

Offer HN: I will review and critique your CV. - KoZeN

I'm an experienced technical recruiter based in the UK and due to the uprise in offers of assistance to this site I've decided to add my own two cents.<p>I'm willing to analyse your CV and offer constructive feedback on potential content alterations, layout, etc.<p>The logical critic in you will assume I'm offering to do this in order to generate leads or recruits and to counter-act that, I have no problem with you removing your personal details and even censoring company names.<p>As for me, I have a degree in Software Development &#38; Web Design and my target market is London and the South East. I've been in recruitment for a few years now and I have a 1st class understanding of the market. My highest fee generating clients are insurance companies &#38; financial institutions.<p>I will be doing this during my spare time and at the weekend so if the response is significant then be patient with me!<p>edit:
ATTENTION: DUE TO AN OVERWHELMING RESPONSE I CAN NO LONGER ACCEPT ANY FURTHER CV'S FOR NOW. I WILL RESPOND TO EVERYONE WHO HAS GONE TO THE EFFORT OF EMAILING ME SO FAR.
======
KoZeN
22 CV's received so far!

Looks like I'm going to be kept busy. I will do my absolute best to respond to
each and every one of you but you will need to be patient.

Anyone else looking to send me a CV, please fire away but it would help if you
could include info on what you would like me to focus on, eg. are you
concerned about specific content, is it the layout or format that you feel is
letting you down, etc.

UPDATE:

That figure has now doubled and I'm looking at over 40 CV's in my inbox. I'll
get started on them tonight and see how many I get through.

~~~
sidmitra
Here's adding to your workload - <http://sidmitra.com/resume.pdf> Let me know
if i can every repay your effort with some of my skill sets.

~~~
ErrantX
My take:

Not overly convinced with listing the skills down the right hand side. It
makes it a little hard to read. I generally recommend that people stick to
"normal" layouts and list skills at the end.

Also; be more specific with the skills if you can. "Database design" can mean
many things (this is particularly important if you go for, say, a DB design
job :)).

Also; it is ok to write a short prose section under "interests" or something,
which is where you can be a bit more creative and sell yourself.

Otherwise, pretty good :)

~~~
KoZeN
I'll second pretty much everything ErrantX mentioned, specifically the skills
comment, move them. I appreciate you are probably trying to keep it to one
page but I promise you that this does not give you any advantage whatsoever.

As for specifics, list your day to day duties and responsibilities in a format
that will stand out and be easy to read such as a list of bullet points under
each brief.

~~~
sidmitra
Thanks for all the comments to ErrantX and Kozen. Will try to make relevant
changes soon.

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sanswork
This is great and I think I can help as well from a slightly different view
point(not to steal any thunder!).

I'm head of development for a search related company and as part of my role
review all incoming CV's(with advice from one of my senior devs) as well as
handle the most of the interviews.

If you'd like two perspectives(Recruiter who will work to get you an interview
and HoD who will ultimately hire you) feel free to send them over to me as
well. My email is in my profile though I can only honestly help if you're
targeting development roles.

Same disclaimer about time though, I will try to do any I get through over the
next couple of nights though.

Edit: If you could include what type of role you are targetting(tech startup,
agency, finance, etc) it would really help with my advice.

~~~
KoZeN
Great offer sanswork!

It would be interesting to see how your feedback would differ to mine on
certain CV's. I definitely think that you will get flooded with CV's though!

~~~
sanswork
Well I've definitely gotten hit. For everyone that has sent a CV through I'm
going to spend a few hours going through them in more detail tomorrow night(AU
time, already 2am here) before I send replies though I have hit them all
quickly and made first impression notes already.

~~~
sga
It would be very interesting if sanswork and KoZeN could throw up a quick
blog, where each blog post contains: (1) the original CV; (2) the CVs
formatted as each of them would recommend; (3) a few points from each
highlighting why the changes were suggested. I'm sure a handful of
representative CVs could be chosen and the proper permissions obtained. Might
be too much work or simply not of interest. I'd like to see this though. Let
me know if I can help in some way.

------
rezrovs
The current trend to offer things on HN is amazing. I can't wait until I can
figure out what I can offer in return :)

~~~
KoZeN
That's exactly what prompted me to post this.

Communities such as HN, where intelligent discussion is rampant and trolls are
minimal, are a rare breed these days and to see the community step up and
start assisting each other in the real world is admirable to say the least.

Whilst I may not be a genius developer or a powerful CEO, I still have skills
that could be of use to the element of the community that are looking for a
new challenge or those who are struggling to find work.

