat and attractive presentation.

(Also, Kim just beat me to it, but if you're the customer of their subscription service, they don't want to be too successful...)

[drossall]

CVs are so short that I've always just looked at some samples and done my own.

[PaulF]

Stands to reason that if you're selling a subscription service to people to improve the layout of their CVs then its in your interests that they don't actually get the job.

That hits the nail on the head

[nextSibling]

Background: I'm involved in hiring graduate and intern computer scientists and software engineers in a mid-size organization in the US. Our HR dept do the first pass on resumes before forwarding applications to us. The HR filter is for obviously inappropriate applications, too many spelling and grammar errors, the obviously unqualified, time-wasters and morons (you might be surprised how many this disqualifies). I might then get to filter the remainder for a given position we might have open. In practice, this means I have an hour or so to review maybe 30 - 40 applications.

I'll do a first pass of each resume spending no more than 5-10 seconds on each. I need clear and immediate answers to two questions: What can you do (qualifications and skills) and what have you done (experience). The answers need to be brief and targeted to the open position. Qualifications are only valued in a minimum barrier to entry sense. Lists of skills even less so (e.g. everyone puts "Javascript" under skills, very few are truly skilled with it). Experience is given much more weight, and it certainly doesn't have to be professional, just relevant - paid employment, college projects, open source contributions, even personal projects all count (a link to a personal github repo is a definite plus). Those applicants passing that filter are no more than a handful, but will have our attention.

So, to answer your question, fancy resume formatting is a waste of everyone's time. Use a conventional layout, conventional fonts, conventional headings. This is a case where boring and conventional is good and trying to be 'cute' and 'different' can cost you. The faster grumpy and impatient people like me find out what we want to know the more a good first impression is made.

Obviously, different organizations have different cultures and processes, but for graduate recruitment from a large application pool in larger STEM-oriented organizations, the above will do you no harm.

[Kim]

The HR filter is for obviously inappropriate applications, too many spelling and grammar errors, the obviously unqualified, time-wasters and morons (you might be surprised how many this disqualifies).

In the UK you have to filter out all the applications by people who are forced to apply for inappropriate jobs in order to jump through a DWP hoop and avoid benefits sanctions.

[David Martin]

So what matters is the obvious - give you the information you want in a clearly accessible way.

Background: I'm involved in hiring graduate and intern computer scientists and software engineers in a mid-size organization in the US. Our HR dept do the first pass on resumes before forwarding applications to us. The HR filter is for obviously inappropriate applications, too many spelling and grammar errors, the obviously unqualified, time-wasters and morons (you might be surprised how many this disqualifies). I might then get to filter the remainder for a given position we might have open. In practice, this means I have an hour or so to review maybe 30 - 40 applications.

I'll do a first pass of each resume spending no more than 5-10 seconds on each. I need clear and immediate answers to two questions: What can you do (qualifications and skills) and what have you done (experience). The answers need to be brief and targeted to the open position. Qualifications are only valued in a minimum barrier to entry sense. Lists of skills even less so (e.g. everyone puts "Javascript" under skills, very few are truly skilled with it). Experience is given much more weight, and it certainly doesn't have to be professional, just relevant - paid employment, college projects, open source contributions, even personal projects all count (a link to a personal github repo is a definite plus). Those applicants passing that filter are no more than a handful, but will have our attention.

So, to answer your question, fancy resume formatting is a waste of everyone's time. Use a conventional layout, conventional fonts, conventional headings. This is a case where boring and conventional is good and trying to be 'cute' and 'different' can cost you. The faster grumpy and impatient people like me find out what we want to know the more a good first impression is made.

Obviously, different organizations have different cultures and processes, but for graduate recruitment from a large application pool in larger STEM-oriented organizations, the above will do you no harm.

That is a really useful summary. Would you mind if I take that for subsequent advising of our UG's? I'm sure it will be of mutual benefit.

[nextSibling]

So what matters is the obvious - give you the information you want in a clearly accessible way.

Certainly. There's no special sauce, magic formula or secret handshake to this stuff. We're competing as much with other employers for good graduate applicants as the applicants are competing for jobs. Show us plainly what you have to offer and if it's a close enough fit to what we need, we'll definitely be in touch.

