Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Shaun.P

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 14, 2003
1,601
24
Omicron Persei 8
Hi there,

I am twenty, have dropped out of uni but I am hoping to go back in September to resit my second year. I am currently working in Burger King. Hate it, and I am looking for a better job.

I have attached my CV and I would really, really appreciate any feedback on it, font, layout, wording, everything. If I don't get a new job soon with more hours and a better pay, I'm going to be in a financial mess!

Thank you for any assistance you have to offer.

Shaun

P.S. Do I need a cover letter? If so, what do I write in it and how should the layout go?
 
is a CV the same thing as a resume?

Yes, maybe a British thing not sure

CV = curriculum vitae

In regards to the CV

Too chatty, need to rephrase this "hope to return to sit my second year later on in the year." too many years close together. In the profile every sentence starts with I, rephrase.

Why do you not mention your work with the Orange Shop in the experience section.

I would remove your qualifications to near the end, put Skills where qualifications is.

"and ensuring that the food is of the high standard customers expect." really, perhaps over exaggerating

"Overall, I would say I received a great deal of knowledge and experience from this job." Maybe change the knowledge to key personal skills, because it seems to me that the knowledge of working in a cinema isn't really transferable to other areas where as the skills you learnt are.

Maybe ditch the work experience.

I got the overall impression of being too chatty and possible over exaggeration along with some inconsistencies. The first page is too boring, I not really interested in what you got way back in 2003-2004.

I would've put it in the bin if I were the person who received this CV, too be brutally honest.

Yes you need a covering letter and it is best to tailor the CV to the specific job rather than have 1 overall CV.

Covering letters should ideally be short, explain what job you are looking for. Make sure you address the covering letter to the correct person, don't be afraid to call the company and ask who in particular it should be sent to.

You have a good working foundation and I'm sure people on here, myself included will be willing to review any changes.
 
Shaun - please attach a version without your personal info, or at least put in a dummy last name, address, etc.

Thanks!
 
Reuploaded CV.

Ok - changes I think I am going to make:

Remove the 5 day work experience
Remove the 'Standard Grade' Qualifications. Highers are more important in Scotland (these are used to enter University).

What about the layout and the font? I'm not really good with wording documents and stuff, so if anyone has any ideas for stuff to pad the skills bit out a bit then please let me know! Yes and I agree with the person who said I was exaggerating with the Burger King bit, but I didn't really know what else to write.

Thank you for your assistance.

Shaun
 
Take out the high school marks, no one at this stage cares anymore.

Say returning to univeristy to complete my degree instead of going back to second year.

Do you have any voluneteer experience to help pad the experience section.
Like dog walking etc?

Office Assistant, Job Centre; Irvine — 5 Day Work Experience < on this one change the five days to month and year. Its not lying...

Do you have any skills with computers ie good with Word excel etc.?
do you have first aid training? Any other certificated and diplomas?

What sort of job are you looking for?
cause right now your CV does not have anything specific in to even interview by. With the amount of experiece you have try to fit it onto one page.
 
Take out the high school marks, no one at this stage cares anymore.

No, keep the Higher grades in. They mean alot in Scotland. Especially considering, you haven't completed post Secondary education.

Do you have any voluneteer experience to help pad the experience section. Like dog walking etc?

That's not really that relevant over here unless tied to a specific field. For example a Med Student applicant would be wise to mention any experience in Healthcare they have had.

David
 
I can't speak for the UK style, so everything I say pertain to the US style.

This is not a CV, first of all. CV is primarily for academia, and usually consist of mostly papers you have published, research in your area. This is a resumé, there are some differences.

In your "Profile", or usually called "Objective", I took the liberty to edit a bit.

<Your title> with <skill useful for the position> looking for <position>. Strengths include proven reliable work ethics, good teamwork skill, <and insert more> demonstrated through previous work experience and activities.

<Your title> is a title for yourself that's relative the position you are looking for. You might have to change it for different position you might be applying. If you can't think of anything too strong, just put Second year Mathematics major student.

<Skill useful for the position> is something that you are good at that's particularly important for this position. General strength not count. For instance, if you are applying to a accounting firm (just an example) and you have a certificate, that's the place to put it.

<position> is where you put specifically what you are looking for. Again if you are applying to a few places, you might consider tailor this too.

-Your exact age is somewhat irrelevant.
-Your resumé isn't meant to be a personal statement. It's a description for yourself, objectively.

