In line with our mission to empower the Nigerian job seeker, Jobfiner introduces a new series of articles that will deal with a range of issues like CV writing that plagues the average Nigerian job seeker.
Contributing these articles will be Chinedu Duru, Managing Consultant Hamilton Lloyd and Associates, a boutique Human Resources company based in Nigeria. Prior to this, he was Country Manager of Pedersen and Partners in Nigeria. Founded in 2001, Pedersen & Partners is an international executive search firm operating 50 wholly owned offices. Earlier, he was Managing Consultant of Stanton Chase Nigeria. Stanton Chase is a partner-owned global Executive Search firm with presence in 69 cities in 42 countries. In 2007, Chinedu worked with Kimberly Ryan Ltd, a leading HR Consulting firm in Africa with presence in Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana and he headed the Abuja and Northern Nigeria operations of the organization. In that capacity, he led in the provision of solutions to clients in strategy and systems, recruitment and selection, training and development, outsourcing, etc. Before Kimberly Ryan, he also helped set-up Theory Z Consulting, a broad spectrum consulting firm where he was Consultant in the area of Food Franchising and in the Oil & Gas sector. He also had prior work stints in the food and telecommunications industries.
Mr Duru will be bringing his wealth of experience in the recruitment process on board as he writes on various ways candidates can improve their employability. Enjoy!
Resumes or Curriculum Vitae have not remained static over time. They have continually evolved along the line of formatting, key elements and medium of delivery. While we acknowledge that there is no universally agreed 2012 format for writing resumes, there are however, areas of commonality that are agreed to be best practice in the field. For the purpose of this article I will use the Resume and Curriculum Vitae interchangeably. The key difference between the two is that Resumes are shorter 2 page summaries of skills, experience and education, while the Curriculum Vitae is more detailed and longer – containing publications, awards, research, affiliations’, achievements etc. It is important for the job seeker to keep abreast of those trends in order to ensure that they place a striking and functional resume before prospective employers or recruiters. Below are some current trends worth incorporating in resume or CV preparation.
Cover Letters: Cover letters have again begun to assume importance to both corporate and consultant recruiters in recent times. Gone is the ‘old school’ one or two page cover letter that literally contains all the data in the Curriculum Vitae and replacing it is the considerably less wordy email cover letter. Especially in this day and age of internet applications and the evolving text-message language, the cover letter tells the recruiter that the potential candidate can at least communicate in regular English. This has assumed even more importance in Nigeria in view of the dwindling standard of higher education. With many graduates unable to put correct sentences together, a cover letter shows the hiring manager your writing style, spelling, grammar and choice of words. The email cover letter is typically shorter than the traditional one, slightly less formal and usually not more than 2 or 3 paragraphs.
Achievements in each Job Role: The Hiring manager or recruiter is increasingly more interested in what you have achieved in previous employments than in your description of the responsibilities of the role. Itemize (or ‘bullet- point’) your achievements in all the organizations where you have worked and be very specific about them in your CV. For example, “Increased customer base by 50 % in 2012 or moved turnover from 1 million to 10.5 million in 2010’.While the description of what you did in the role is still relevant, most hiring managers will typically ask you to explain the role at the interview stage. But it is your achievements however, that will get you into the next stage in the recruitment process- the interview stage.
Qualification for the Position: Do not apply for any job that you are not qualified for. You cannot be ‘prayed’ into succeeding in the job process as many Nigerian applicants tend to believe. This ‘applying by faith’ is probably what accounts for thousands of people applying for one job; out of which, in most cases, less that 5% are actually qualified! You must first have the minimum qualifications for the role before you can be considered at all. The reason is that the hiring manager or the external recruiter will look very unprofessional if he or she were to ‘short-list’ a candidate that is not qualified for the role. Yes, recruiters sometimes include discretionary “wild-card” candidates; but such candidates are usually exceptional in some aspect of the job requirements before they can be considered. For example, candidate with glowing achievements but with only 3 years of experience can be considered for a role that requires 5/6 years of experience. This is the exceptions, not the rule.
Use of Matching Words: Hiring managers and recruiters prefer resumes where the key concepts in the job description for the role match those in the body of the resume. It is advisable that these keywords be used both in the cover letter and in the body of the resume. It makes the resume sifting easier for the recruiter, especially if he has a high volume of CVs to go through. A second compelling reason to use keywords in your resume in 2012 is that IT-based application tracking systems now being used by many big firms are based on searching out key words pertaining to the role.
The Use of Photographs on your Resume: The ‘jury’ is definitely still out on this one – there is no consensus of opinion if photographs should be used on your resume. My recommended ‘rule of thumb’ is that if you are applying for a role that requires physical visibility e.g. customer service, receptionist etc. it may be advisable to add a photo to the resume. Typically, it should be a passport size photo and it should be carefully taken to enhance your best features. It is usually placed in the top right-hand corner of the resume. Remember you are trying to get your resume selected and move to the next stage of the process; so if you believe your photograph will swing things in your favour, go right ahead.
The CV layout and Font: There is no excuse in this day and age of structured and downloadable CV formats to have poorly put together resume. Yes, I can tell you authoritatively that the layout, arrangement of sections, attention to detail and flow of your resume do make a lot of difference to the internal and external recruiter! The font that is chosen, use of white space, bullet-points, etc many times makes the difference between a dumped CV and one that is given a second look.
Current Internet Trends: This is the age of the internet and smart devices. Job seekers in 2012 must maintain their visibility in cyberspace and must place their resumes and profiles where they will be seen by the internal and external hiring managers. Some of the popular and growing media are below:
A.LinkedIn and Other Social Media: It has become absolutely necessary for the job seeker to have a LinkedIn profile. Through LinkedIn, you can connect potential hiring managers and sell your strengths and capabilities. In addition, hiring managers are using Facebook and other similar media to profile candidates for ‘job fit’ into the roles they are hiring. Be careful what you say about yourself or post in social media!
B.Other Resume Design media: Though not popular in Nigeria yet, resumes are being designed and communicated through different media such as Visualize.me. Visualize.me creates a resume for you which the creators have described as “beautiful, relevant and fun and allow people to express their professional accomplishments in a compelling personal visualization”. They see themselves as the future of resumes. (Check them out on-line at Visualize.me).
C.Another innovation that is gathering momentum is the QR Code – quick response code which is a bar code that can be scanned by smart phones to download or link information from the back of a business card. In other words, prospective recruiters can download your CV through your complementary card! Video resumes are also beginning to get noticed. Some companies, especially in cutting edge IT are beginning to request for video resumes.
In conclusion, Job seekers have to be more proactive, thorough and internet savvy in 2012. The objective is to place your resume before the internal or external hiring manager and to get it noticed. Remember that job-hunting is your first job and how long you stay on your first job depends more on you than you imagine.
No comments:
Post a Comment