It’s the last week in this part of Thailand and its certainly been an experience I shall never forget. Next week I shall be in a new country writing this blog. I’ll let you know where I am next week but it will still be in SE Asia as the journey continues.

As you know at the beginning of the year I set up www.virtualdemon.com. This is a virtual assistant and administrative online business focusing on the recruitment sector in the UK. I am making this bigger and better.

Today I was given the idea about passing on the knowledge about how I got into recruitment. Now, I am much more of a resourcer than a full 360 recruiter. But I could have gone down that route if had wanted too. It’s just not for me as one of the main aspects is sales and I found out it’s something that I really don’t want to pursue any longer. But if you do want to get into this line of work then there are plenty of opportunities out there to do so.

                                                          A Great Recruiter CV 

Most of these are from my own experience. Some of these are from ex-colleagues that I have spoken too or things that I’ve heard of from other offices. Some of this will depend on how much experience you have already got in the field but it is meant to be aimed at people that have not done this kind of work before.

      1.  Formatting

I would say for the majority of recruitment roles keep this traditional. It might be nice to put some snazzy imagery on the CV. It may also be nice to have a load of graphics depicting your expertise in different areas. For example, 9 out of 10 for using MS Office. Woo Hoo. It may wash with some organisations but I’m sure most would like something that is well written and has all the information that they need in the selection process if they are going to select you based on your CV for an interview. I’m going to go through the sections in more detail below. But make sure you are contactable and have up to date reference details as well.

      2.  Focus on sales and communications skills

You will see and hear people wax lyrical about making a targeted CV for the role that you’re applying for. As this role is in the recruitment sector you need to do it for this as well. Your focus from the beginning to the end of your CV should be about sales and communication skills. These are the two core facets that you need to be able to start in this business. If the role particularly focuses on an area of recruitment such as IT contractors, then you can add a little about that as well. But it’s not as important as having sales ability and great communications skills as these specialisms can be trained or learnt.

      3.  Achievements

So you’re looking at the work history on your CV and thinking I need to focus this on sales and communication skills. Ideally this should take the format of quantifiable achievements on the CV. For example, I had targets of calling 20 people a day which I met and surpassed every day. Depending on your work experience you may not be able to add these kind of things. But you can add. What kind of people you do communicate with on a regular basis? What kind of communication this is? Roughly how often do you communicate this way? What are the communications about? etc.   

      4.  Spelling and grammar

As I’m sure you know recruiters get to look at a lot of CVs and when they are wading through them if they don’t like it because of a particular reason then they won’t continue reading it. If you have spelling errors and grammatical mistakes on it chances are the CV will not be read. This is also a part of the communication skills that you are highlighting to the recruiter. Ideally get the CV proofread before you send it anywhere.

      5.  Personal profile

Personally I don’t like these. I think it’s too easy to put non-essential information here. But as a part of a standard CV format they should be used. Also if you don’t have masses of experience in this sector it’s a useful way of telling the recruiter why you want to get into recruitment as they may not have read a covering letter. But again keep this short and focused on sales and communication skills.

      6.  What to avoid

In the UK I wouldn’t put a photo on your CV. I don’t think it’s required. Don’t use silly names for contact details and ensure that your CV is not over 2 pages. Don’t ramble through your CV. Keep it relevant and focused on sales and communication skills. Make sure that there is plenty of white space on the CV. No one likes to read through too much text especially after having to read through a lot of CVs.

      7.  Positive throughout

Because you’re already focusing on achievements and are concentrating on sales and communications skills that you are bringing to the table this should come naturally. But don’t give negative information about previous employers. Don’t use the reasons why you didn’t want to work somewhere as why you want to work in recruitment.

      8.  IT savvy

In the increasingly manic world that we live in having an understanding of technology is increasingly important. You don’t need to be an expert and as I’ve said earlier if you are going into a role where you are interacting with technically minded people you will get given appropriate training. But you must be able to show through your CV an ability to work with different IT systems, an ability to pick up new processes and procedures quickly (As IT has a knack of changing the way we do things) and be a fast learner.

      9.  Let your personality shine through a bit…

As per the personal profile this is often something that I would say that you need to get rid of. It’s another area where candidates typically include non-relevant information. But not in the recruitment sector. I would say definitely keep this as the recruiter does want a well-rounded person that can communicate about different things apart from the job at hand. So you can put interests, hobbies and ideally achievements that you have had within those. But please don’t put things that are either every day. For example, I like to read fiction. Or too far out of the mainstream. For example, I have a fetish for Italian leather shoes.  

      10.  Get a LinkedIn account

Lastly, you should get a nice shiny new LinkedIn account. This is the de-facto platform that any recruiter worth his salt is on these days so you need to be on it as well. If you’ve never used it before it’s like a professional version of Facebook. Fill out as much of your profile detail as possible (should be the same as your CV), add a decent colour picture of yourself where you aren’t bungee jumping or something and add the link from the profile onto your CV.

I hope this has been informative, interesting and you liked reading it.

That’s all folks this week but I’ll be back again next week. Please subscribe to my Virtual Demon blog and I look forward to your comments and feedback.