Although I’d hate to encourage you to waste your time applying for something you don’t have a hope in hell’s chance of getting, if you fulfil most of the other requirements, there are ways you can handle having less than the required amount of experience.

1. Make the most of what you’ve got

All experience counts. Whether it’s paid or unpaid, full-time or part-time, relevant or irrelevant, it’s experience.

The trick is to maximise what you did that is relevant, and play that up. Minimise all the rest. For some jobs this is admittedly easier than for others. But, for example, any job which is customer-facing, or has an element of sales in it, will have given you valuable commercial experience and the opportunity to solve a few problems or make a business impact.

Even the lowliest office job will have taught you efficiency, deadline-respect, co-operation, communication and diligence: or any of the other qualities asked for in most person specifications.

Remember: you don’t need to describe every responsibility or document every minute of every day. Select what is important and relevant. If you’re using one job to prove a variety of skills, turn these into sub-headings under the job title.

(Example using a job in telesales for a job in sales)

Communication skills sub-heading
Succinctly presented key offerings to a range of potential clients, tailoring the presentation to specific client needs through effective listening skills coupled with astute questioning techniques.

* Exceeded sales targets each shift, earning triple bonuses

Lead identification sub-heading
Researched local and national business publications and trade directories to identify key client and industry sectors.

* Developed niche sectors and created a web of referrals, leading to increased revenues of 30% for company

2. Don’t get hung up on pay or dates

So what if your experience was voluntary or an internship. Focus on what you learned and achieved, and not on how much (if anything) you were paid. If you bold the job title, then greyscale the dates (tabbing them to the right of the page) the focus is to take attention away from a short tenure.

In some cases, you can include a year date (rather than months). This works best if you’ve gained substantial skills or experience and can show results – don’t do it to fudge a series of unimportant, very temporary roles.

3. Include extra-curricular activities and side projects

Employers are impressed by people with get-up-and-go. It doesn’t matter if you started a tiny enterprise in your bedroom which then failed. What counts is that you identified a need or a market, drew up a business strategy, then tried to execute on it.

Same thing with extra-curricular activities. But go beyond just stating “Secretary of the Geography Society Club”. What did you organise? What were the results? What problems did you need to overcome?

4. Use endorsements and keywords

Both add objectivity to your CV. Endorsements from ex-managers or tutors are striking: someone in a position of authority is willing to stake their name and reputation on you. Don’t underestimate the effect that has on a hiring manager.

Appropriate keywords shows you mean business. You’ve taken the trouble to identify the right language for your industry, and show you’re on the same wavelength as the employer. Read a few job descriptions (for similar roles in your sector) to get an idea of how roles are described, then make sure you’ve got some of these keywords in your CV.

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But if you’re not in this position, and are applying like hundreds of others, establishing your credibility as a candidate worth short-listing is crucial.

Here are three ways you can do this.

Prove your worth

Enrich your CV with solid, relevant achievements that prove you’re able to solve their problems and bring value.

Leave off boasting and empty superlatives. If the last company you worked for was “the best”, top”, “premier” or “market-leader”, qualify it. If your product is award-winning, industry standard-setting or widely acclaimed, say why.

Adding specifics (with detail, or with quantifiable results) gives you credibility. Better still, giving the context of your achievements says even more. (“Increasing sales by 10% in a moribund economy where X competitors lost market share” pulls a greater punch than a mere “increased sales by 10%”).

Keep good company

Learn who the movers, shakers and thought leaders in your company or industry are. Increase your visibility to them through both an online and offline presence. Get a LinkedIn profile at the very least, but comment on blogs, tweet frequently (if appropriate to your industry) and be seen at conferences and industry events. Rubbing shoulders with influencers and industry grandees is a crucial part of your overall career management.

It’s a long-term strategy, but the more people recommend you, the easier job hunting gets.

