RANT: what makes a great CV?

There's a Selenium contract role that I'm helping someone out with.

The consequence of it is getting a bunch of CVs that make me fall asleep and are in no way specific to what I am after. Admittedly I haven't given a great amount of info, but location and the core tool/skill (Selenium) should give enough clues away, or so I thought.

My pet hate is when a CV says they have experience in many test tools (and what seems like all the test tools on the market).

Also, many CVs come across with no character or no specific passion or focus on what testing they do or want to do.

Pet hates anyone? or what makes a great CV?

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Stephen Hill on September 23, 2009 at 1:40pm: Hi Rosie - I read an irritating CV this morning... Whilst I am all for keeping the CV simple and uncluttered this one was really vague. The applicant was talking about Microsoft Office skills in terms of being able to create databases in Access: I thought that was what Access was designed to do!

Another pet hate is the unexplained use of acronymns. I occasionally use acronymns but always give the expanded version the first time it is used.

PS: Thanks for your introduction to the site at SIGiST yesterday.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Mark Crowther on September 23, 2009 at 2:30pm: I have to agree that when a CV comes over my desk with every technology, tool and methodology on it rarely goes any further. If perhaps I do interview the candidate and ask "So of these, which is the strength area for you"? I don't expect them to say "all of them..." as I once had.

What makes a great CV? One that allows me to quickly get to the details I want, in context of the role that they were performing. That way I can see if the role I have matches their experience either directly from a previous role or across several. Yes, one that avoids being vague helps a lot! Nothing worse than reading a CV and thinking, I'm still not sure what this person did.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Rob Lambert on September 23, 2009 at 2:37pm: I've read some truly aweful CVs and some of my major pet hates are:

Use of company specific terminology, acronyms and descriptions. I know there is no real industry standard but using company specific acronyms that mean nothing is a no no.
Spelling mistakes. Scary how many people don't use a spell checker.
Listing of ISEB/ISTQB exams and information in preference of core skills and experience.
Generic statements like 'exposure to SQL', 'working knowledge of Oracle' etc etc
CVs longer than about 3 pages
CVs that are badly formatted with tricky to follow sections.

On a positive note though, there are some crackers out there where people spend time on layout, use readable fonts, spell check it and give across a sense of care and attention. CVs where you can gauge someones personality are a winner for me.

CVs that highlight soft skills as well as technical skills are also useful.

I've been finding recently that CV's that point off to blogs, linkedin, twitter and online showcases of work or project information are popular and I like them. I get a real sense of who people are when they provide me with their online presence.

Rob..; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Mark Crowther on September 23, 2009 at 2:50pm: I've been finding recently that CV's that point off to blogs, linkedin, twitter and online showcases of work or project information are popular and I like them. I get a real sense of who people are when they provide me with their online presence.

I second that, but then I have a link to my website and here on my CV ;D; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Anna Baik on September 27, 2009 at 2:19am: Hah, I'm probably guilty of the "working knowledge of Oracle" thing. Problem is, I find it difficult to tell whether a job ad is doing the "list every technology in the world to convince HR the job is worth paying a decent wage for" thing (see Peter Nairn's blog), and so I don't know if the author of the ad is saying "please just shove 'Oracle' somewhere in your CV so it passes the recruiter paper sift and HR, and we'll decide if you're a tester from the other stuff", or whether they genuinely honestly truly do want a tester with an in-depth knowledge of Oracle.

Usually I assume the former, I have to admit, as I figure that if they really wanted someone intimately familiar with e.g. Oracle Streams running over Websphere MQ, that they'd say so. Just "Oracle" gets me: uh, I figure they want a tester who knows Oracle is a database and probably someone who can write the odd SQL query. Just like "Test Director" on a job ad usually means to me: "Has seen Test Director and is not too stupid to figure out how to raise a defect using it", rather than "Can install and set up Test Director for our test team, and administer it, while tap dancing with 32 penguins".

