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One of my clients is currently looking to hire a full time systems administrator (More details here), and we’re finding it incredibly difficult to find the right person. Whilst we do get a lot of CVs, I’m finding it incredibly frustrating getting solid candidates that I even want to interview. On the whole the CVs we get are very poor.

So, I thought, partly as a way to vent in a hopefully humorous and - perhaps - useful way, as well as an exercise in double-negation, I’d explain how you can guarantee that you will NOT be getting an interview when I’m looking at your CV, simply by following these easy steps:

• Use an agency that massacres careful formatting in your CV, and applies some of the rules below in a destructive and unhelpful way.
• Ensure that your CV does not contain your name. Really, it helps that we don’t know who you are. Maybe an arbitrary reference number that means nothing to me instead?
• Even if you do include your name, state the blindingly obvious by declaring as the first thing I read that the CV I am in fact looking at is, indeed, demonstrably a Curriculum Vitae
• If you do use it, please make sure you misspell Curriculum Vitae.
• Come up with an opening gambit that is grammatically incorrect, so I know that you spend lots of time on a computer and never read anything other than slashdot or digg.
• Misspell much of your carefully considered opening gambit. I mean, I don’t expect you to actually know how to use a word processor you list as a skill.
• Make no use whatsoever of the word-processors “advanced” features such as styles or formatting. Agencies can help here by copy and pasting with abandon and disregard.
• Ensure you tell me that you have a full driving license for that desk job in central London.
• Ensure you have lots and lots of keywords for products and technologies you don’t really know that well.
• Put everything down you can think of, no matter how brief your involvement, so we can have one of those really awkward interview moments where you realise you’ve wasted not only your time, but mine too.
• If you can’t think of some buzzwords, put “etc” in quite liberally. It’s really helpful because it shows you know the specifics so well, and it helps me fill out the all important details.
• Misappropriate some concepts, or demonstrate that you don’t really mean what you’ve written. Just to be helpful.
• Education. Please list everything you’ve ever done. Get that swimming certificate in there, as well as that Metalwork GCSE ‘F’ grade you’re so proud of. Because it makes all the difference when I’m comparing your CV to the person who just stated his highest level of achievement I interviewed the other day.
• Experience. Please list every contract you’ve ever done, every last one of them. Even that two month part-time contract you took for a short period whilst you were travelling in Australia just after you graduated.
• Don’t ever list a contract you did that was extended by your employer because you were quite good at what you did. Let me do the guessing.
• In fact, don’t even distinguish what’s a contract and what was actually a permanent position you hated.
• As to those permanent roles, inflate your involvement to the maximum degree possible, so when I ask you to describe your involvement in the project in that interview you’re soooo going to get, it matches what’s on your CV
• Use those lists of skills, education and experience to the max. Lots of long lists making the worst possible use of space, so it spreads over six pages without saying very much. Short, concise well-formatted CVs are for losers.
• As far as outside interests are concerned, do yourself proud and list all the things you think any self-respecting geek would do, like play with computers and socialise. Constructive, strange or interesting things with your free time just don’t cut the mustard.
• You know that really awful perl script you wrote that mangled so many concepts it resembled a 3-year old’s attempt at technical lego construction? Put that on the internet as an example of your code. Because I won’t really download it and look at it. Much less actually consider it as representative of what you’ve done.

But seriously, I find it quite shocking how many CVs that cross my inbox are simply:

• Badly spelt, with poor grammar. Nobody is perfect, but some mistakes really are unforgivable.
• Badly formatted. Long lists of skills you don’t really know any more, or are ‘learning’ are not appropriate. Keep it short, concise and - if possible - intriguing. Make me want to interview you to find out more.
• Badly considered for what is the first, and perhaps most important part, of getting a job. Take a look at it, and ask yourself what impression it gives.

A little bit of time and effort makes all the difference, as well as keeping it up to date every now and then (even if you’re not looking for a job). Show you know what you’re talking about, that you have as much pride in your CV as in the natty suit you’ve picked up for the purpose, and that you’re not putting untruths or inappropriate content in your CV.

A lot of the blame certainly rests on the shoulders of the agencies that don’t filter or check the CVs and just forward all the CVs that contain keywords (What value do they actually add?). Of course that is even before they even mangle them horribly to suit their template, but so much of it rests on the candidates shoulders.

At the risk of setting myself up for a tremendous fall, here’s my CV. Perhaps I’ll even rework the above into something a little less cynical when I’ve a bit more time….