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I need to find a new job, stat. I have two specific questions about this:
1) I am fortunate that I'm at a senior level and will be going for director and above positions. My assumption is that at that level uploading my CV to Indeed or Reed etc for people to find me is poor form and likely to have negative consequences - am I correct?
2) My CV needs a proper spring clean and for me to add some heft to it (saying that I'm a senior hire, I desperately need to escape the middle management miasma of megacorps).
Are there any good books or weblinks that are credible in-terms of prepping senior/experienced hire CVs (broadly related to digital and/or marketing functions) that STWers have valuable?
Many thanks.
I work in recruitment, and hire senior, board level people (insurance and financial services in the unlikely event that’s your sector as well).
To answer your questions:
1. Correct. You’ll get very little good from them and quite a lot of spam. LinkedIn and your own network tend to me where people find senior roles. There are also some very good, specialist agencies who’d be able to help. I may know the names of them if you let me know your area of work.
2. CV advise and CV writers are a minefield and one I’d be reluctant to touch. If you can write coherently, know how to construct a document (in terms of length, how it looks, flow, etc) you’ll be fine on your own. Just get a trusted friend, ideally someone who hire people, to look it over.
LinkedIn as all the recruiters are on there
Your linkedin profile can hold a lot more information than a two page CV.
Play keyword bingo for the searches
CV needs to be tailored use a master and adjust as required, style important, quantify achievements
Get your STAR competency and behaviour answers prepared
I’m at a senior level and will be going for director and above positions
Is that a specific thing?
Of my acquaintances I have 2 that are 'directors'. One is the director of a company of exactly 4 employees only one of which is not a director and the title means he is not the one that makes the tea but buys the milk (there is likely to be some other legal shit to delineate the two but day to day that seems the sum of it) and the other is a director in the telecoms sector and is responsible for 2500 employees, a £50m budget and receives a remuneration package in the high 6 figure region.
That's a pretty big hitting zone.
Are CVs still a thing? As in a single, meticulously crafted document? My CV is my LinkedIn profile, same prose just in a more accessible form. A click of a button turns it into a PDF should that be needed. I recently changed jobs and in place of a CV in many online applications you could just point to your LinkedIn profile. The covering letter is more important in my opinion, which should highlight your experience in relation to their requirements for that specific job, essentially doing most of the screening work for the recruiter.
@Lunge - I am in FS, so will do spring cleaning and then dm you here 🙂 Thank you!
@Everyone else - some good food for thought. Clearly my LinkedIn isn't working hard enough - absolute tumbleweed since I went clientside, but that might just be because of the "client" I chose...
Thanks all. Work to do, but overthinking and science not required.
I've been job hunting recently and did everything through linkedin or by creating job alerts on large employers websites I was interested in (local companies and Civil Service)
I opened my linkedin profile up as "available for work" and found I got a lot more useful contact and less spam that uploading the CV to websites etc. But yes, CVs do still seem to be useful. It's where you highlight relevant experience. People don't want to read about absolutely everything you've done.
It was the usual flurry of interest and then slowed down, though the later responses were a lot more useful and focussed. I'm in programming and stuff, so got a lot of direct approaches from larger companies too.
It all took ages. So many tests these days! Took me a while to get up to speed. My first few programming tests were hopeless. Eventually I got two decent offers, both with big jumps in salary, and one of them is only a few miles down the road.
Linkedin is the first place people will look.
If you haven't already, do some housekeeping on FB and google in general, you will appear in loads of searches.
I always get roles through recruiters, approach them, tell them everything and let them do the work.
At director level they will be working on 15-20% or maybe higher of your salary and will work hard to get that.
LinkedIn presence is everything for jobs these days in any specialist field. A few key terms, a nice example of a piece of work you've done and perhaps a pertinent post of something that interests you in the field to show you read around. Once you've done that, you'll start pinging the searches from recruiters Or just contact them directly.
I'm not looking, but i like to stoke the LinkedIn fire occasionally with the odd post. I work in a specialist scientific/clinical field that is permanently looking for people. All jobs are posted there.
BTW first item on CV is email, second is LinkedIn profile.