I've yet to come up with a graceful way of writing a CV that is guaranteed to get through agency recruiters and HR, without the end result being somewhat less attractive to the end user who wants to actually read it, not scan it for keywords. I'm not currently looking for work, so I hope I'll have a while to figure that one out.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Thomas Ponnet on September 28, 2009 at 12:47pm: Couldn't have put it any better. I tend to search for the hints in the job description. If Oracle, QTP, etc are just listed I assume these skills are a bonus rather than must haves.
I don't see a lot of job descriptions thought that say specifically "I want someone who can test my software and break it in ways I can't think of". Only one springs to mind saying that they had one tester which comes up with twisted and deviant ways to break their software and they want more of that.
So to all recruiters out there - don't just list the test tools and domain experience people "must" have, if you really want someone to break the build, just say so!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Stephen Hill on September 23, 2009 at 3:01pm: Thinking about this a bit more, I really like it when I can see that an applicant has bothered to make their CV relevant to the role they are applying for. If I am recruiting a tester I want to know about things they have done that show their ability to test in our segment of the computing industry so anything other than a passing comment about something irrelevant to that, to me, is just noise.

Taking Rosie's example, therefore, I would expect an applicant to at least bring out Selenium-specific skills in their CV and I would hope that with scant information about the post being made available in the advert they would choose to highlight their particular interests and/or focus in software testing.

I know a lot of it comes down to time and people just like to have a generic CV that they can fire off in response to job adverts or make available to agencies but they should still make an effort, in my opinion, to be specific otherwise it is of no help to the recruiters at all.

Rob, are the CVs you mention that link to LinkedIn, Twitter, etc... from recruitment sites like Monster or are they 'traditional' CVs? I ask because I haven't seen many like that myself and it sounds like a very good idea.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Rob Lambert on September 23, 2009 at 4:04pm: they are paper based CVs we receive from the applicants (via agencies).

My CV too has my linkedin, blog and twitter account information. Today's society is increasingly moving online and so instead of leaving recruiters to search the WWW for someone who may be me, I'd rather point them directly to my online presence. Not that I'm searching for a job though :)

A lot of testers now have an online presence and mine has nothing I wouldn't want a prospective employer to see. They'll see the information eventually and I'd rather make sure they got the right feeds first time.

Rob..; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Stephen Hill on September 23, 2009 at 4:25pm: Thanks, Rob, for the clarification. It certainly makes sense to take advantage of an online presence in this way provided the caveat Andy highlighted is taken notice of by both parties.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Andy Smith on September 23, 2009 at 3:06pm: As there's no such thing as a 'perfect' CV, with all hirers having their own personal preference, it can be frustrating for applicants to find the right way to wow the reader. So I do sympathise with them, and would suggest to hirers that they try to re-draft their own CVs regularly so they can remember how difficult and stressful it is...especially when you're currently unemployed and unsure where your next income is coming from.

Nevertheless, as everyone here agrees, there are just some fundamental basics that applicants can get wrong and right which make a huge difference to their credibility in the eyes of the hirer:

1. Agree with Rob that spelling errors are bad, very bad,. If you're a tester, then taking such little care over the accuracy of your own CV implies a lack of meticulous application when it comes to details.

2. Also bad are vague statements that seem to just be a vain attempt to squeeze some keywords into the CV to get over the agency filtering.

3. Clarity and readability are always good, fancy formatting sometimes goes wonky.

4. Above all, the feature I like best is truth. Tell me what you can do, what you are good at doing, don't make a heap of claims that will find you out when on-site.

I think Rob is right also about links to blogs and such, as this can give a useful insight into someone's wider knowledge, professional attitude and communication skills.
(But a word of caution to hirers, especially for permanent staff: opinions that a person holds outwith the workplace on matters unrelated to the job must not be used to reject a candidate, there are laws governing such. So probably best for candidate and hirer alike to stick only to the immediately relevant stuff.); ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Rob Lambert on September 23, 2009 at 4:07pm: Really good point at the end there Andy about outside of work stuff. It's sad but no doubt this happens. Trouble is, more and more people are moving their social life online and some people show very little consideration for the wider implications.

Rob..; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Anna Baik on September 27, 2009 at 2:46am: To be fair, as more people move their social life online, then how can you judge people for stuff they said whilst still a minor, which is now preserved for posterity? How many of us can honestly say that there's nothing at all that they said as an opinionated teenager that they perhaps might regret or think somewhat differently about now? (And hey, what if they said it decades ago? Some folks have been online since before Google/Yahoo existed.)

While I'd be happy with looking someone up on LinkedIn, or another professional venue, I can't unknow something once I know it. So I'd not feel comfortable going on a fishing expedition - I don't need to know about life outside work, and I don't want to have to wonder how much my judgement may be subconsciously affected by the fact that we have totally different political opinions, for instance.; ▶ Reply to This