Career Planning - Free Online Tutorial

The information in this free Career Planning tutorial is taken from “GetAhead in Winning at Interviews”. This accelerated learning course condenses a 2-day class-based course into a highly focused eBook & CD-Rom. It covers all aspects of professional interview conduct, from analyzing your abilities against potential careers to negotiating the best possible employment package.

Free Career Planning Tutorial

Career Planning – Your Resume or CV

A well written Resume is effectively your pass to enter the job race. At the Resume stage of selection the recruiter is looking for reasons to REJECT an applicant. They are likely to receive scores, if not hundreds, of applications for the position on offer. In this preliminary stage of selection their maxim is ‘when in doubt throw it out’.

The good news (for you) is that most people do not know how to write a Resume and only spend a short time preparing one. Of course your Resume can continue to work in your favour even after it has obtained an interview for you.

It can also help you at an interview by carefully focusing the interviewer's mind on your good points and on your achievements. Once you have left the interview it will continue to work in your favour as the interviewer will probably reread it before making a decision, either on who should be invited to the second interview stage or who the job should be offered to.

When it comes to salary negotiations a good Resume can also help. If your CV conveys your full worth you are likely to get a higher salary offer than you might have done with a poorer CV.

The life of corporate and graduate recruiters is dull enough already without everyone’s Resume looking identical. So, whilst you will see a lot of very good advice on how to write a great Resume it is important to make yours unique and special. Advice and guidelines on Resume writing are just that – very useful indeed, but NOT prescriptive.

There are no golden rules about this but following the advice will greatly improve your chances of being offered an interview, and ultimately securing the job offer.

The message that you must take on board is ‘Prepare your Resume in a professional manner’ It is quite probably the most important document you will ever write.

Career Planning – Resume Design

If your Resume does not attract the reader's attention in the first 20 seconds of reading then your chances of obtaining an interview are greatly reduced. An employer may have a hundred or more Resume’s to look through and probably only a couple of hours in which to make their selection. So put your work experience at the start of your Resume, not personal or educational details; unless you have only just left education.

What an employer really wants to know is why they should invite you for an interview. For this reason a short summary of your capabilities and/or a list of your major achievements can often be a good idea. This should make an employer want to invite you for an interview - but please be careful that you do not oversell yourself.

Career Planning – Resume Layout
The visual layout of your Resume is very important. Even though the wording you use may be correct, if people cannot find the information they want quickly they will move on to someone else's. You should use plenty of 'white' space in your CV and appropriate headings and section breaks.

Always use a word-processor/DTP package. Never use a typewriter as you will look old fashioned and out of date. Use good quality A4 paper, preferably 100 gram for both your Resume and covering letter.

It is usually best to try and keep your Resume to two pages of A4, unless someone specifically asks you for a longer Resume. If you cannot keep your Resume to this length then you probably have not understood an employer's requirements. Employers do not want to know your whole life history - just enough to decide whether they should interview you or not.

If your Resume is not well organized then the reader will find it hard to follow and will not be able to build up a picture of you quickly. Remember the reader will not spend very long looking at your Resume - so if they cannot find what they want they will not bother to read any further.

Career Planning – Resume Written Words
Long paragraphs and sentences make it difficult to read your Resume quickly. Try to keep your sentences short and punchy and use bullet points to break up the text under section headings.

A lot of people do not include enough details about their previous jobs and experience and an employer therefore does not have enough information. This will almost certainly lead to them rejecting your application. Remember, in this preliminary stage of selection their maxim is ‘when in doubt throw it out’.
You need to shout about your achievements. Your Resume is your sales document to an employer. If it does not tell an employer why they should employ you then it has failed. An employer will only want to employ you if they can see a benefit in it for themselves. So do tell them the benefits of employing you.

In general being too young or too old can be a real problem and a barrier to future advancement, or even to getting a job in the first place. There are a number of ways round this problem - but this depends very much on your individual circumstances and the industry/job you are applying for.

It is essential that the entire document contains no spelling mistakes. Your Resume should be carefully checked for such errors before you send it out to employers. Tiny errors in your Resume can detract from an otherwise good Resume and make you look lazy or careless - not the sort of qualities you want to portray to an employer. As you will probably be 'blind' to these errors you should get someone else to check your Resume for grammar and spelling errors..

Career Planning – What to Include in Your Resume

You should gather together all of the information required below. You may not use all of this information in your Resume but it will provide you with useful reference material when it comes to preparing for interviews.

Personal Details
Your full name, address, home telephone number, date of birth, marital status (put only single or married down on your Resume, if you are divorced then put single, if you are separated you are still married - never list any sort of failure on a Resume) and nationality (you may want to include this if you are applying for jobs abroad or if you are a British/EU national and your name does not sound British). Do you have a full driving licence? Is it clean?

