BF2S Forums Blokes in the IT industry...

i put some holiday photos on my CV

didn't really, i've never even heard of pictures on a CV

clip art is a nice touch

LaTeX produces pretty nice looking documents, you'd definitely get some acknowledgement for that (at a tech company) if you don't mind learning a bit of mark up language.

wtf is a bloke

Microwave wrote:

eleven bravo wrote:

wtf is a bloke

an English gentleman

Not necessarily English.

dont you mean an english subject?

Microwave wrote:

LaTeX produces pretty nice looking documents, you'd definitely get some acknowledgement for that (at a tech company) if you don't mind learning a bit of mark up language.

it really does, using it wasn't mandatory in my first year at uni but guaranteed if you handed something in in LaTeX they'd be a lot happier for it

If you want your CV on a searchable database its going to be reduced to RTF at best, a mangled mess of mis-assigned auto-fields at worst.

ghettoperson wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

Uzique wrote:

who would put colour and pics on a CV?

Crazy people, thats who.

2-colour layout for letter paper is alright... i.e. dark reds/dark blues to offset the cream paper.
but otherwise indesign is just used for nice formatting and a better, professional layout. microsoft word is just bollocks.

Most CVs are emailed these days, you don't get to pick the paper, and they're going to be printed B+W so no luck there.
If I'm going to read them on screen I don't want landscape thats for sure, or some font pack I have to download.

Assume your CV has to survive as an RTF file and go from there.

Dude, PDF...

this

I have to agree with Dilbert. Many places specifically request RTF documents, and a lot of them, especially larger companies (and government) with extensive hiring processes, will parse the document to populate databases anyway. RTF is the lowest common denominator in most industries and for most employers, so your energy is often best spent making it look good in that format.

The only place I've ever applied to that didn't list RTF amongst acceptable formats was Google. For some reason they wanted it in either HTML or a plain text file. (?!)

mikkel wrote:

I have to agree with Dilbert. Many places specifically request RTF documents, and a lot of them, especially larger companies (and government) with extensive hiring processes, will parse the document to populate databases anyway. RTF is the lowest common denominator in most industries and for most employers, so your energy is often best spent making it look good in that format.

The only place I've ever applied to that didn't list RTF amongst acceptable formats was Google. For some reason they wanted it in either HTML or a plain text file. (?!)

I am in government work.

Step one of taking a new resume:
Paper Version: Strip anything extra and throw it in the trash. Nice folders, jackets, etc... Trash.
Electronic version: Fill a database with the actual information, strip the rest and trash it.


The best of of getting noticed with us is NOT a pretty, fancy resume. It is IT work, not art class. They want easy bullet points that translate into easy bullet points. Those bullet points are then compared against the job requirements and departmental preferences. The ones that don't have enough matches are weeded out. The ones that do have enough matches are interviewed.


I have seen really fancy, pretty QUALIFIED resumes get trashed because the low end HR people didn't get see the right "buzz words" and "key phrases" to match up with the "expectations." Instead, they wrote it out in a paragraph format around fancy crap that got in the way of actual useful information.

It is often a crappy, but efficient system for dealing with hundreds of resumes. For most positions, we get about 300 applications. We interview about 6-18 on average. We end up with about 3 that are actually qualified. 1 of those usually takes another position before the 2nd interview, or decides he can make more money elsewhere. We usually end up doing a 2nd interview on 2, and end up hiring one of them.

But the color of your paper never has a damn thing to do with it.

It applies to non-govt work too. Job sites, agencies and companies want word or RTF electronic CVs.

The times I've been headhunted have been from searched CV databases.

Does the standard application form still exist? It was a UK thing.

Academia is a whole other world.