Back when he was in college Harry had worked on a rudimentary CV as part of a job skills module. Although it had a good skeleton and covered some of the basics, it wasn’t doing a good enough job of selling him. I explained to Harry that some employers may be looking through hundreds of CVs, and even something as simple as adding a splash of (Zurich) blue to the trim and making the prose run a little better can really help it to stand out. For those with good enough eyesight to read my handwriting, you will see my comments to “Embellish!” and “Sell Yourself!” in certain parts. Some of it was simple formatting, of which I would like to think I am somewhat of an expert after submitting hundreds of CVs of myself, each one slightly tinkered, when applying for graduate jobs.
I would probably class myself as the sort of person who can be a little cynical when browsing LinkedIn for the way some tasks have been seriously “embroidered”; however I would argue that this is not the case here at all. Harry had got some great experience when working in his college’s library, organising all of the book shelves and helping with any ad-hoc admin tasks – so it was simply a case of making this apparent and showing what a crucial role he played in these tasks.
Moving on to the “About Me” section, and while Harry was listing some of his skills, there were a few more that I had picked up on even after just a few hours with him: he is very punctual and has a very good attention to detail; while his memory is also excellent, remembering aspects of our first coffee together that had slipped my mind! His current CV mentions that he plays the piano, though upon asking him a little more about it, it turned out that he has been playing diligently for years and even performs sometimes – I am sure I don’t need to elaborate on the countless great soft skills that this requires. Another trait that he has is both very employable, and great to see from my perspective, is that he has great self-confidence.Before our first session together he had to complete a “Mentee Survey”, which asked him about things such as his confidence and self-esteem, and how he felt about his future; he will fill this in at the end of the mentoring programme where hopefully we can observe some improvements. There are still areas he can score better on of course (as I’m sure there are for all of us), but one thing that is great to observe right off the bat is that he is already scoring himself highly on how he rates his natural skills and attributes right now. It is always great to see for an employer (and a mentor) someone that backs their own abilities, so this should serve him in great stead no matter what happens after this scheme.
As a final touch on the CV, we had his Skills and Abilities section. I don’t really like using the term “homework” here, but I also wanted this to be something that he went away and thought about himself (obviously welcome to discuss more with his parents), without me putting words in his mouth too much. So for this last section I have asked him to go away and have a best stab at completing it himself, and then we will finish it off next time. Watch this space, and you should see the completed first draft of Harry’s CV in the next blog!Although the bulk of our last two sessions have been taken up with working through his CV, we also had some time to talk about what current other areas he is not that confident in, that could potentially be a detriment in the workplace. As I mentioned in my last blog, Harry doesn’t like loud noises and enjoys his own peaceful area to get work done, while he was concerned that his communication skills with others could be a little muddled at times. Together we went through a list of the four different types of “noise” he could encounter in the workplace, and tactics he could use to combat these to make sure that he understands what the other person is trying to communicate to him, and so that he can communicate effectively with others. These are physical noise – and how there is nothing wrong with asking someone to repeat themselves if ambient noise is too loud; physiological noise – and how he just needs to remember to not talk too quickly when there is a whole plethora of information he is trying to get out all at once (this is something I have needed help with myself in the past so can definitely relate!); psychological noise – tactics to help him collaborate and try and reduce his pre-conceived notions if someone offers an alternative (and maybe better) idea, for when he is working in a team in the future; and finally semantic noise – we talked about how there is nothing wrong with asking someone to repeat themselves if you weren’t 100% sure what they actually meant. Harry also mentioned that he can be very sarcastic with people (especially if he’s frustrated) so I explained that sarcasm is often not something often appreciated in the workplace – especially if the other person may also be frustrated.
After CV writing, one of the skills him and his mum were most keen for him to work on (and one of the most important in terms of employability full stop), was interview technique, so in my next blog I will be writing all about our practice interview, where I got a generous colleague to pretend to be an interviewer for a fake job for 15 minutes!
Pete
