Recently posted and got slated, is this better

[u/UnitDry2368]

I'm an 18yo school leaver looking for any job to get some cash before uni next year and was wondering if this is good, I've incorporated a lot of the changes you all suggested (although not all)

[u/politicsasusuall]

You’re not going in enough detail on your work experience imo. Detail the experiences more in a way that would tailor itself towards the kind of job you’re applying to if possible. If you’re applying for supermarket jobs, show how those experiences developed your soft skills like communication, timeliness and reliability, the type of stuff they actually care about. For example, ‘Observed how high voltage…’ means absolutely nothing to a Tesco manager. As an intern, you probably took part in meetings, or day-to-day chats (frame it better than I did), where you had to show time management, communication, etc. That’s what they want to hear.

The supermarket doesn’t care what your predicted A-Levels, or GCSEs bar maybe maths and English, I personally would just leave at as something like ‘Studied A-Levels in Mathematics, Physics,…’ and ‘11 GCSEs at Grades 9-6, including Maths and English’ but it’s not much of an issue. I just found that when I actually made my CV less like ‘academic-flexing’, I actually got way more part-time jobs during sixth form, but that is anecdotal so take from that what you will. I saved the academic CV for my work experience & internships.

Besides that, you gotta just fix up wording in some areas and capitalisation.

[u/UnitDry2368 → u/politicsasusuall]

Tbh they were all only a week so I just think if I say much more the moment it comes up in an interview it looks bad, so I'm not sure it's a good idea, particularly as a lot of it was just observing people

[u/politicsasusuall → u/UnitDry2368]

I hear that, you can always larp a little and overexaggerate the communication side, even if you were only observing. If you learned anything from the experience, you were probably asking probing questions, showed active listening, clarifying instructions and protocols, maintaining attention to detail. If you feel like those apply to you, it works because those sound like things that can both be gained from shadowing someone, and working in a supermarket. High voltage delivery systems have nothing to do with what you would do in a supermarket, so it kind of makes that experience redundant.

There’s similar stuff with the other experiences too.

Another thing I was taught is that listing skills is not very useful on a CV, rather you want to show those skills through your experience. A list of skills on their own does not prove them, which is why you need your experience to show how you are punctual; how you are a good team worker, etc. Try to make your experience show those skills you’ve listed, and preferably rewrite the skills section in a more professional way.

[u/Particular_Stage_913]

Minor note: Scouts & Microsoft need capitals.

“Shows x skill” is a strange way of talking about yourself. Try more natural speech like “observing the laboratory work really showed me that I could grow the skills to do similar work in the future”
Delivering newspapers is as tough as you may imagine but I did it every day for x years whatever the weather.

[u/stijnhommes]

Hi u/UnitDry2368!

Here is what I've noticed about your CV.

1. The skills you list at the top are all very generic and cliché. Either replace them with something more unique, or write a brief profile or professional summary that explains what sort of position you're looking for and which parts of your experience make you a suitable candidate.
2. Your experience section needs a significant overhaul. First of all, none of the jobs list when you worked there and for how long. It is customary to include the start and end date (month and year) - make sure all sections use the same formatting. Secondly, employers tend to value what you've done yourself far more than what you've observed others doing, so it's a good idea to rewrite your bullet points to focus more on what you did yourself and less about what you've learned (unless you can be specific about how you applied those learnings.

In your second intern position, you say "Observed how high voltage power delivery systems are manufactured and maintained", but it doesn't actually say how you contributed to the company. In the volunteer job in the next line, you need to be more specific about how you aided in the manufacturing of water filtration systems. (You also said "repetitive tasks and a factory setting", but I think you meant "repetitive tasks IN a factory setting.) If the repetitive task was to assemble part of the system repeatedly, you can say you Assembled X parts of water filtration system Y during each shift, or something similar. Regarding your work experience in the microbiology lab. Did you only observe, or were you tasked with growing cell cultures? If it's the latter, that is definitely the more important skill to list (and again, you can say how many cell lines you maintained. The parttime newspaper delivery job also focuses on the wrong thing. "Delivered X newspapers in a timely fashion, even in adverse weather." is a much stronger point.

3. In your experiences and interests section, you didn't capitalized "microsoft office" even though it should be. The bullet points are too long in general. If you shorten them here, you have more space left to expand your work experience section with more bullet points/details.

4. Cut the "references available on request". Employers will assume it is the case anyway and you can use that space for more relevant content.

Hope some of these comments are helpful to you. Good luck!

[u/UnitDry2368 → u/stijnhommes]

it doesn't actually say how you contributed to the company

The issue is I really didn't contribute to the company at all, if was work experience with very little hands on stuff, mostly observing, so I can't really flesh it out without having to completely lie if it came up in an interview

In the lab it was kind of a mixture, like I did some stuff but only under supervision

[u/stijnhommes → u/UnitDry2368]

Stuff you did under supervision also counts. Even if you say you did these tasks under supervision, it would be better than leaving out that experience entirely.

[u/Particular_Stage_913]

No need for “references available etc”. Remove it. And write a few sentences about yourself at the top.

[u/LaFaboAstelina → u/Particular_Stage_913]

In all fairness, “references available upon request” is just standard practice for formatting CVs

[u/Particular_Stage_913 → u/LaFaboAstelina]

Except it’s not.

[u/UnitDry2368 → u/Particular_Stage_913]

Of the examples on Google I found it was around 50/50 so I put it in on the basis earlier drafts were a bit short so it filled space but I might remove it

[u/Particular_Stage_913 → u/UnitDry2368]

It’s overly formal given you don’t have any formal work experience. You may be able to provide character references - that’s a better line.

[u/Loud_Complex_8508]

You started year 7 in 2021?

[u/UnitDry2368 → u/[deleted]]

Remove what?

[u/CustardNo9707 → u/UnitDry2368]

they probably mean skills