In the Education section, you want to be more specific. I don't know what's the grade point average (GPA, a general scale for your academic performances) equivalent in UK, but that'd be useful. If you have any honors from the school, also put it in there. If you have taken any technical courses, or courses that might be of interest to your potential employer, put it in here.

I'd take out the qualification. If useful you can put some important ones in the education section, or later skill section)

Work Experience, you should list your job responsibilities for each position. For instance (also note the format):

Burger King----------------March 2007 to Present
Crew Member--------------Irvine, State-equivalent
-Take orders from customer
-Make burger
-Stock inventory

Just examples. I can't see what you did from your description, but you want to outline your responsibilities for while you worked there. Also, is Irvine a city, a town or something? What's the bigger municipal? For instance, in US, I'd put: City, State.

Also you want to have consistent format. Even if you worked for 5 days, you still want to use proper month, year format.

Skill. Maturity is not a skill. that's a characteristics. But you can't put mature because it's too vague. Professional attitude and team work skills are specific enough, but these are still not "skill", they belong at the end of the Objective, if anywhere.

Computer expertise is not specific enough. What do you know about computers, what software do you know how to use? Do you know how to troubleshoot? etc.

Do you speak another language? that's something to put in the skill.

Telephone manner and capacity and enthusiasm for learning are not skills either. They are good personal quality, but not skills.

You might not want to put references in your resumé, but put something like "References available upon request".

I think that's all I have to say for now :), Sorry it's long. It's not as bad as I made it sound, it's good to start building resumé early, and it looks like you have quite some experience.

Oh another thing, try to fit everything in as little number of pages as possible, with regular font size of course, but you can minimize the line space, minimize the page margin.
 
I can't speak for the UK style, so everything I say pertain to the US style.

This is not a CV, first of all. CV is primarily for academia, and usually consist of mostly papers you have published, research in your area. This is a resumé, there are some differences.

As you said you can't speak for the UK, over here this is a CV. Geographical difference. So when some from the UK talks about a CV in American then mean resumé. We use both terms interchangeably.

Taken from Dictionary.app

"a brief account of a person's education, qualifications, and previous experience, typically sent with a job application."

Then wikipedia.

"(UK) A written account of one's life comprising one's education, accomplishments, work experience, publications, etc.; especially, one used to apply for a job. Abbreviation: CV"
 
As you said you can't speak for the UK, over here this is a CV. Geographical difference. So when some from the UK talks about a CV in American then mean resumé. We use both terms interchangeably.

I thought that was the same re: German CVs. Nope. German CVs can be narrative life stories and must include a photo.
 
i'm calling your references :p Norah Jones...HOLLA!

Everywhere is different when it comes to a CV, but where I live

less is more

Cut it down, your opening paragraph is too long. Get your skills higher up, and cut down your work experience. Emphasize that at Burger King you offered extremely good Customer SERVICE, same with the movie theater.

also, I've never had to put my grades on a CV or resume or cover letter! Why do you have yours on there? is that a UK thing?

You're at BK right now, you hate it, so send it out too as many places as you can, just flood the area. You'll be outta BK in no time!

I used to work at Wendy's.....ya that sucked.
 
Changes:

Okay, I'm in the middle of updating my CV right now after reading your invaluable comments. After reading these comments, I have decided:

Remove dates from qualifications - merge into one. Remove standard grade qualifications - these are unimportant compared to highers.

Remove 5 day work experience. It's unimportant and this was only really required for getting my first job.

Swap around recent employment with qualifications. People want to see this first, am I right?

Font is disgusting. I'm thinking of changing it to Tahoma or Verdana. There isn't a lot of reading here, so I should be using a sans serif font to make it easier on the eye. What font do you recommend? Arial, Tahoma, Verdana, or something else?

Should I still call 'profile' profile? Or should I change this?

I'm trying to not use 'I' but it's hard! I'm finding it difficult to write my profile part.

The reason I have an Orange Shop reference without any work experience there is because a friend of a friend is a manager and she knows a manager which has a vancancy in one of her shops. So I'm using her for a character reference. This reference will only be displayed on the single cv that I use to apply to the Orange shop.
 
How is this?

Twenty year-old honest, reliable, dynamic individual with a friendly attitude towards customers and staff alike. Keen to go out of my way to help others and believe firmly in patience with people and in doing my share. Always eager to learn new skills.

