Career Coach CV/Resume Writer by Rob Ridout

The best cover letter I ever received and I read a lot of cover letters, was from a PA who wrote a brief article on herself in the format of a newspaper article. You just had to read it and had to meet this person. I’m not a big fan of the cover letter but a good cover letter such as this one can be a real eye-catcher. Cover letters are always going to be problematic, too many people try using the cover letter to say what they should actually say in the interview. And it seldom works.  Let’s first look at the purpose of the cover letter. This brief and I emphasis brief form of introduction should cover who you are and why you are seeking employment. The entire role of the cover letter is to invite the reader to explore your CV further. Almost like a good marketing bi-line attached to a brand that gently encourages the tired eyes of the HR manager to want to explore further. The challenge that you have when designing your cover letter is most certainly the huge amount of CV’s...

It is always amazing to me that when I call my candidates after their interviews, I am greeted with some form of puzzled feedback. Even after preparing my candidates before their interview one never quite knows what will be said at an actual meeting. Due to the short interview time frame, the interviewer will only need one or two reasons to discount a candidate. Often these interview killers are simple and easily solvable issues that could have been avoided altogether.  Many times interviews killers are essential questions that just need to be asked at another time in the interview or phrased differently. There is also a list of questions that you just never need to ask.  To read another great article on interview tips visit this link on my blog.  https://yourcvforlife.blogspot.com/2017/12/interview-tips-your-story-by-rob-ridout.html These are just a few questions that kill an interview immediately;  (You will know that your interview is dead in the ...

When searching for work on LinkedIn of jobs many candidates tend to choose for the lazy option and use the automated job email notification tool to find work. I cannot emphasize enough that as an active candidate in the market you utilize  the search function to search for jobs. You really need to adopt an aggressive approach to finding ideal roles rather than sitting around on your rear end waiting for the work to come your way.  Use this tool efficiently is actually a little bit of a science. Most people I coach tend to plug in their own title, conduct the search, find a few roles and they satisfy themselves that they have done a hard days job of being a proactive individual. Others tend to thrash the living daylights out of the search by searching and applying to everything that moves apply for everything and then give up when nobody returns their emails in a record-breaking turnaround time and all of this with a poor CV and not so great LinkedIn profile.  ...

“You didn’t get the job”. Possibly the worst five words anybody can hear in 2009. And do you want to hear why? Not really. Nobody really wants to know why they didn’t get the job. The truth is that most regrets are often for very simple reasons which often originate as an initial concern at the CV screening stage by the hirer or recruiter. Trying to identify these recurring regret reasons either from a post-interview or pre-interview (where your CV is not shortlisted) is often a career-altering experience.  Recruiters and HR practitioners are actually trained to spot the negative before the positive when reading your CV – what a shock! Especially in 2009 as candidates have become desperate now to get work and will go to great lengths to lie in their CV’s and at interviews. This seems a bit of a poor way of representing recruiters and HR Practitioners but actually, it is very realistic, especially because most people hide their poor work experiences very carefully and then lie in ...