CV, Curriculum Vitae, or more accurately (for job seekers) Resume, occupies a larger than life position in the mind of every job seeker. And you can’t blame them. Most vacancy announcements invariably require a Resume/CV as the first point of contact for evaluation/screening purposes. Whenever you inform a contact you are looking for a job, the next question is “can you let me have your CV?” Without it, nothing can be done apologies, to Sir Shina Peters

Really, I cannot take away anything from that reality. A good CV is pivotal to an effective job search. Then it is no wonder that the road to a good job will bumpy and may be barren if your Resume/CV is not good enough. Unfortunately not less than 60% of documents brandied about as Resume/CV are really of any use. Another 20% are barely manageable, and cannot survive fierce competition, which is not unusual in the Nigerian job market. In fact less than 10% are perfect or near perfect. So what are the fatal error

i)Undefined and ill- defined job target.[/size]
Though it may not necessarily be on the Resume/CV, having a clearly defined job target/ objective is sine qua none for the development of a good Resume/CV, indeed for an effective job search. It provides the focus of the Resume/CV. It affects the content and points of emphasis. Unfortunately most job objectives are not clearly stated and clarified, while some job candidates don’t even have a job objective. “ I don’t mind any job, just anything”, is a usual response to the question,“ what kind of job are you looking for?” The issues are what would you like to do, given your skills and experience? Where (industry, locale) do you want to work? What are important to you- career, opportunity for growth and development, traveling, room for creativity, independence, conditions of service, salaries, emoluments, training opportunities etc). You need to get all these clear in your mind, or better still, produced in a written form as your objective. (Whether you will eventually put it on your Resume/CV is another thing)

ii) Poor understanding of the purpose for a Resume/CV.
You must understand this; Your Resume/CV on its own is not meant to get you a job. This misguided reasoning is why you have Resume/CVs that is more or less a detailed life history of the candidate, sometimes, in flowery prose or crammed bullet power points. And when you are not qualified for the job, or not in any way near qualifying, your C.V won’t give you the desired response. Your Resume/CV is your sales brochure – except you are the product!

iii) Inclusion of irrelevant information and exclusion of useful information.
The errors of including information that have no bearing on the vacant position/job search are fairly common, and often due to ignorance or the need to ‘bulk-up’ the Resume/CV. The other variant is provision of incomplete information is but in this case, it is usually due to carelessness. I have seen Resume/CV without a contact address. The usual destination for such document is the bin. Your Resume/CV is expected to provide basic information such as your education attainment and work history. It is should also contain other information that is relevant to providing prima facie evidence that you are not only worthy of consideration for the job, but also better than the other applicants. Recently, I was involved in conducting interview for technical sales person. One key requirement was at least 1-year sales experience. So I was a surprise to see the Resume/CV of a candidate with 2-year relevant experience, but nothing on the Resume/CV reflected this. We had to find out in the course of the interview. He was extremely lucky. Most people are not that lucky, as there are usually hundreds of applicants to be screened, leaving no room for detailed examination of uninspiring CV/Resume. Your Resume/CV must contain all key information relevant and required to position you as suitable for the job. For example, if a job requires considerable experience and training, all your on -the -job- training, seminars and workshops attended are as important as formal education. They must be included. But such training that has no bearing whatsoever on the position at hand must be excluded.

iv). Inconsistency and obvious lack of integrity.
A while ago, a candidate claimed that he was a sales manager with a pharmaceutical firm. Unfortunately, he was taking to people with extensive experience in that industry. One of the questions he was asked was “ can you name some of your customers? “ He fell flat. “Can you name you main products? ” He could only ramble. You must be ready and adequately able to defend the claims, facts and figures reflected in your CV/ Résumé. More relevant to the topic of today is that your Resume/CV must be internally consistent, and must show integrity. For example, when a 40-year old claim to have started primary school at 4, he needs a solid defense. Most children started school at 7-8 yr in the 60’s and 70’s. Can your educational and work history hold together? Your Resume/CV should hold up to scrutiny. You are heading for trouble when your parts and number are not compatible. Or when the content of your Resume/CV are not in harmony. It is an extremely serious error when dates are not consistent; and claims of experience and related activities do not support your qualifications.
Another critical and immutable rule is that you should not lie in your CV: it is usually the end of the road whenever it is discovered in the selection process. Besides, it may come to haunt you much, much, latter. O yes, you are allowed to avoid putting negative things about yourself, and to stretch the truth as much as you can. In fact you are expected to present an honest presentation of your best abilities.