That is a really useful summary. Would you mind if I take that for subsequent advising of our UG's? I'm sure it will be of mutual benefit.

Sure.

[Pickled Onion]

Stands to reason that if you're selling a subscription service to people to improve the layout of their CVs then its in your interests that they don't actually get the job.

That hits the nail on the head

In a lot of sectors, grads and similar would be looking to move employer every 12 months or so if they want to progress.

I don't take part in hiring much these days, but I try and keep an eye on the process as I move job frequently. On recent notable CV was absolutely stunning - beautifully laid out with colour graphics which were interactive on the screen version. After drawing "wow"s from everyone around, it went straight in the bin. The role was highly technical and assumptions were made without actually reading any of the CV.

[ian]

I think computers are different though, that's specific experience you are looking for. Wait till you have to deal with people who've just done three years of French and Law or some other combination and think a link to their personal FB page on their CV is a good idea. I have to track down fluffy skills for proper jobs.

[Tom Joad]

Must have interviewed well over a hundred applicants for trainee analyst/programmer, trainee systems analysts jobs over the last few years - old fashioned job titles I know - they stay the same bbut the job changes. Have seen a CV or two like the ones linked to in the first post. What they say about the person is twat. Leave them until last and if the CV's I look at before produce a reasonable number of interviewable applicants I won't even read it. Another thing I find off putting is when someone refers to themselves in the third person on their CV.

[Si S]

I see a fair few life science graduate CV's, if the example made it as far as me I'd be asking our HR bod if she was taking the proverbial.

As above clear, concise, obvious. I don't need chapter and verse about your final year project, I had one CV whose discussion of this ran to four A4 pages. I'm actually more interested in the outside uni part, looking for evidence of motivation, drive and adaptability.

It's quite old fashioned now and I don't see it a lot but a short covering letter showing you've actually looked into the company goes a long way.

[nextSibling]

I think computers are different though, that's specific experience you are looking for. Wait till you have to deal with people who've just done three years of French and Law or some other combination and think a link to their personal FB page on their CV is a good idea. I have to track down fluffy skills for proper jobs.

So, what I wrote above is just the foot-in-the-door part. To get the job, soft skills are equally important and will make the difference between technically well-qualified candidates. It sometimes takes newly hired graduate developers a little while to realize that they're in a customer-service industry. Some never do and get frustrated and depressed. Writing code is only one part of the job (and the further you progress, the less code you'll write). You first have to make sure you're writing the right code for the right people at the right time, then not be proud or despondent about it when you discover it isn't. Software development can often be a humbling pursuit. All thoroughly human problems (otherwise we'd have automated it by now).

[Tom Joad]

I think computers are different though, that's specific experience you are looking for. Wait till you have to deal with people who've just done three years of French and Law or some other combination and think a link to their personal FB page on their CV is a good idea. I have to track down fluffy skills for proper jobs.

My wife spent six years studying French and Law. If you heard her cross examining one of the other side's witnesses I don't think you'd regard her skills as at all fluffy.

[Ben T]

If you apply for a job through an agency the agency stamp their own logo onto it anyway, whether it mucks up the layout or not. The layout isn't important to them, the only imortant thing is the prominence of their logo.
If you're highbrow enough to apply for a job directly then the old as-expensive-paper-as-possible rule applies. If not it might as well be done in notepad.

[Dibdib]

This is why I always gave slave traders agencies my CV in PDF format. Stops them messing with it; the reformatting was bad enough but getting one back with spelling mistakes in it was something else.

Expensive paper always struck me as a bit ostentatious, but then again I don't remember the last time I applied for a job on bits of dead trees.

[Kim]

Similarly, online application form systems seem to be increasingly common, particularly for large and public-sector organisations.  They're usually fairly dire, but they do at least mean that nobody has to worry about formatting, as everyone's will be incompetently laid out and printed onto Niceday's finest by HR.

[jsabine]

Normally with new and interesting approaches to meeting accessibility requirements, of course.

[Kim]

Normally with new and interesting approaches to meeting accessibility requirements, of course.

I believe barakta's currently facing the dilemma of whether^[1] you comment about the inaccessibility of the application system when being interviewed for a digital accessibility job. 


_{[1] A mole informs us that everyone who works there hates the system, so it's probably a 'yes'.}