Education / Qualifications
List your qualifications and education history, for example:
• BSc (Hons) 2.1 Hons in Physics at Bristol University, 1982 - 1985.
• GCE A Levels: Physics [B], Biology [B], Maths [C] at Great Barr School, 1980 - 1982.
• GCE O Levels (or GCSEs if you did them): Maths [B], English Language [C], History [C], Geography [C], French [C], Chemistry [C], Biology [C] at Farnham School, 1971 - 1980.

If you have a degree you probably will not need to list all your O Levels/GCSEs; just listing the number is probably sufficient.

Professional Qualifications
List your professional qualifications, membership of professional associations and professional ID numbers. If you recently completed a college or university degree or HND or Diploma, etc, then you may want to list the courses you studied if the subject you studied was relevant to your target job.

Training Courses
List any work related training courses which you attended, including company courses and any you attended on your own initiative. If you obtained a qualification on any course please list it. You only need to list the important courses you attended; no one really cares if you went on a time management course as everyone gets sent on these courses!

Work Experience
If you have been working for a number of years you probably do not need to include any part-time jobs, vacation jobs, voluntary work or unpaid work experience. Charity work could be included in your interests. However you might want to include these jobs if they covered a period of unemployment, or a time when you were not working for any other reason, or you feel that some of the experience you gained will be useful in your next job. You should normally concentrate on your two most recent jobs (unless you were only there for a short time), because employers are usually most interested in these.

Start with your most recent or last job and work backwards. For each position (treat internal promotion as a new job and record the dates separately) list your job title (e.g. Manager, Supervisor, etc), the job title of the person you reported to (e.g. Director, Manager, etc) and when you started and finished in each job. Give the name of the company and include a brief description of the service they provide (using the terms they would use to describe themselves). Set out your main responsibilities, achievements, duties, and skills that could be transferred to another employer. Be specific and positive about your skills, e.g. 'good written skills' may be a better description of your abilities rather than 'good communication skills'.

Include your level of responsibility if any, e.g. 'responsibility for departmental budget of £250K and managed 10 staff'. In particular list any achievements you had in each position, including increases in sales/productivity and cost savings made. Quantify your achievements if possible. 'Increased sales by £100K' is more interesting and positive than just saying 'Increased sales'. You should try to include some achievements such as meeting deadlines, budgets, etc, and any information that may be relevant to your next job.

Major Achievements to Date
When you are listing your achievements in this section, only list 3 to 6 of your most important work achievements; your other achievements can be described under the work experience section. You should only list achievements that are relevant to your next job and indicate how you achieved them.

This section is very important as an employer will only invite you for an interview if they can see a benefit in doing so. Your achievements may sell you to an employer and make them choose you for an interview rather than someone else. For this reason it is vital that you think carefully about your achievements.

Other Relevant Experience
List any computer skills you have, including the make and type of equipment you are familiar with, the software and operating system used, e.g. IBM compatible PC, Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Office 2002, etc.

If you have foreign language skills that may be relevant for any jobs which you are applying for, please list them and indicate whether your skills are spoken, written, business or technical. Please also indicate your level of fluency: fluent, good working knowledge, etc. You should only list these skills if they are relevant to the jobs you are applying for as no one really wants to hear about a French language course you did at school a long time ago. If relevant to your next job please include your typing or shorthand speeds.

Interests & Hobbies
How you choose to spend your disposable income and free time tells a potential employer a great deal about you, your values, motivation and in some cases even your intelligence. For example, supposing a candidate had listed her interests as:

Playing Bridge at regional competition level
Solving Crossword puzzles
Learning new computer software applications

The reviewer is likely to conclude that she is: intellectually strong, good at problem solving and interested in new technology. In this way list your interests, hobbies and any sports you play. List any positions of responsibility you hold or have held in any club or organization, and say what your responsibilities and achievements were. Remember, read it from the selector’s viewpoint – what are you telling them about you?

References
You do not normally need to list referees on a CV, but it is a good idea to think about whom you could ask now. For some professions however it is normal to list referees; these include the teaching and health service (NHS) professions - your referees in these professions are often asked to provide you with a reference before you are even asked to an interview.

Summary
List your major skills, strengths, personal qualities and achievements. Be specific, for example: good team player, excellent written skills, versatile, able to motivate others, etc. If you are lacking in ideas, look at your staff appraisals or at your references.                                                                              TOP

Career Planning - eBook & CD-Rom

The information in this free Career Planning tutorial is taken from “GetAhead in Winning at Interviews”. This accelerated learning course condenses a 2-day class-based course into a highly focused eBook & CD-Rom. It covers all aspects of professional interview conduct, from analyzing your abilities against the job requirements to negotiating the best possible employment package.