Act the professional

Management is tribal. As soon as someone gains “manager” status, they get membership to a secret gang with its own rules of loyalty – or so it seems. Sounding off about your ex-boss can make your prospective manager close ranks in loyalty to one of his / her own – even if your accounts of their stupidity and ineptitude are all too believable.

But while tactful comments are required when talking about others and their shortcomings, honesty about your own helps your case. While interviewers have all surely by now heard the “my only weakness is perfectionism”, knowing when (and why) you have made a mistake makes you look more human. Be sure you balance this with what you learned from the situation. Humility goes a long way, but self-awareness builds your credibility even further.

Photo credit: David Armano

Are you respecting your reader’s time?

Hiring managers, HR execs and recruiters are reporting record numbers of applicants per vacancy in practically every sector. That means correspondingly less reading time per CV. Make sure yours doesn’t look offputting by keeping it brief and making key information prominent. Make the text readable: no tiny fonts, adequate spacing to stop it looking cramped, and by using bullets (or other devices) to highlight info. Eliminate waffle, repetition and puff.

Are you relevant?

Of the record numbers of applications, many are doomed to the ‘no’ pile because they don’t focus on the specifics of the role. To be considered a serious candidate, you need to address these specifics (which may well change for each different role) showing how you’ll bring value and make an impact. This does require extra work, but the effort pays off. A targeted CV stands out.

Make sure that everything in your CV is relevant and illustrates how hiring you benefits the company. Consider writing a “master CV” containing all the facts of your background (skills-sets, employment details, achievements, qualifications, etc) and then extracting key information every time you apply for a job. Alternatively, if you’re applying for roles in different fields or sectors, write a more generic CV for each, and tweak it for each vacancy.

Are you literate?

Well, yes, it probably is unfair that your brilliance is overshadowed by your dodgy grammar, weak spelling or hazy grasp of punctuation rules. Unfortunately, rejection based on English skills is one of the quickest ways to whittle down the CV pile. More importantly, communication skills are generally essentials in a job description, so a well-written CV and cover letter are the easiest way to show these attributes.

If you’re not confident in your English usage, go beyond just using the spell check (which won’t necessarily catch wrong word choice, such as whether you’ve used they’re / their / there correctly, for example). Read your CV aloud (can you get to the end of the sentence without wheezing?) to make sure sentences are short and manageable. If you’ve been applying for multiple vacancies, be paticularly vigilant to avoid careless mistakes such as cutting and pasting covering letters but not changing the name of the company.

Get others to read your CV for sense and for language. Use a good punctuation guide if you’re confused by commas, colons and semi-colons. Be careful of tone and style. While you should avoid a stuffy, over-formal tone, neither should you litter your application materials with text speak, or i for I, for example.

Photo credit: FeatheredTar

“Herewith please find attached my CV.”

And what about your LinkedIn profile? Does it read something like this:

“Dedicated marketing professional, with extensive experience and proven results in…”

With more and more professionals realising the benefit of an online profile, the results are often a cut-and-paste job of paper CV content to LinkedIn profile. And if you’re someone who believes that for a CV or a cover letter to be taken seriously it needs to be written in a stilted, formal style, then your LI profile will sound corporate and woolly.

Here are a few guidelines for writing in a more engaging style:

- forget the herewiths, hithertos and thuses
It’s a sales and marketing piece you’re writing, not a legal contract.

- write your CV in a verb-type style
(“doubled profits” rather than “I doubled profits” – or heaven forbid, “He / She doubled profits”.)

- write your LI profile summary in the first person
Imagine you’re chatting to someone about what you do – that’s the sort of style that will get your personality across.

- use what my old music teacher called “a bit of vim and vigour” in both CV and LI profile
Interesting vocabulary that gets to the heart of what you do, how you got results or made a difference. Don’t be afraid to experiment a little, or use a thesaurus to help you expand your vocabulary comfort zone.

