Interview myths - never talk negatively about your previous employer

It’s a commonly held belief that you should not talk negatively about previous employers/managers when interviewing.

Why?

If you’ve been working overtime to clear up the mess left behind by shoddy processes and a temperamental boss who doesn’t know what they’re doing, why should you fall in line and be expected to come up with some other reason for wanting to move on?

Maybe your boss has his or her favourites in the team, who they’d prefer to give the interesting work and promotions to, and this isn’t based on merit, but on who accompanies them to the pub most often to listen to their tales of business dominance.

So what should you do if you find yourself in this situation and you’re asked at interview why you’re looking for a move?

Tell the truth! 

It may be negative, and you would probably be wise not to go in to granular detail about all the goings-on, but if you can explain the key reason/s without getting personal and put any examples in to the context of how they have a negative impact on work performance or on your career development, then these are perfectly valid reasons and therefore a prospective employer should have no reason to cause alarm.

Exercising some discretion is of course advised, but it’s far better to be open and honest than to conjure up some alternative reason, which may come across as vague and lead them to assume (rightly) that there’s something you’re not telling them. 

Have you found yourself in this situation? How did you deal with it if so?

Writing an effective CV - keep it simple!

If you search online for advice on preparing your CV, you will find a whole world of contradictory tips, guidelines, rules and warnings.

Most sites/articles will undoubtedly offer some great advice, and broadly speaking there are some rights and wrongs that should be adhered to, but when it boils down to it, it’s the relevance of your experience that will secure you an interview, not the layout of your CV.

This isn't to say that you can’t decrease your chances of securing an interview by sending through a badly designed CV however. There are definitely ‘wrong’ ways to present your CV, and you can undermine years of relevant experience with poor spelling and grammar, or by hiding away the key skills and achievements somewhere they’ll get overlooked.

In my opinion, the key to a successful CV is to keep things simple and ensure that the first page provides the reader with quick and clear access to the most pertinent skills and experience relevant to the role you are applying for. This will most likely include your academic achievements and qualifications, your IT/Systems experience and details of your current or most recent experience.  Your goal should be to secure an interview before they’ve even reached the second page!  

Here are my tips on how to write an effective CV:

• Ignore any ‘golden rules’ on the ideal number of pages your CV should cover. If you have many years experience and/or lots of achievements and experience don’t leave it out just so you can squeeze it in to two pages.
• Make sure your qualifications and skills (e.g. systems, languages) are at the top of page one, followed by your current position and then working backwards through you career from there. If a potential employer is only interested in the last few years, it’s no problem if they decide to skip pages 3 and 4.
• Lay off the clever formatting. Fancy borders and embossed headers may look pretty, but your CV’s not going to get framed and hung up on a wall. Better to just keep it looking clean & simple and let your experience do the wooing.
• Spell-check is not infallible. When you think you've finished, take a break from the screen, have a cup of tea and then re-read it one last time. Slowly!  
• Personal profiles. A topic that I’ll come back to soon in a blog of its own, but for now, try to avoid clichés and statements that offer no examples or evidence to back them up.

Finally, I know some social-media champions will have you believe the traditional CV/resume is on its deathbed and a job seeker will soon only need an online professional profile, but I'm pretty confident it’s got at least a few years left in it for now, so hopefully this blog will remain relevant for a little while yet.

If you’ve got a different view to those above, or have any other CV tips you’d like to share, please do add a comment below.