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Tips for Writing a Good CV

When it comes to work, simply being there isn't enough. We need to achieve some good outcomes for the company at the same time.

You must have come across them - those selfless, unassuming, committed and dedicated individuals who exist in varying numbers in just about every company.

You know, the ones that concentrate on doing the best possible job they can, claiming no credit and paying no real heed to ensuring that the company acknowledges their contribution. They finish one task, maybe allow themselves just a fleeting moment of personal satisfaction and then quietly move on to the next task on their list.

At one level, there's something admirable about them. But as somebody who spends quite a bit of his time counselling people who've been made redundant, I know it's often these self-effacing, highly capable and loyal employees who are the first to be 'let go'. If nobody knows how good you really are, why would your company expect to miss you if you weren't around any more? The irony is that these people almost invariably have some solid tangible achievements under their belts. They just never let on.

We, of course, wouldn't fall into the same trap. We know that our career trajectory is only partly determined by what we do and that it's equally important that we can represent our achievements to others. Not in a deeply unpleasant Me Me Me boasting-at-the-bar way, but rather in a tone of quiet pride.

THE CAR

When it comes to depicting our achievements, both in writing and face to face, there's a structured approach that's used widely in outplacement and recruitment consultancies to help people structure their thinking about their achievements in the workplace. It's called the CAR model and it goes like this:

Challenge: the backdrop to the situation; the situation that existed before you took some action.

Action: what you did specifically to address the challenge.

Result: the business impact of your actions.

Here's a (slightly fanciful) example of the CAR model in action:

Challenge: When I first joined the organisation as Finance Manager, morale in the department was at rock bottom.

Action: Once a week, I went to work dressed as a well-known cartoon character. Every Friday afternoon, I personally served all members of the department with a variety of non-alcoholic cocktails.

Result: Morale in the department soared. The company's annual staff surveys show consistent year-on-year improvement in levels of job satisfaction within the department for each of the three years I worked there.

When we go along to an interview, the CAR model provides a useful framework for describing our organisational impact.

When writing our CV, we might sometimes drop the Challenge element as a means of saving space and in order to really emphasise our impact. Technically I suppose, this should be called the AR model.

AR versus RA

We can also subtly change the impact of our achievement statements depending on how we choose to sequence information. There can be a world of difference between an AR sequence and an RA sequence. Consider these two variations on the same achievement:

AR: Ran thirty one-day workshops on the theme of eliminating waste, which generated savings of £2m for the company.

RA: Generated savings for the company of two million as a result of running thirty oneday workshops on the theme of eliminating waste.

Now you might think I'm disappearing up my own semantic rear here, but to me the first example emphasises the technical contribution made (i.e. the running of the workshops) while the second example highlights business impact and seems to demonstrate a more organisation-focused outlook.


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