I have been self-employed for 40 years and have never had to produce a CV. Before that, in the days when I had “proper” jobs, I don’t think CVs had been invented. You just filled in an application form.
Recently, I have been busy recruiting someone to join my publishing company and so, out of necessity, become an avid reader of CVs. It has been a strange experience and, rather to my surprise, brought out the worst in me. Indeed, many CVs have irritated me more than the poor author could possibly imagine (and surely didn’t intend).
The first irritation is the opening paragraph full of extraordinary claims that cannot possibly be true: “I am creative, dynamic, focused, personable, passionate, confident, driven, positive, hardworking, mature self-starter with exceptional communication skills.” Wow! All I wanted was an ordinary human being who’d fit in with our small team and help establish a digital and direct marketing function.
The second irritation is wrestling with different chronological orders. Some CVs start in the present and work backwards. Others start in the past and gradually work their way forwards. Clearly it is vital to establish the direction of travel. The most confusing are the CVs that oscillate between forwards and backwards - rather like films with flashbacks (I have always found these confusing unless it actually says in large letters “flashback”, which, for obvious reasons, rarely happens).
The third irritation is the complete absence of all sorts of personal things that I long to know. For example, most CVs aren’t upfront about the person’s age - and, of course, you dare not/are not allowed to ask. You just have to suss it out from various clues. I’m intensely curious about other things too: such as whether they are married, have kids, and so on. I know it’s politically incorrect to say so, but I want to know what sort of whole person they are, and this is important information. Most CVs, quite understandably, are silent about such things. So near and yet so far; very frustrating.
Finally, careless errors in CVs have brought out the disapproving school master in me. I find myself tut-tutting over typos, sentences that are too long, split infinitives and poor layout. I never realised I was such a stickler for accuracy and detail.
Ah well, all good for the soul I suppose.