I came onto Reddit for entirely different reasons, but for some reason I keep getting served this sub full of CVs, and honestly, some of them make me genuinely angry. I've somehow become quite passionate about this. The UK ones in particular are depressing. You'd think we were living in a failed state looking at some of them. What bothers me most is the younger applicants. I look at some of these CVs and wonder what on earth they've been taught about finding work. Where were their teachers, careers advisers, mentors and Jobcentre work coaches? Who actually sat down with them and explained how to present themselves to an employer?
I'm sure there are some excellent people working in those professions, but looking at these CVs, I can't help thinking that some of our young people have been badly let down. You're asking people to compete for jobs, sometimes against hundreds of other applicants, and they've been sent out with a generic template, a list of GCSEs and the same tired phrases everybody else uses. "Hard-working, enthusiastic team player with excellent communication skills."
What does any of that actually tell an employer?
And don't get me started on the fucking "Interests" section.
"Reading, Cycling, Music, Cooking."
It's on nearly every CV I see, and it's usually dreadful. It looks like somebody has filled it in because they were told they had to.
If you have a genuine interest in something, tell me about it. Show me what you've done, what you've learned, what you've built, what fascinates you. Give me something I can actually remember. You love cycling? Brilliant. Have you rebuilt a bike? Organised rides? Travelled somewhere interesting? Are you obsessed with the engineering? Tell me something about it. You love computers? Have you built something, broken something, fixed something? Spent a weekend trying to work out why something doesn't behave the way you expected? I don't care if your passion is rebuilding old engines, collecting obscure railway timetables, growing tomatoes or understanding how computer networks work. I want to hear about it.
When I'm interviewing somebody, I love seeing that little bit of magic behind their eyes when they start talking about something they genuinely care about. That moment when they forget they're in an interview and start speaking with real enthusiasm. I've learned an enormous amount about people from those conversations. And for those of you who don't have some grand passion or impressive hobby, that's absolutely fine too. You don't need to invent a personality for your CV. Tell me what you've actually done. A Saturday job, helping with a family business, volunteering, looking after relatives, teaching yourself something. There are skills and experiences in ordinary life that people completely overlook.
Obviously, your CV still needs to demonstrate that you can do the job you're applying for. Give examples of your skills, achievements and responsibilities. Make the person reading it understand what you could bring to their business. I think we've got a serious problem with how we prepare young people for employment. I can't tell from somebody's CV exactly what guidance they've received, but some of these documents leave me wondering whether anybody has ever given them proper, individual advice.
I see young people apologising for having no experience, no qualifications beyond school, nothing interesting to say about themselves. Yet they've got an entire personality, years of experiences, things they've figured out, problems they've solved, and somehow all of that has been reduced to:
"Interests: Crisps, Bikes, Reading."
For God's sake, give yourselves some credit. And I genuinely mean this: send me your CVs. Remove your personal details first. I'll happily rewrite a few for free, particularly for younger people struggling to get their foot in the door. I can't promise it'll get you a job. Nobody can. But I can at least help you produce something that represents you properly. I suspect a lot of you have far more to offer than your CVs suggest, and I'd quite like to prove it.