v). Poor visual impact.
People in marketing knows the importance of physical attractiveness of product packaging- it is a key selling element. When your Resume/CV /CV is poorly laid out, crammed, haphazardly arranged, full of variations of fonts style, size etc, it is a sure put off. Some Resume/CVs are have be photocopied so many times (using bad photocopier) that it requires great effort to decipher what was there.
A piece of Resume/CV, likes sales literature has only 2-3 seconds to attract the reader’s attention, even before it is read. Many advertising techniques apply including use of white space, bullets, indentation and moderately varied type style. Never, never handwrite your Resume/CV (I have seen this!)



vi). Wrong or Inappropriate language.
Resume/CVs have their own language. For a start, it must be skill- based. Now there are many way of presenting these skills. What you say is important, but how you say it is just as important. To highlight your skills and qualifications, do not use passive verbs, if you want to stand out. Use of measures also strengthen statement of accomplishments and makes believed
Resume/CVs are not literary work; they are actually promotional. So the rules of grammar are modified from formal writing. It is not good to use “I” and to write long narratives. The employer won’t have the time to read hundreds of individual stories. Ask yourself,“ can someone reading this Resume/CV easily understand what my skills are? Does this Resume/CV specify what I can do to help the employer? Is the content “ tailored” to the job at hand?”
vii) Typos, grammatical and unforgivable errors.
We have said in this column times and again that the employer believe that he way you conduct your job search is the way you do your work. It is easy to infer that a candidate has poor mastery of English Language if his Resume/CV is riddled with typographical and/ or grammatical errors. The other possible conclusion is that he is a careless person. Neither reason / conclusion is helpful in a job search. And there is really no way to differentiates between genuine error or carelessness/ incompetence. By all means remove such errors from your Resume/CV. They are absolutely unacceptable to most employers; and may lead your document to the shredder. Correcting such errors using handwriting is also a no, no, no.

viii) Resume/CVs without “sell”.
As already said elsewhere, your Resume/CV is an important self – marketing tool. In the job market, the “article” for sale is your candidature, and you happen to be the salesperson. Your Resume/CV is your sales brochure/literature. So its content, packaging and presentation must have “sell”.
Unfortunately, most Resume/CVs are full of duties and duties. What they do not understand is that every position have duties and responsibilities, But not all occupiers of that position are able and successful. Employers are looking for occupiers that have abilities and are successful –often stated as a track record. So if your Resume/CV fails to identify and communicate your skills and accomplishments, then it will understandably be very ineffective. Your Resume/CV contains events in the past. But employers extrapolate your level of performance in the past and project it into the future. Another part of “sell” is employing key-words, the relevant statement of skills and abilities in the language understood and used in the field or occupation you are targeting . Also important is whether you understand how to deploy these to make subtle and obvious points of emphasis, as may be required for each job position or different job objective/ targets ( targeted Resume).And you should not de-market yourself by excluding information and skills that are relevant to your job search- it doesn’t matter whether is work acquired or not. You will also not be doing yourself any good if your abilities and achievements are exaggerated and coated in superlatives as to make them unbelievable! More importantly, your achievements are better stated using measures and figures wherever possible. ‘I made the highest sales in my former company last year”-meaning what? “I made great improvement in our cost management during my 3yr. stay in XYZ plc.” How great? What costs? Figures and measures please!

ix) Wrong Usage and Distribution Strategies. Even if you have a perfect Resume/CV, deploying it wrongly will certainly render it completely ineffective .It is akin to shooting at a target inaccurately (Sure, employers with advertised job opening, or those without current openings but may have in future and recruitment agencies need to have your Resume/CV. But there are others good opportunities to use your CV/Resume. At any rate observe these in deploying your perfect Resume:

• Do not send Resume/CV to a job title such as “ production manager “ If you can help it, do the extra work required to uncover the actual title and real names of the manager in question.
• Don’t send your Resume/CV to the personnel human resources department alone: get it to the person with – the –power-to hire, most likely the head of department where you want to work c) do not send your Resume/CV without a proper and effective cover letter
• Mass- mailing your Resume/CV to uncountable employers is not effective
• Always bring extra copies of your Resume/CV to an interview
• Always have your Resume/CV with you or at hand. You never can tell where and when you will need it.


x) One Resume/CV for all is obsolete.
We all have an array of skills; we hardly can use or need all of them to perform in a job situation. Besides, no two jobs are exactly the same, just as no two employers are exactly the same either. And some people have more than one job targets/ objectives.
In view of these, it is clear that it may be difficult to have only one Resume/CV that will be appropriate and relevant to all job positions. So it is advised, especially for candidate will long work history, to target their CV. Ideally, all Resume/CVs should target the needs of a particular employer and a specific job position. This approach targets the needs of an employer and a specific job. However, it requires careful research of the industry, the employer, and the job position. This is a very powerful Resume/CV strategy that can set you apart and capture an employer’s interest.

xi) Inappropriate format.
Your contents per se may be good and adequate. But it is possible that you have used the wrong, or better still the inappropriate format to present them.
Basically, there are two formats chronological and functional Resume/CV. The third type combines the elements of the first two. Chronological format emphasizes a chorological listing of employment and employment- related experiences. The functional Resume/CV highlights skills, experiences and achievements without identifying specific dates, names and places.
These basic formats do have variations.
Whichever format you use depends on your work experience, growth pattern continuity of work experience, the dictates of the position, the specific information requirement of the employer, etc. It must be mentioned here that your Resume/CV is not expected to be more than 2-3 pages. It is not expected to be a ‘long hand history of your working and non-working life.
Sales people know that to succeed, you must be able to present your product in 2-3 minutes, otherwise the prospect may lose interest. The same principle applies here. I believe that whatever is key to your job search can be put in 2-3 pages. If you have something longer than this visit it with a well-sharpened machete, cut it out ruthlessly. You will be better of for it: these days when hundreds of applications are received for less than 10 positions, the employee won’t have the time reading all to determine what is important in your Resume/CV, and what is not You will probably achieve more if you use power point bullet presentation instead of flowing prose. You need to be simple, sharp and concise, using the smallest member of words to say what you want to say.
A strong resume is expected to achieve the following :
 show that you can contribute positively to any job you take, as you have evidently done so in you previoUs engagements;
 show ,clearly, that you are goal-driven, organized and ambitious;
 overall, convey an image of you that says that person looking at your resume can conclude/proceed with his selection process without talking to you. Your resume will or won’t, achieve these on the strength of hoe you present your work experience, on the tone and readability and on its overall aesthetic appeal. Unfortunately most Resumes are ‘strong’ in only in one area but not in the others.
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Forget all these long story, there are no jobs, FULL STOP. Regardless of how your CV appears so far its a detailed moderate CV. If there are jobs you'd definitely get one. Gbam. Don't be deceived by all these story of new format for CV's and all that ish.

That is rather pessimistic. Sounds like Kodeblur is currently employed or self-employed. See, if you are truly in the job market, then do the right things to position yourself for the opportunity. Whatever, never give up. The journey to job-hunting success is NO, NO, NO,NO, NO, NO, NO,NO, NO, NO, NO,NO, NO, NO, NO,NO,NO, NO, NO,NO, NO, NO, NO,NO, YES!!!!.

Job Search Guru: That is rather pessimistic. Sounds like Kodeblur is currently employed or self-employed. See, if you are truly in the job market, then do the right things to position yourself for the opportunity. Whatever, never give up. The journey to job-hunting success is NO, NO, NO,NO, NO, NO, NO,NO, NO, NO, NO,NO, NO, NO, NO,NO,NO, NO, NO,NO, NO, NO, NO,NO, YES!!!!.

pls stop all dis noise,if it realy work as u have claim why haven't u used dat same format to get a job for urself And u are still job hunting,my guy sAve ur grammar all those crab u Wrote doesn't make sense..