Comment: Building a CV

There is a lot of advice available for anyone wishing to design and put together a CV – but precious little for someone starting out on their career concerning how to build up a good CV from school until that dream job.

Opinions differ, but I have had a lot of experience assessing CVs as a recruiter and for me the mistakes people make are glaringly obvious. So much will depend on how ambitious someone is – but here I shall assume they want to get to a senior position in a private-sector multinational organization. There are those who want careers in medicine, the clergy or even government (if they choose to retire early and pretend they are working) and for them I can offer little advice except “never get caught”.

Let’s start at age 18 (or thereabouts). Yes there are people who have been successful in recent times without first obtaining a degree, but most of those are entrepreneurs. If you want to start your own business formal education can actually be a hindrance rather than a help – as what you need is to think differently from other people, not the same as everyone else. But in the corporate world a good degree is essential. A necessary, but not sufficient starting point for success.

But at age 18 there are so many key decisions that youth and inexperience leave a person ill equipped to make. Taking the advice of others is equally dangerous – unless it is to research the kind of fields that naturally interest them and follow a degree that leaves them the greatest options. Some degrees will always be a sound decision – like mathematics or the law – others (like sociology and a first degree in business studies) will be a lot more risky.

What Universities will make an offer is often not in a person’s control – except it may be better to repeat a year of studies rather than accept a lowly institution. Universities specialize and are often not entirely worthless institutions in the subject that a person has chosen, but generally there is no substitute for a “blue chip” institution ranked in a country’s top third of academic bodies. Of course, a bad choice can turn into a good one if the institution later grows in reputation and that lowly degree takes on another complexion. Likewise a chance to study abroad is much respected in many countries such as China and India. Even in Europe a non-German scholar would do well to attend a German University if they got the chance.

Grade of degree used to be all important when – under the GPA or English classification systems – top grades were rare. Now in the era of slippage it is difficult to determine academic brilliance. If intelligence is evenly distributed in a population, then its academic elite would naturally account for 12-15% of the population. But in many advanced economies today over 40% of an age cohort attends University. This will inevitably reduce standards as the more brilliant student will have to be taught at the pace of the duller ones. The answer for some Polish and Canadian students who I have employed, or interviewed, is to study at the same time for two degrees – although to do so can dangerously raise stress levels and affect mental health throughout an individual’s subsequent career.

So what about the dos and dont’s of post-graduate life and how to get that killer post that sets a CV on fire for the rest of its progression? That will have to wait until my next fortnightly comment piece.

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