How to Write a Good Marketing CV – CV Examples

Writing CVs is a thankless task. There is the creation. Then the guessing. Then the second-guessing. And that’s before you’ve even started sending it off and getting feedback (or lack thereof!) We recognised this, so invited Dominic from Brand Recruitment to share some of his tips for building a CV that stands out in the […]
How to put together a great marketing CV

Writing CVs is a thankless task.

There is the creation.

Then the guessing.

Then the second-guessing.

And that’s before you’ve even started sending it off and getting feedback (or lack thereof!)

We recognised this, so invited Dominic from Brand Recruitment to share some of his tips for building a CV that stands out in the marketing industry.

Dominic shared examples of how CVs can differ based on the seniority of the role, in addition to sharing some views on whether CVs are even required in the modern world. See the video below for the full session:

Transcript:

Hello everyone. Thank you so much for listening in today. We’ve got a bit of an extra bonus episode this week with Dominic FIPs, who’s the MD at Brand Recruitment and an absolute legend of a man. Dominic has been supported for the marketing meetup since day dot. I think I’ve waxed lyrical about them for a long, long time, and, The current context of the news right now where we’re seeing literally thousands of people being laid off from their jobs at any one point, then it felt pertinent and right.

As we are heading into what is also gonna be a predicted recession to, to revisit the CV and what folks can be doing to make their CV really stand. In, in an industry which jobs will be, uh, hard to come by at certain points. And so with this thought, then we thought we would get Domic along and, and then as an individual who sees literally thousands of cvs to come in and, and share some thoughts on, uh, where CVS have their place in the current market and going forward, but then hopefully also some tips for how you can optimize your CV to make it really stand out in the industry.

So Dominic. Nate, it’s a pleasure. I feel like, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve been doing this marketing thing forever, so it is so lovely to be sharing this with you. Thank you for taking the time. So I know that there’s a bit of a debate about CVS just in general right now. And so where do you stand on CVS today?

2022, heading into 2023.

Sure. Well, firstly, thank you very much for the introduction. That’s the, the legend element was exaggerated as per usual. So so yeah, I mean, in, in short the the, CV side of things, we’ll jump straight into it. I think it’s probably wise. So obviously there’s been a hell of a lot of debate recently about whether the cvs are even needed. So, um looking at LinkedIn profiles instead

Hmm.

looking at I suppose other more background, check elements rather than purely the the, the, the paper based CV of, of of old. So I mean, one thing I would definitely say is that the, the the CV certainly still has its place in the, in the job search world. I think it’s, it especially with the cha, changing tech, changing times, changing roles. Let’s look at how marketing roles have

Yeah. Yeah.

over the course of the last, well, five years, let alone 15 years. So, um, think as with everything, CVS will have to adapt. The way that we

has to adapt.

Um, and, and in short the way that we position ourselves. Candidates for roles,

Mm-hmm.

know, it will, it will always be on the basis of, the interpreted, perception of the reader. We, we’ve gotta, we’ve gotta, um, really remember that, it’s all based on opinion.

that’s

everybody’s got an opinion. One thing, one thing I would definitely say, especially on the CV side, it’s very, very easy to get drawn into. Writing the exact right cv. And in short, there’s various guides. We can all give guidance and info and bits and pieces on how to build a cv, how to best present yourselves. But I think honestly, a lot of it does come down to personal preference and your feeling towards your own skillset. How you want to position yourself. It’s very, very easy to get sucked into. I

every box, for instance.

Hmm.

But we are probably all sat there now thinking, well actually, know, if I am ticking every single box, am I proficient in every box?

I’m

know, so there’s that honesty element there,

I think that that’s,

I think.

It’s a really, really great point cuz I, I think, the tendency will be for so many folks to say, yep, I, I, I’m, I’m good for this job, or I want this job and, and therefore you, you mold yourself around what you read on the, the job description. But of course, as individuals we are each gonna bring our strengths and weaknesses to our respective roles.

And, and even though you may not be the perfect individual, I’m pretty sure that if I got a CV through which literal. Ticked all the boxes that I’d written down on a job description, I’d be a little bit like disappointed in a way. Cause I’d be like, I wanna know about you. I don’t want you to be like, I don’t want you to be what I want you to be.