- keep it real
Business jargon, cliche and buzzwords – they’re irritating to read (do you really want to sound like a corporate brochure?) and make you sound soulless and uninspiring. In your LI profile you can talk about what makes you tick, what sets you on fire (workwise) – let the real you emerge.

There are some interesting profiles in this Bnet post if you want a few examples.

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The whole question of whether or not to include a covering letter (or “cover letter” if you’re not from the UK) divides the careers industry (by which I mean CV writers, HR, recruiters, hiring managers…)

On the one hand, you have recruiters saying that they never bother to read them. It takes too long (when you’re trying to whittle down the pile of applications) and for this reason, many in HR in large corporations don’t read them either.

Then you get voices from the other camp (i.e. hiring managers at smaller companies, or at non-profits) who say you should. And if you’re applying speculatively, a brief introduction that accompanies a CV is sensible. Like a “handshake” was one comment on the Guardian article.

And along with this is the whole issue of what the job ad asks for. If it categorically asks for a covering letter, then you’re going to need one. If you have an opportunity to include one (as in the example I used for the blog post) then it also makes sense – for a whole lot of reasons. A covering letter helps to “personalise” your application, supply information that isn’t always in a CV, or explain CV gaps, for example.

In the Twitter discussion that followed, there were some very interesting comments (specifically from @LevyRecruits – aka Steve Levy – and @ResumeStrategy – aka Karen Siwak.

As Steve Levy pointed out, many job ads ask for “excellent communication skills” – which many people just don’t have. As a result, covering letters (difficult to write for most people – including CV writers) often fall short. If job ads concentrated more on what the job actually involved (i.e. “specific problems and expected performance based results”) your covering letter could just get to the heart of why anyone should hire you.

But until job ads get more truthful – or at the very least, realistic – the best advice for your covering letter?

Keep it short.

Better one sentence about why someone should really hire you than rambling paragraphs of boring text.

Photo credit: Kristian D

Not having any online presence is almost as bad as having a negative one, as although the practice is ethically and legally questionable, many employers will google your name to find out more about you.

Make it easier for them to find out the information they’re looking for – such as your previous working history, recommendations (i.e. from LinkedIn) and more personal info. You can do this through creating an online CV (plenty of examples from my Guardian Careers post) and being present in the same networking places as them.

A couple more tips

You are the company you keep

Unless you’re keeping up with Facebook’s ever-changing security settings or group listings, remove anything politically (or otherwise) controversial. Assume that whatever is on your profile might be seen (or passed on to someone else), so keep it ‘safe’.

Be persistent

There’s no point tweeting once, then never again. Nor in starting a conversation that you don’t finish. If you’ve decided to use social networking to increase your visibility, set some regular time aside to devote to relationship-building.

Be consistent

Whatever’s on an online profile or CV must not diverge from the info on your ‘paper’ CV. Make sure dates and employer details match, as well as other details such as your “achievement stories”, for example.

Photo Credit: The U.S. Army

These and other CV cliches to avoid on the Guardian’s Comment is free: Problem-solving team players need not apply.

But there are techniques that can make the difference. Every year, Career Directors International host the TORI awards (Toast of the Resume Industry) to recognise the best in CV writing in different categories. Here are some of the strategies used by this year’s winners of the best career change resume.

Make the most of your uniqueness

It’s almost as if all three career change candidates decided to rip up the rulebook. Out goes the usual black and white text, and in comes a judicious amount of colour. After all, why should you produce a traditional (= not very visually exciting) CV if you’re coming from a non-traditional (i.e. different) background?

That’s not to say that these three CVs are a riot and jumble of colour. Far from it. One colour theme is used (perhaps for headings), or there are a couple of graphics, photos or clip art. The result is stunning: you’re drawn in to the CV, and read to the end. Colour breaks up long text – you don’t get that sinking feeling that you’ll be reading paragraphs and paragraphs of dense black text before you can finally give your eyes a rest.

Result: you read, rather than skim through.