I think a huge amount of people on this site will have something to offer that
others will find incredibly useful so hopefully this will have a knock on
affect and we'll see more and more offers of legitimate, useful assistance.

~~~
mrgordon
This is so true. It had been a few months since I last visited HN and then I
dropped by last week and it was shocking how intelligent and considerate the
posts are. I can't believe how much easier it is to find posts I care about
reading here vs Reddit.

------
user24
I'm think my CV is pretty well polished, but I've never asked for professional
feedback on it, so let me know what you think:
<http://www.puremango.co.uk/2009/08/php-cv/>

I'm particularly interested in whether you think the order of sections
(education->work->general->personal) works, and whether my copy sells.

Thanks for the offer!

PS: I'm not looking for work at the moment, so please prioritise my request
lower than those who are currently seeking.

~~~
ig1
Generally you only put education first while you're still in education, after
your first proper job you put that first.

~~~
KoZeN
I completely disagree with this one and it's been a bone of contention in the
past.

The majority of clients I deal with prefer to see the education & relevant
qualifications listed first if the candidate has left University within the
last 5 or 6 years.

Once again it's a matter of opinion but I have researched it a bit and this
seems to be the general consensus.

~~~
ig1
Curious, my background is in a fairly similar area to you, I've worked as a
developer for investment banks and financial tech firms. Generally I get the
feeling that if a candidate is at an associate or higher level then work
experience is more important.

From my experience (and I suspect most developers would agree) real world
development experience is a much better indicator of performance than
university.

Are the candidates you normally field changing sectors ? - in the case that a
candidate doesn't have industry experience I can see why a company might want
to see educational background first, but it seems strange that a company would
care more about educational level than directly relevant experience.

------
rdamico
If you want to make notes directly on peoples' resumes, you can use crocodoc
(YC W2010) to view and mark them up online. (Disclaimer: I'm one of the co-
founders!)

Just forward their emails (w/ attachments) to upload@crocodoc.com, or upload
them directly through crocodoc.com. Either way you'll receive a unique
crocodoc URL you can use to view, mark up, and share each resume with its
creator.

Would love to hear your feedback if you end up giving this a try!

Note: You don't need to create a crocodoc account to use the service (which is
free), but I'd suggest doing so to keep track of all the resumes it looks like
you'll be working on :)

Example document: <https://crocodoc.com/demo1> (note: since this is a demo
document your changes won't actually be saved)

------
RBr
Does anyone have any recommendations for paid services that do this sort of
thing?

KoZeN's offer to review CV's is really (really) nice, but with well over 40 to
read, his offer won't likely meet the demand.

I've thought a few times that there must be something wrong with my resume and
I'd like to have it reviewed professionally.

Has anyone paid to have their resume reviewed? If so, where, how much did it
cost and was it worth it?

Google brings up plenty of options, but I'm nervous to use any of them for
fear that they may not have experience in tech / I.T. / programming or worse,
that they'll simply find a couple of grammar mistakes and charge me a few
hundred dollars.

Any help?

~~~
KoZeN
I'm glad you brought this up.

Firstly, regardless of the size of the response, I will uphold my promise and
provide feedback on every single CV I get, it may take some time but I will
deliver.

Secondly, as for a paid service, you absolutely hit the nail on the head as
far as your concern about _for fear that they may not have experience in tech
/ I.T. / programming or worse, that they'll simply find a couple of grammar
mistakes and charge me a few hundred dollars._

This is the sole reason I haven't set up a paid service myself. How can you
charge $100 dollars only to receive a CV that is essentially perfect or even
convince your market that you won't just give generic feedback?

Send me the CV and I will do my absolute best for you.

~~~
adbge
> _How can you charge $100 dollars only to receive a CV that is essentially
> perfect..._

Well, that case is easy. If you can't help them, don't charge.

Unfortunately, I don't have any idea about convincing your target market. I
think word of mouth would be most effective, maybe you could come up with some
ways to generate that (like what you're doing now!)

------
user24
Out of interest, as a recruiter, what did you think of the two 'reverse job
application' posts?

first:

<http://www.reversejobapplication.com/>

and in response:

<http://www.thejohnnybrown.com/?p=21>

~~~
KoZeN
RE: <http://www.reversejobapplication.com/>

I thought this was a really entertaining read. Will it generate his dream job
on it's own merits? Probably not. Will it generate a ton of job offers due to
the publicity it's received? Probably.

More and more employers want 'celebrities' working for them. I recently placed
a gentleman who had a relatively average CV but he had been published in
numerous Insurance related publications and his name was well recognised
throughout the industry, when people heard he was open to offers I had
multiple interviews lined up for him within 245 hours.

That's a minor example but it's definitely a growing trend.

