Who can we help?

We are most likely to be effective for you if you live in the South East of England – or are looking to relocate.

We specialise in three areas:
    IT professionals – all disciplines
    Help Desk and Call Centre team members
    Sales and Marketing professionals
    Secretarial / Administration / Accounts staff

If you want to register, email your Curriculum Vitae to jobseeker@shenrec.co.uk

Writing that Curriculum Vitae !

It takes many hours to produce a Curriculum Vitae. However good it is, it has less than 30 seconds to grab the attention of the Recruitment Consultant or the HR Manager looking at it.

That is because of the sheer volume of C.V’s that arrive on their desktops. To read a two page Curriculum Vitae properly takes at least four minutes. The maths are simple - If an HR manager has 30 C.V.s to look at and spends four minutes reading each one, the time taken will be two hours (not allowing for covering letters!) The HR Manager has no choice – he has to reduce the pile drastically.

Make your C.V. difficult to reject!

Sitting at you computer? Then let’s begin.
    Save the Curriculum Vitae as Word document (.doc) Do not save it as mycv.doc – that makes more work for the HR Manager. Save it as Ms Jo BROWN C.V.doc or Mr Chris Smith resume.doc – names like Jo and Chris can be either male or female, so make it easy for the reader so please avoid confusion by confirming your gender with a Mr Miss Ms or Mrs!.
    Do not use fonts smaller than 12 point – not all HR managers have perfect eyesight.
    Use the whole width of the paper - so more information is on the first page – and might be read in that 30 seconds!
    Do not use tables – that makes it more difficult for the Recruitment Consultancy to transfer your Curriculum Vitae in to their format.
    Put your address, home and mobile telephone numbers at the top.

The first C.V.s to be rejected will be from candidates who live too far away or cannot get to where the job is. (Not all jobs are next door to London Underground stations!) So put your address and whether you have a driving licence and transport at the top of your Curriculum Vitae.

If you send out a Curriculum Vitae without an address it will not even be read!

The next pieces of information to set out are your personal details (logistics) and then a brief summary paragraph, explaining why you are looking for a job.

Here is an example, with four different summary paragraphs as examples.

Example Curriculum Vitae – The Top Bit

Mr Bert Blue
32 High Road , SHENFIELD, Essex CM14
(H) 01277 123456 (M) 07775 65432 email bert@bluehome.co.uk

Logistics
Nationality                      British
Status                             Single
Driving Licence               Full, clean – own vehicle

Summary (just left school/college)

Bert has finished his studies at Shenfield High School and has decided not to continue in full time education. He wants to build a career in the City, building knowledge through experience. He is available immediately.

Summary (Just graduated)
Having recently attained BSc 2ii in Computer Sciences from the University of Hertfordshire Bert seeks an opportunity to begin his career in programming. He is available immediately.

Summary (following redundancy)
The recent merger of two major banks resulted in several excellent IT professionals becoming available. With significant web site design experience, Bert can be immediately productive for his next employer.

Summary (seeking better job)
Since joining his current employer two years ago Bert has played a key role in introducing new systems that have shown immediate increases in productivity. Having met his objectives, Bert is now considering whether he should broaden his experience in a different environment. He has to give one months notice.

If relevant, list key experience, skills and professional qualifications next – for example:

PC Hardware Experience

IBM AND IBM Compatible PC'S Using all Processors from Intel 8086 - Pentium 3 and AMD Equivalent and various printers – Epson inkjet, Hewlett Packard inkjet & laser, Qume Impact, IBM Impact & Canon Inkjet., Internal and External Modems

PC Software Experience

DOS V3 V6.2, MS Windows 3.0, NT, MS Office V5-97, Bendata Heat, Utopia, CA Unicentre

MS Outlook, MS Publisher, Quanterm, Attachmate Extra,IBM 3270 Mainframe Emulator ,Veritas
or

Key Skills
    Good communication skills with both work colleagues and customers at all levels
    Excellent computer literacy providing comprehensive IT support for hardware and software including Windows XP, NT4 and Windows 2000
    Prioritising workload to provide optimum production for tight schedules:
    Ability to work on own initiative, with good troubleshooting skills

Career to date then Education or Education then Career ?

If you have recently left full time education, the next information should be your educational achievements (most recent first) then any experience of work (most recent first) and finally interest and hobbies etc. If you have been working, set out your Career to date first then education etc. Make sure that there are no “holes” in the dates. Potential employers like to see the complete story – if you spent a year or two travelling the world, say so!

References

Put at the end that you will supply reference details upon request. This avoids your referees being called before you are interviewed.

A Final Point

The facts you set out in your Curriculum Vitae may need to be verified – so be sure that all the content is factual.