So you've got a sweet CV with all the right skills and experience (or in agent-speak; key-words). You've plaster bombed said CV all over the internet and registered with 9million agents. You've followed up most serious job applications with a call to the agent, even managed to get through to a few of them. And inbetween all that you've keyed up on your knowledge and gone over and over and over interview techniques and questions. You're primed ... or are you?
We all know agents just skim the first handful of CVs they get in response to a job advert and send the client the 3 or 4 or 5 that match the job spec (in their oh-so-clued-in key-word-based opinion). So what i'm going on about here is from the end CLIENT'S point of view.
Besides the above, how else do you go about grabbing the attention of a prospective client who's reading over your CV and securing an interview. Infact the ideal perfect case would be to solidify in the clients mind that you ARE the man for the job long before the interview and a face-to-face meeting would be a mere formality to make sure you're not a drooling, sweating man-beast with the social skills of a brick.
I know, I'm dreaming in that perfect case but surely since the invention of the curriculum vitae there must have been SOME advances in "position procurement engineering".
I dunno, just a few ideas I had while sitting here thinking about how my contract is up in a few months and I'll need to start looking again soon (after a few months on the beach that is!).
Just wondering if anyone else had any unique or crazy ways they try and impress a client reading over their CV trying to decide if sharing a birth month is a good enough reason to pick Jane over John?
We all know agents just skim the first handful of CVs they get in response to a job advert and send the client the 3 or 4 or 5 that match the job spec (in their oh-so-clued-in key-word-based opinion). So what i'm going on about here is from the end CLIENT'S point of view.
Besides the above, how else do you go about grabbing the attention of a prospective client who's reading over your CV and securing an interview. Infact the ideal perfect case would be to solidify in the clients mind that you ARE the man for the job long before the interview and a face-to-face meeting would be a mere formality to make sure you're not a drooling, sweating man-beast with the social skills of a brick.
I know, I'm dreaming in that perfect case but surely since the invention of the curriculum vitae there must have been SOME advances in "position procurement engineering".
- Do you include links in your CV to either a blog (say a Java Problem/Solution blog for a JDev) or samples of your previous work from either past clients (website you worked on) or your own "free time" work (that WordNumbers webapp you worked on that time)?
- Do you rigorously maintain your LinkedIn profile?
- Do you include in your CV details of OpenSource contributor projects you've worked on (ie not really industry experience but still experience!)?
- Do you keep your twitter feed rolling hourly with tech related and insightful tweets about the latest Webapp Framework you're toying with?
- Do you keep your Facebook profile clean and up to date with a nice profile pic of you at that tech conference you went to last month?
I dunno, just a few ideas I had while sitting here thinking about how my contract is up in a few months and I'll need to start looking again soon (after a few months on the beach that is!).
Just wondering if anyone else had any unique or crazy ways they try and impress a client reading over their CV trying to decide if sharing a birth month is a good enough reason to pick Jane over John?
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