~~~
eru
Do you know why employers would want celebrities?

~~~
KoZeN
Good question.

I believe it's the credibility factor. If someone has a lot of positive
exposure be it online, in print media or what ever the case may be, then that
is going to attract attention to who the person works for.

Take actual celebrity examples; almost everyone in the world knows who David
Beckham is and now most of those people know who LA Galaxy are. I can assure
you, before he joined the team few people in Europe had ever even heard of LA
Galaxy and now they are a recognised and respected brand purely because of
their association with Beckham. On an infinitely smaller scale the same
applies to certain industries in larger cities.

------
snikolov
Thanks a lot for doing this. Here is mine

[http://snikolov.weebly.com/uploads/3/9/0/4/3904101/snikolov-...](http://snikolov.weebly.com/uploads/3/9/0/4/3904101/snikolov-
resume-oct2010.pdf)

if you or anyone else has time to take a look. My goal with the colors was to
make it scan-able by highlighting where I worked as well as approximate
position titles and letting gray-colored description stay in the background.
But it might also be too harsh on the eyes.

Another concern is having too many things and not saying very much about any
one of them. I am a student, and many companies seem to want to hire people
who get things done for internships, rather than people with very specific
skills. So I want my message to be "I've done things", rather than "I've done
these very specific things that your job description lists." Is this
misguided? Should I take certain parts of it out depending on where I am
applying?

Thanks again.

~~~
KoZeN
Instant opinion: The colours are drastic. I appreciate your intention but the
same affect can be achieved by using slightly larger fonts.

On a side note, I see you worked @ Numenta Inc. A colleague & I have been
experimenting with various potential applications for NuPIC. When I have a
more detailed look at the CV I'll throw in a few side questions that you might
be able to assist with.

~~~
snikolov
Thanks for the quick reply! I feared as much. I will try making everything
gray/black.

re: Numenta -- certainly shoot me an email (snikolov@mit.edu) and I'll see
what I can answer (if I am allowed to answer it :-)) If I can't, I can direct
you to people who would be a lot more knowledgeable.

------
cies
Thanks for your offer!

Currently I do not really have a CV anymore, I link to my linkedin or make a
dump of my linkedin to doc/pdf.

What do you think of this practice?

Anyone else who has opinions on "moving the CV to linkedin"?

~~~
riffraff
I was asked some time ago to provide my CV and I also used a pdf export of
linkedin cause it's such a simple option.

I believe it's a bit lacking in some areas eg, I recall it does not have
anything about human languages (when you are moving around in europe that is
kind of useful). I may be wrong though.

~~~
cies
i too missed that option in linkedin!

------
inerte
What a coincidence! A few days ago I had some ideas about CV reviewing, and
since you're a recruiter, could you provide some feedback if the service would
be useful? :) [http://www.inerciasensorial.com.br/2010/10/14/geral/crowd-
re...](http://www.inerciasensorial.com.br/2010/10/14/geral/crowd-review-a-
resume/)

~~~
KoZeN
Interesting approach.

To be honest any recruiter posting someones CV publicly asking advice on
suitability for a specific job is going to get torn to shreds.

Recruitment is an incredibly cut throat, incestuous market and any recruiter
worth his salt won't be faced with ambiguity over whether or not a CV would be
suitable for a job.

Most CV's that are difficult to interpret tend to be specialist skillsets and
9 times out of 10 a vacancy that requires a niche skillset will have agencies
that specialise in that area and understand the skillset working on it.

------
KoZeN
Over 200 CV's received so far so can I ask that you don't submit any more new
requests?

I intend on responding to everyone who has emailed me up until now and I am
going through each request chronologically.

Thank you so much for all your messages of support.

------
daeken
Great idea and offer -- thanks for putting this forward, KoZeN. I sent my CV
over, but I figure I'll throw it up here too; more feedback is always a Good
Thing (TM). <http://daeken.github.com/CV.html>
<http://daeken.github.com/CV.pdf>

I recently rewrote it from scratch, as my previous CV was simply thrown
together when applying for a random job. When I decided to put myself on the
job market seriously, I figured I'd go ahead and spiff it up a bit.

------
dageroth
Great offer. Perhaps a small idea for those looking to put an original element
in their CV that I used successfully:

Put your Skills in as a Tagcloud. Strong skills get a bigger fontsize than
minor skills. Additionally I used grey tones to indicate which skills have
been used more recently and which are older (more grey than black, paling so
to speak.)

It is somewhat daring, because not necessarily everyone gets tagclouds yet -
but I was invited quite a few times for the tag cloud to interviews.

------
Alan01252
Thanks very much for this. I've never had much luck with recruiters and my C.V
so any feedback you have would be greatly appreciated.

