Many people think that a CV or resume is a static document which is applicable and relevant for all countries and all situations. It isn’t. There are regional differences in the way CV’s are written and presented, and it’s important to recognise this if you are planning on applying for a role outside your home country. While my experience is predominantly head hunting and recruitment within the mining and minerals processing sectors, the comments here are relevant to most industry sectors.
Below are a few notes on how a CV or resume should be presented if you are applying for a role in Australia focussing on what resumes should look like and what they should and importantly should not contain when they are presented to a recruiter or a potential employer.
I’ll start by talking you through some myths:
1) Length – A CV should be of a certain length - either long or short.
Wrong – A CV should contain appropriate amounts of detail - and no more and no less. If a CV does not adequately capture your level of seniority, background, achievements, qualifications, then it has no hope of serving your purposes or your best interests. Ignore specific advice about page length; it’s irrelevant. Format is a different matter and I’ll deal with that in a separate point.
2) Personal Details – leave them in or out?
Let’s cut to the chase. Are you married, single, old, young, middle aged (whatever that means) ? Nobody has a right to ask any of these questions and expect an answer. Nor should they. However,.........it’s not hard to find out how old someone is, or if they have kids or any other detail. Social networking sites have taken care of most of that for us, for better or worse. Your CV will also be full of other clues as to your age, when you graduated from university being the most obvious marker. I’ll give an example: If John Smith graduated from University in 1994, he would most likely be 37 right now.
Put the details you want to down on your CV, and it will save everyone from guessing. Personal details that aren’t important should of course be left off. I’ve yet to meet anyone that was trying to find a candidate who had collected and read the entire works of John Grisholm or who was the President of the local ferret society.
3) Education – amazingly some people leave this out, fail to put down enough details and leave off the year they graduated. It’s all important and should be spelled out easily and concisely.
Eg. Bachelor of Engineering (Hons)(Mechanical) Curtin University of Western Australia 1994-1997
Current – Masters of Engineering, Monash University, Melbourne 2007 – current
It’s a personal choice as to whether or not you display your high school and year of graduation, but I’d suggest you do as it sets everything out nicely in a chronological order, and that’s important to most recruiters and HR folks, and particularly to engineers who have a penchant for order and structure.
4) The ‘functional or thematic’ CV – this is where details are grouped into categories and usually to suit the job a candidate is applying for. For example, details or bullet points may be grouped around things such as technical skills, leadership, values and safety.
This type of document is guaranteed to get you nowhere as it’s difficult to wade through, hard to get a timeline on what happened and where, and most of all looks like the candidate is trying to hide something. Don’t do it.
5) The never-ending document.
We’ve all seen these, and some of us may have had them – the CV that starts in 1995 and has just been added to and updated with the latest position and never really culled or adjusted for relevance. Not much that happened in your career in 1995 is relevant now. Refer to it sure, but where you worked and a title is enough....................unless you invented something significant or were selected for s space shuttle mission, it doesn’t matter much other than as a demonstration of continuous employment.
6) Referee details – leave them off or put them on?
This is a personal choice, but I’d err towards leaving them off unless you are very clear with the recruiter that they are not to be contacted until you (the candidate) give the go ahead. It’s worth remembering at all times that recruitment at all levels is a sales job, and many recruiters behave as salesmen, and will use any advantage they can to get the fee. Having a reference early in a process can sometimes provide this advantage. Don’t feel pressured to give them if you don’t want to early in a process, as it will not have any material impact on a good selection exercise. Leaving the details off the CV also means you are certain to retain control over part of the recruitment process. Very important. If you are one of the final 2 applicants, your referees will be contacted after you have had the time to explain the situation, the job and other relevant details.
The key point is that a CV should be easy to read, follow a reverse- chronological order, and get to the point concisely and quickly.
Below is the sort of format that I’d suggest goes down well with Australian client audiences. It’s not perfect but it’s easy to follow and easy to access relevant information. Of course some of my colleagues in the industry will disagree, but
I wouldn’t recommend that this document was overly long, but I would suggest that you include details for the last 10 years of employment with most detail and emphasis being given to the current or most recent position, thereafter reducing the levels of detail for each previous role.
The personal interests are entirely a matter of preference. They can provide some insight into who you are, but once again it’s of marginal importance and relevance.
Lastly, best of luck applying for a role in Australia, and if you have any questions or want to contact me to discuss anything that you read here, please do so as I’m always happy to help.
Written by Greg Preston.
Mail: greg@theseusprojects.com.au
Web: www.theseusprojects.com.au
Download Sample CV - Pdf
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