Higher, higher, HIRE!
Firstly a disclaimer. This text might give the impression that I feel some kind of sympathy for Recruitment Consultants/Agencies. I don't. Not at all. In my eyes (which is therefore obviously fact) they rate alongside estate agents and insurance salesmen. And the director of my local railway company.
Now that's out of that way, I can safely talk about the process of hiring someone, and the role of CVs.
The company where I work is currently looking to hire a person or two. A business analyst and a developer, or ideally someone who can wear both hats. This means we've been sent loads of CVs from our chosen recruitment agency. After initial filtering by the boss, the team gets to look at one that he thinks are worthy of further investigation. (I think we're somewhat different to most organisations in that the decision to hire or not is largely a team one)
The upshot of this is that we've all been looking at CVs at work, and I've some thoughts on the matter....
I'm not sure how much the recruitment bods interfere with them, but some CVs are pretty rubbish. Whilst the great unwashed and a fair few student types will bemoan the fact that we take grammar, spelling and punctuation seriously, it's fair to say that we wouldn't want to hire a programmer who's not that great at stringing a bunch of sentences together.
Secondly, it becomes obvious that once you've added the pre-requisite bunch of acronyms and standard "quick learner, work well with others, customer focused.." bits, there's often very little to distinguish one person's CV from another. Again, this may be down to filtering by the recruitment bods, but in our case the person underneath the technology is actually more important and it's very hard to gauge that from a bland-o-vision CV.
I think I'd like to see a CV that says something along the lines of...
"I'm more than capable in a couple of development languages, switched on enough to pick up what I don't know, write decent code comments, and manage to be geeky enough to write code in my spare time without being a social outcast."
So if you are looking for work as a developer or business analyst in a small London based software company, get in touch. (And, a word to the wise; make sure your Facebook page doesn't have anything on it you wouldn't want us lot looking at before deciding if you warrant an interview or not!)
I would say something more akin to the Linked in approach, where you can compliment your vital statistics with professional buddies, and unlike FaceStalker - you are tied to where you met them that appears in your / their entry not an endless diatribe from people they met once.
Okay so sure - the whole "can I have a reference" "what do you want me to write" "FFS" - you still get an idea of what their peers do, and how well they are liked / respected. Its a little background reading.... along with the FB or whatever else you can trawl on these people.
Recruiters - they are a strange breed though aren't they. "Hi, can you talk right now," - with a slimy tone of "I am your new best friend, I love you, send me your CV so I can trade on your hard work". I for one was SHOCKED to find out how much they charge for their services, they are another member of the 'Estatus Agentius' genus.
LinkedIn is not a panacea - but its a start, and its far better than the likes of Monster et al.
Incidentally while talking about emplyment / agency / sites:
1) How come its a real "is there a god" "divide by zero" to PROPERLY site job serach by location?
2) Why dont you get it that if I said "no shift" that means ... I. Do. Not . Want. To. Do. Shift. Work;
3) I am doing you a favour mate, not you me - I can apply to people, without CV's you can do squat;
4) "How about Cardiff" - No, no, and thrice, no. I said London (*see point one);
5) "No banks" - how come its kinda of a non starter to tell them who you dont want to work for they REALLY take umbrage with that kind of thing... is it so bad to want to work for someone I might approve of?
..............and relax.
I've also found that many CV's come with a flatpack approach. I find that the candidates that come through the top recruitment agencies have better content in their CV's and are more job specific.