I've also decided to upload it here.
<http://www.alanhollis.com/Alan_Hollis.pdf>

Please note I'm not actively seeking employment at the moment but might as
well take advantage of the opportunity to get some constructive criticism
whilst it's here.

~~~
user24
I'm not a recruiter, but my opinion is that 'experience' should mean
'commercial experience'. By saying you've got seven years (4 commercial) you
look like you're trying to bump up your figures.

Page 3 is ridiculous. Shorten your borders and margins and get it onto 2
pages.

Overuse of bullets for my liking, esp when really you're putting paragraphs
in. Bullets are for <5 word points ideally. Nested bullets are always ugly.

Tell people what they care about. Eg:

> Livenumber, a blackberry application...

Nobody cares that it's called Livenumber. Say:

> A blackberry application...

It looks a bit wall-of-texty.

Just my opinion though, don't take it for gospel!

~~~
Alan01252
The way I see it if you're thinking it, others looking at my C.V will too. I
agree with every point you make and will make the changes accordingly.

Thanks very much for your feedback!

------
babul
I remember <http://www.razume.com/> being a useful (and free) service back in
2008, where many _professional_ recruiters would give visual feedback and good
advice. Not sure what it is like now (seems more crowd-sourced), but maybe be
worth a try.

------
ethagnawl
do you have any generally applicable advice based on your past experience and
the responses you've received so far?

i'm attempting to write my first CV as a developer applying for an open
position and am feeling a bit overwhelmed.

thanks for the offering up your expertise!

~~~
KoZeN
General advice is quite difficult.

If you're looking for structural ideas, take a look at user24's CV that he
linked below. His structure is ideal. Simplistic and logical but make sure you
read the feedback I gave him on listing his responsibilities.

Once you have the CV put together, send it to me and I'll do my best to be as
constructive as possible as it's much easier to advise when referencing a
specific CV.

------
david_p
Great offer ! Here is mine : <http://cv.david.cx>

Also, I'm a French citizen seeking employment in the US (Orlando, Florida to
be precise), do you have some special advice for what I should change in my CV
in regard to this ?

~~~
KoZeN
I've only had a quick look but like everyone else, I will have a detailed look
over the next few days.

Firstly, my market is London & the South East of England so advice on
modifying your CV to suit the American market is probably best fielded by
someone with more experience in that area.

Secondly, you have been working on your own company for over a year and you
have surmised that experience in 45 words whereas you spent 6 months with INA
and your description for your time there is almost 90 words. Simple things
like that raise a concern in my mind about your current position and how
relevant it may be to your career.

~~~
david_p
Thank you ! That's a great point. I'll try to change that. Don't hesitate to
give me more feedback, if you have time, of course.

------
svag
That is a great offer KoZeN, especially for those that are currently seeking a
job...

~~~
KoZeN
Thanks, I just hope people will be patient with me as the response has been
immense!

As a recruiter I get frustrated when I hear about great candidates not even
getting a look-in purely because of their CV.

Unfortunately few people are willing to pay to get their CV reviewed because a
lot of people believe that it's purely a matter of opinion which can vary from
employer to employer which is essentially true but there are a lot of
fundamental errors that are universal and that's the advice I'm hoping to
offer.

------
lelele
Giving private feedback seems like a wasted opportunity to share your
knowledge widely. Would you consider publishing somewhere both the CVs and
your assessments, after removing personal data and companies names? Thanks.

------
maithreyi
I am actually studying financial mathematics, so my resume might be up your
alley, www.ivanbercovich.com/resume. I have been working on this piece of
paper for quite some time, so I hope you like it.

------
rwmj
Is this a good opportunity for identity theft?

~~~
KoZeN
Not really.

As stated in the original post, I'm prefectly fine with people censoring their
personal details as well as employer details. If you believe that a CV can
furnish you with enough info to steal peoples identity then pay a job site
$100 and you will get instant access to tens of thousands of CV's.

------
inscitekjeff
A recruiter collecting a big pile of resumes? - Imagine that! Call me a cynic,
but I hope the motivations here are pure or at least balanced.

~~~
KoZeN
_The logical critic in you will assume I'm offering to do this in order to
generate leads or recruits and to counter-act that, I have no problem with you
removing your personal details and even censoring company names._

If one single member of this website comes back to this page and complains
that I abused this oportunity for my own personal gain then I will officially
hold my hands up and accept the title as 'Worlds Biggest Idiot'. If you click
my username you can clearly find my full name as well as the name of the
company I work for. A quick google search with that info will furnish you with
the address of the office I work from along with my direct line number.

Considering the fact that my career would be at stake, do you honestly believe
I would abuse peoples trust like that?

