CV rage - India edition

CV rage - India edition

A long time ago I wrote a guide to the do's/do not's of writing CV's which generated some interest. Since then we've been doing a lot of recruitment in India. To celebrate the somewhat dubious milestone that I've sifted through 110 CV's of our Indian friends for a single role, I repeat the same exercise - hopefully useful for Indian candidates who are being interviewed by people overseas. I suspect that most of this is applicable to all candidates the world over, though.

- Don't plagarise stuff. Yes, I get it, you want to have amazing English mission statement at the top of your shiny CV. But write your own - don't steal it. It takes me 10 seconds to copy and paste it into google and see that you've stolen it from some guy on linkedin. It's just not cool.

- Do run a spell checker. You're really wanting a testing job but you can't be bothered to run the spell check built into word? How does that reflect on your attention to detail?

- Don't mix and match typefaces, sizes and colours. This is really my nice way of saying "when you copy & paste your entire CV together, make it look consistent!"

- Do get someone to proof-read your CV. This is especially critical if you're not writing your CV in your first language. Your CV is your foot in the door - you need to convey your worth to your prospective employer and that's difficult if your CV doesn't make sense.

- Don't forget about your contributions to projects. Quite a lot of CV's from India contain huge lists of the projects the candidate has ever worked on. Reading through them can be draining. The reviewer wants to know what your individual contribution was - thanks for writing two paragraphs on what the software did, but without knowing what your stake in it was it's just meaningless drivel.

- Do include a massive table at the top with bullet points of your experience. Similar to the last point, no-one wants to read through your entire work history without getting a flavour of whether you've got the skills they want.

Finally, interview pointers:

- Don't make an appointment if you don't want the job.

- Don't lie or bullshit. If you don't understand, say so or ask for more information. Don't just tell the interviewer what you believe they want to hear.

Anyone else unlucky enough to be in a situation like mine? Would be interested to pick up any tips and tricks of the trade.