CV writing advice?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

It's also impt to know the difference between CV and résumé. Using the wrong one in front of the HR / hiring manager ruins the "first good impression".

CV: focuses more on educational qualifications; for fresh grads or people with less than 1-2yrs full time working experience.

Résumé: focuses more on work experience; for people with more working experience.

Actually there's no difference. The 2 terms are used interchangeably. Don't be pedantic.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Actually there's no difference. The 2 terms are used interchangeably. Don't be pedantic.

nah. they have significant differences but are often mistakenly used interchangebly. academic inst usually require a cv whereas most other jobs require a resume. submitting a cv when a co wants a resume may blow ur chances esp when there are lots of applicants to screen through.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

nah. they have significant differences but are often mistakenly used interchangebly. academic inst usually require a cv whereas most other jobs require a resume. submitting a cv when a co wants a resume may blow ur chances esp when there are lots of applicants to screen through.

you are splitting hairs here. don't be a twit. they may have semantically different meaning sin specialized fields like the academia, but for the majority of the industries, they are interchangeable.

Are you a bored grad student who is not making yourself gainfully employed?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

nah. they have significant differences but are often mistakenly used interchangebly. academic inst usually require a cv whereas most other jobs require a resume. submitting a cv when a co wants a resume may blow ur chances esp when there are lots of applicants to screen through.

Dude, people here are trying to get good paying jobs with their CVs / resumes. This is not an English class to discuss the subtile difference between the 2.

If you want to impress everyone with your English skills, go & start your own thread on the difference CV and resume and see how many people bother to reply.

From a neutral point of view, I believe that the majority of the people might use it interchangeably but it is still interesting to know that there might be this distinctive difference between CVs and Resumes.

On a side note, personally i feel CV should be kept short and sweet with important key words highlighting ur area of expertise of about 1-2 pages?

Some may debate that 1 pages is the standard but i think its ok to have 2 pages. While the 1st page contains all the necessary important attractive details that will appeal to the reader, making them wana flip to the 2nd page to read more?

Of coz if ur CV is 1 page sufficient, by all means stick to that.

[Husky]

I read with great amusement some of the arguments going on here.

Many fresh graduates are told that the resume is the single most important thing to make or break your employment offer simply because it's the first impression that your potential employer will have of you.

While some bosses do place a high emphasis on how well a resume is written and may make some judgment of your ability based on that, some like my former boss only look at the asking pay and age of the candidate before deciding if he wants to interview that fella.

In conclusion, how important a good resume is really depends on who is reading it on the other side. But as a job seeker, you of course will try to maximize your chances and write the best resume you can.

As for the difference, between a CV and a Resume… From personal experience, most of the time it doesn’t really matter unless you are debating this in a language class or you are applying for a job in some very specialized industry that somehow places great emphasis on your knowledge of the above difference.

All this talk about what is ideal resume, how many pages, how long the description, can put photo, different format etc etc is dumb. There is no ideal resume, every employer got different view of what is a good resume, you cannot please one without displeasing another.

Just write what you make sense and send to as many as possible. Interview is a numbers game, saying good resume will increase chance is useless because every employer definition of good is different.

[Husky]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

All this talk about what is ideal resume, how many pages, how long the description, can put photo, different format etc etc is dumb. There is no ideal resume, every employer got different view of what is a good resume, you cannot please one without displeasing another.

Just write what you make sense and send to as many as possible. Interview is a numbers game, saying good resume will increase chance is useless because every employer definition of good is different.

While there is no such thing as an ideal resume, I have personally received some very very horrible ones that I binned straight away...

Some of the fatal ones I have received include,

1) Dishonest ones. One guy claimed to be a senior manager at 25, makes me wonder why the hell is he applying for a job with me. He should be headhunted everywhere he goes.

2) Teen Model Search ones. One lady posed in a kawaii manner complete with costume. I was recruting a sales rep not cosplay restaurant waitress.

3) The dunno what it's trying to say ones. One resume I received was 11 pages long. I actually glanced thru it briefly out of curiousity and couldn't make any sense of what the applicant was trying to tell me cos the whole thing had no organisation and sections at all!

[davidtanwei]

hi husky,

I assume you are in the HR department.
Lets say a job opening in 24/6/2011 and end in 24/7/2011.
If i got a interview on these day of 24/6/2011. Do the HR wait untill
all candidate are interviewed and of 24/7/2011. they then select and finalised the chosen one.

Or in between, if the required manager that interview say this guy is ok. They then stop all interview process after 24/6/2022.

regards
david

[Husky]

Originally Posted by davidtanwei

hi husky,

I assume you are in the HR department.
Lets say a job opening in 24/6/2011 and end in 24/7/2011.
If i got a interview on these day of 24/6/2011. Do the HR wait untill
all candidate are interviewed and of 24/7/2011. they then select and finalised the chosen one.

Or in between, if the required manager that interview say this guy is ok. They then stop all interview process after 24/6/2022.

regards
david

Hi David,

I am not in HR. I just happen to head a small department in my company and had the opportunity to screen and hire a few staff.

Again, the interview/selection process varies from company to company. But I would say, typically the process stops once somebody suitable is found. Unless say, we are quite keen on the first candidate we interviewed but we have also arranged and finalised timings for a couple more within the same day or next few days. We will then just finish up the rest of the interviews just to be fair to the other candidates who have made arrangements to try and come down.

End of the day, we are all employees trying to finish our work and go home.