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CIS University Workshop on how to create your first Curriculum Vitae 1

Workshop on how to create your first Curriculum Vitae

Put yourself in the situation of a real conversation with a Human Resources Director:

“Imagine that you are the person in charge of personnel in an advertising multinational, and you have already verified that for each job position that you offer, you receive up to 40 applications. There are at least 40 curricula that must be reviewed on the monitor and screened on the fly until they are reduced to 10.

Those 10 remaining documents are printed and studied in detail, looking for errors or inconsistencies, and even asking mutual acquaintances and friends to certify data. The 10 applicants are exhaustively analyzed until the options are shortlisted to 3 candidates, who will now be invited to headquarters for a personal interview where only one will obtain the position.

Now imagine that from day one you have a format error in your CV and no one warns you about it. This mistake will rule you out in the early stages of all the selection processes in which you apply, and can weigh down your options for months or years – especially if it is your first time in the labor market.”

With this initial anecdote, Professor Gabriel Ferrer opened his workshop for CIS University students on “How to write your first Curriculum“, being part of the training given to students with the aim of joining the labor market as easily as possible. And it is at CIS University, an American university, where we take special care of this aspect, from how to go through job interviews, make your resume more attractive and to adapt it to international markets.

There are a couple of rules accepted by all when we write our first resume, such as the maximum extension of 2 pages or the preference of the PDF format when sending it by mail, since these types of files are easy to print and do not change their appearance depending on the operating system of the receiver.

However, there are 2 fundamental rules that are often ignored and that Professor Ferrer calls “the golden and silver rules in writing your CV“.

CIS University Workshop on how to create your first Curriculum Vitae 2

 The 2 most important rules when writing your CV

In the first place, one of the most common mistakes is to create an initial resume, save it on our hard drive, and send it indiscriminately to all the job offers that arise. It is a common mistake because it shows little interest and prevents us from refining our suitability with the potential recruiter.

The golden rule establishes that we must start from an initial template or more or less complete model, and depending on the company to which we want to apply, we will modify the content and even the appearance of our CV. Before writing our profile, we should do a little research about where we want to work. Is it a creative or administrative organization? Do they appreciate design touches and bright colors in documents, or are they more cold and minimalist? Do they recognize international experience as valuable or do they give more importance to your humanitarian work? Depending on these responses, we will “customize” our resume in one way or another and send a specific copy only for that job offer.

This process must be repeated each time we apply for a different offer.

The silver rule is a consequence of the initial anecdote and the need to have a competitive resume that does not rule you out in the early stages of the process. We can summarize it as: “make it easy for the recruiter.”

It is often said that “what does not add subtracts”, but it is also that we must facilitate the work of those people who are going to read our job sheet together with dozens of other candidates, therefore, we must display the right information, (nor much or little), in the clearest, simplest and easiest to read way possible. Keep in mind what Professor Ferrer pointed out:

“Many valid candidates are initially rejected because their CV has formatting flaws (too small or inadequate typography), which does not invite the head-hunter to read and end up being overshadowed by other inferior but more efficient applicants at the time when it comes to showing information and being more skillful in simplifying the job of the recruiter.”