Tell a story

I can’t emphasise this enough. We’re all individuals, and we all have different strengths and experiences to play to. Yet why do people’s CVs always look and sound the same?

When a hiring manager sees a CV that shows how a candidate achieved something, and what that candidate was up against to get that result, then a little light goes off in the hiring manager’s head. It’s real, and it’s interesting.

A list of responsibilities, or accomplishments without context or the “meat” don’t have the same appeal. Involve your reader in your experience by telling mini stories throughout your CV.

Result: you build up a picture of the person behind the CV.

Don’t box yourself into a corner

Many of your career success stories are stand-alone. They aren’t limited to one function or to one industry. Dragging a reluctant sales-team forward requires much the same skills as dragging a reluctant board forward. And whether you’re in the car manufacturing business or in commercial aviation (two of the three winning CVs), leadership skills and business acumen are equally as important.

Make it clear from the beginning of your CV what you offer to an organisation. Nail your brand, and write the rest of your CV around this promise of value. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking your background and achievements will only be of interest to one sector.

Result: A focus on your strengths (rather than where you worked, or in what role) is what propels you into a new field.

Deploy the big guns

Make no mistake – it’s really competitive out there. If you’ve got great voluntary experience, in it goes. If your present job is completely irrelevant and will detract from your career goals, don’t feel you need to include it. (See August Cohen’s CV where she made much of the completely relevant voluntary role to position her client.) Other aspects she included were white papers and presentations that her client had produced, as well as endorsements – all serving to enhance his professional reputation.

Result: A CV focussed on the demands of the role or company will probably also mean your CV is punchier and more concise. Hiring managers will thank you for it.

There’s no such thing as a standard layout

Because career changers need to make sense of a diverse career history, the usual “rules” just don’t apply. There’s no reason why you need one section before another, or why certain information can only go in one place. These three CVs present information where it is most needed in order to build the case for the candidate.

One of these CVs uses a functional format (to divert attention away from career breaks and lots of different jobs) but although the career history is brief, there’s a fully fleshed-out skills and achievements section. Another CV pulls out featured results before an experience section to create a buzz of anticipation in the reader’s mind.

Other nice layout features in these three CVs:
- graphs (a great visual way to show sales, profits etc)
- a move away from bullets to other highlighters
- a LinkedIn profile url along with other contact info
- a branding tagline used as the page footer (clever place to drive home the branding message)
- a border (helps to concentrate your attention to the text inside)

Result: Strategically chosen and placed information makes you far more memorable than an “include-all and “throw-it-together” approach.

And if you just list the degree title, class of degree, dates and university, your CV isn’t as effective in selling you as it could be.

If your degree is your only asset, you need to communicate its value as clearly and strongly as you can.

My latest post on the Guardian Careers blog has tips for making the most of your degree on your CV.

Photo credit: john walker

“What are the 3 most common reasons you chuck a CV in the bin – or tell your client that it will be chucked in the bin, if you are a CV writer rather than a recruiter?

In other words, what are the biggest no-nos on a CV?

It’s a very good question. There’s so much advice on how to write a good CV, and pretty much all of it is consistent.

- your CV has to be on no more than two pages of A4
- you must have a clear layout allowing vital information to be prominent
- include lots of white space
- be consistent with your fonts etc, etc

Otherwise your CV probably won’t make it to a second reading.

In my experience, all that advice is great. It helps you to stand out as a candidate, as clearly you know what your major selling features are, and how to present these most effectively.

But, but…

If you break these rules, does it mean your CV automatically gets chucked in the bin?

Not necessarily.

In a straw poll of three, the biggest CV no-no’s were these:

- poor grammar and spelling
- too generic (not relevant or tailored to the role)
- too long (over three pages)

(You can read Rowan’s incisive thoughts here.)

As long as you avoid the three biggest (and most common) CV mistakes, you’re in with a better-than-average chance of making it to the “maybe” pile.

Photo credit: psd