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This site is getting an increasing number of hits from people searching for advice on CVs and Cover Letters.

Please read my article on putting a CV / Resume together and comment if you agree or disagree with my advice.

In regards to cover letters, I will put my list of Do’s and Don’t’s below and add some links to examples of what I think are going to give you a better chance.

Do’s

• Always attach a cover letter to your CV or Resume
• Make sure you address it to the relevant person in the business
• Use key words from the advertisement in your letter
• Address both the Skills and Experience Requirements identified in the Ad
• Put the most convenient and accessible ways to contact you ie Mobile and Email
• Space it out and make it easy to read
• Differentiate between sending it to a recruiter or the company itself
• Make it one page
• Make it unique to you and what you can offer
• Include call to action – Request an Interview, Tell them you will call to follow up in 2-3 days
• Be confident

Don’t’s

• Make spelling mistakes
• Address it to a different role or company or person by mistake
• Send a generic cover letter
• Make it more than one page
• Include unnecessary filler such as “Please find my resume enclosed”
• Explain why the role will be good for you
• Waste the first paragraph with filler, make an impact so they keep reading

So here are some example templates I have put together;

Cover Letter No 1

Cover Letter No 2

Please tell me if there are any mistakes and email me any improved versions.

Thanks

Tim

Posted under Jobs

SEEK is undoubtedly Australia’s biggest Job Site with a claim of 207,472 jobs online. With less than 50,000 jobs, MyCareer is a distant second.

But how reliable is the number of individual jobs posted on SEEK and how closely does this number equate to actual individual positions within individual companies?

There are thousands of ads on SEEK that fall into the duplicate or phantom categories;

• Multiple listings of the same role by the same company or recruiter
• One role being listed by the company and a recruiter
• One role being listed by more than one recruiter
• CV collecting general listings ie “Calling all Brand Managers” etc.

Now SEEK loves this because it increases their revenues. As the competition for Talent intensifies and the lack of a strong alternative the candidates will continue to go to SEEK as the first option. Unfortunately they will have to sift through this maze of duplicate roles and opportunities.

Posted under Jobs

Went to www.hitwise.com.au to see how my new blog site was doing in the ranking, haven’t made the Top 20 yet folks, whats the story!! Come on tell your friends, email my link, subscribe, make a comment, I’m feeling lonely here.

Anyway when I got over the disappointment I found some interesting stuff on the Hitwise Analysts Blog that relates to us here in FMCG land and the job world as well. Robin Goad – Research Director, Hitwise UK, is responsible for the two articles that interested me the most. Has the credit crunch killed ethical consumerism? follows the Hitwise philosophy that

“search behaviour is a great way of tracking consumer behaviour” Read More…

Posted under Marketing

I read between 50 to 100 CVs per day in my job, so I thought I would offer some advice to those job seekers out there who are having trouble getting interviews for the roles to which they feel they are suited. I am not astounded any more because I see the same mistakes repeated daily, but when I first started in the recruitment business I was flabbergasted that one of the most important documents in a person’s life was afforded such little care and attention. The CVs or resumes that I receive on a daily basis are riddled with spelling mistakes, poor grammar or are incomprehensible.

Here are a few of my favourite spelling mistakes.

• “SWAT Analysis” – What does the A stand for?
• “web sight” – looks good!
• “proffessional” – very

Below is my Top 10 Mistakes or areas where people let themselves down in the job market.

1. Spelling, Grammar and Typos.

There are no excuses, you have access to spelling checkers, grammar checkers and can ask friends, family and work colleagues to read over you resume. I am sure I will make mistakes in this blog, but it is nowhere near as important as the first impression a mistake will make on a gate-keeper like me or a potential employer. If you can pick up the errors I make here – you can proof-read your own CV!

A recent survey of employers found that 38% of would reject a resume based on finding the first spelling mistake, by two mistakes this was up to 64%. But you don’t need statistics to tell you that if you make a typo or a spelling error and send it through to an employer without noticing and correcting it, you’re in trouble. I think that you either aren’t smart enough to get help or too lazy to be bothered, reject pressed. Read More…

Posted under Jobs