Compared with:

I am twenty years old. I have completed my first year at the University of Glasgow studying Maths and hope to return to sit my second year later on in the year. I am very reliable, honest and trustworthy and I also have a friendly attitude and work well as part of a team. I am keen to go out of my way to help others, and believe firmly in patience with people, and in doing my share. I am always keen to learn new skills.
 
How is this?

Twenty year-old honest, reliable, dynamic individual with a friendly attitude towards customers and staff alike. Keen to go out of my way to help others and believe firmly in patience with people and in doing my share. Always eager to learn new skills.
Vast improvement. Same sentiments in much less space, and, as others have said, less is more, as long as you don't leave out anything truly important. The goal is to tell them everything they need to know to want you and nothing else you don't absolutely have to include.
 
Vast improvement. Same sentiments in much less space, and, as others have said, less is more, as long as you don't leave out anything truly important. The goal is to tell them everything they need to know to want you and nothing else you don't absolutely have to include.

Thank you.

I've set the line spacing at 1.2. Before it was just at one. How do you think it compares to the bottom of this image where the line spacing hasn't been changed?
 
Should I briefly bullet point my previous work experience or leave it as paragraphs (which I will restructure to shorter and to the point)?
 
Should I briefly bullet point my previous work experience or leave it as paragraphs (which I will restructure to shorter and to the point)?

IMO, bullet points good, paragraphs bad. Paragraphs look like a block of inpenetrable text, bullet points are BBC bite-size style, easy-to-digest facts. In fact, I try to avoid full sentences altogether, and just make short, punchy statements. Additionally, bullet points can help fill the page a bit more with less white space

Skills could go higher up, flesh them out a bit (e.g. what sort of computer expertise?)

Give your degree its proper title (e.g. BSc Mathematical Sciences or whatever it is). Do you have any preliminary grades?


In terms of layout:

1. smaller margin, I say 2 cm each side
2. get rid of nasty Times Roman and try something sans-serif (I like Myriad, and yes, that was well before I even discovered Apple!)
 
Ok, I've updated it a little bit and thought I'd show you. It's about 60% complete. It's mostly what's on the first page that is new. Do you think this is an improvement or did you like it before?

Any further advice?

I don't like how the layout of the education and qualification section (which I combined) looks.

Does anyone have key skills that an employer would be especially looking for that I could jot down?

Shaun
 
I love the myriad font however I don't have it in my system.

Mod note: As Myriad is not a Tiger font (thanks to Mitthrawnuruodo for the link), a request for it is not allowed on these forums, as itwould likely be illegal. If someone knows of a legal way to obtain it without purchase, feel free to post that.
 
I love the myriad font however I don't have it in my system. Can someone send the font to install?

Shaun

You don't want to use a font that a potential employer won't have. Just use something standard like Times, Arial, etc. Plus you'll find that many job sites ask you to copy and paste your resume anyway so nice fonts are a waste.
 
Do you have me on your ignored list or did you intentionally ignore some of my comments?

1. in education, you want to put a bit more information. can someone from UK that knows what GPA means tell me what's the UK equivalent?

2. I'd take out the qualification part. I've not ever seen a resumé with grades in them. Where were these grades from anyway? Are these grades from standardized tests? If not, they don't mean much.

That's different from if your employer asks for your past transcript, in which case you can show he/she your past grades.

3. In your previous experiences, you want to put your employer first. in this format:

Burger King
Crew Member

not vice versa. You are only a crew member to burger king. You are not a crew member to other people. Therefore the "crew member" is under burger king.

4. "Offer extremely good customer service" is subjective and is NOT a task you did while you were at burger king. That does not belong to your CV/resumé, it belongs to recommendation letter.

Make sure your grammar is correct and consistent.

for instance

Customer Sales and Service Assistant,Odeon Cinemas; Kilmarnock, Ayrshire
September 2005 – March 2007
• Gained valuable experience using computer-booking systems and tills,
• Acquired sales experience selling tickets and merchandise,
• Often dealing with public enquiries, either in person or on the telephone,
• Given the opportunity to practice my time management skills,
• Received training on how to deal with any customer concerns.

should be
Odeon Cinemas; Kilmarnock, Ayrshire
Customer Sales and Service Assistant
September 2005 – March 2007
• Gained valuable experience using computer-booking systems and tills,
• Acquired sales experience selling tickets and merchandise,
Dealt with public enquiries, either in person or on the telephone,
Practiced [] time management skills,
• Received training on [dealing] with [] customer concerns.



5. Telephone manner and enthusiasm for further learning is NOT a skill. However, computer expertise is. You should elaborate on the computer expertise
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.