I want you to be you in, in a useful role, if that makes sense. Is that a regular mindset that you get from folks?

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, occasionally we as recruiters and obviously our clients, they, consistently tell us that we need people to tick

That’s

box. That’s the whole point of,

of, of us supplying candidate profiles, candidate cvs. But you are so right.

, in order to tick every box, you may then, Definitely an, in the sense that, you

the majority of roles are, are placed or, people are getting roles all the time where they are taking 60 or 70% of the boxes, sometimes even less. Very honestly, especially if there’s

Hmm.

you know, it needs somebody with a certain personality or culture fit that, that job specs just can’t account for.

That’s, that’s possibly the best way to put it. So,

That’s

the, the point of a CV is an, it’s an initial impression, isn’t it? It’s an initial impression. It’s a door opener.

Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm.

to a degree

as that, and a, a bit of a, a bit of a checklist exercise, but absolutely don’t put pressure on yourself to tick absolutely every single box, cuz you know, long term

It’s not what people are looking for.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I, I love that. And, and so, , I was just gonna jump in cuz because you mentioned. In, in, in your first answer you mentioned how CVS have changed in the past five years and I, I wanted to jump in here because , one example is stuff like create creative CVS. So I was just curious on, on your reflections on how they have changed, cuz uh, I love what you’ve just said there about them being like a, a snapshot of, of you as a person.

They’re, they’re there to give a, an initial impression to open a. But how have they changed over these past five years? In, in, in significant or indeed notable ways that you’ve realized when you’re seeing so many.

I think the way that people, are presenting themselves now, honestly it feels people are presenting themselves in a much more realistic and a personable way, which is lovely to see. It really is.

So when I first started in the industry, so marketing recruitment, I’ve been doing marketing recruitment for 12 years. So if you hark back to 12 years, we were consistently asking candidates for, when they were sending through their cvs, could you send through a word version of your, of your CV and your. And that was due to tech issues at our end. In terms of, and this is the thing, and also, clients and employers. They had, archaic ATS systems that, they didn’t pick up PDFs, for instance, and now we’re sat here with that, can pick up on animated and video videos, which are embedded within CVS as. We we’re seeing more and more creative based cvs, which is great. Um, and I, I think again, it, it’s down to personal preference, and this is the beauty of the CV debate in a sense. There’s always this debate about whether, whether I should submit a, a

CV or a more, uh, a figures based CV or a text based. I think a lot of it does come down to role in all honesty. Um, you’ll, you’ll find typically that, let’s say there’s a graphic designer position. Imagine receiving through a completely bo standard text based CV with nothing wacky or, or, or, or no imagery and things like that

Yeah.

I think that would probably be to the detriment of the application, really? Cause you, you, you want people. Invested in their, in their craft, so, so graphic designers, um, you’ll find that full of creativity, colors, pictures, um, graphics, animations, bits and pieces like that.

Fantastic. Um, you will tend to find that, CVS of a more analytical role, so let’s say we’re take, we’re looking at, um, uh, marketing analysts or, or even digital people, very honestly, you. Digital people have almost been trained to have the eye of, analytics and looking at figures and metrics and things like that.

So in some ways, it’s, it’s not a bad thing that actually the CVS then represent that because of the fact that, that’s

the, the employers will be looking for. They’re looking for that presentation of figures, awareness of the reasons why they’re putting out campaigns, return rates. Open rates, click throughs and things like that. So, um, likewise, more senior cvs, and we, we’ll talk about this in a, in a minute in terms of the profiling and, and running through some template, uh, TVs just as a, a bit of an overview, it gets to that crux point where senior cvs need to have that, that loftiness or the, the gravitas. To represent them correctly in a senior leadership position, um, with overarching control over management, roi, budget strategy, and so like that. So naturally those cvs will probably seem a little bit more text based and, more standard to the eye, but, know, in terms of the content much more deep when it comes to the leadership qualities.

So yeah, and it’s, it’s, it’s a kettle of fish, which is a great one as well. When you look at CVS coming through, you, you still get the buzz when you do see somebody’s CV come through. And it just looks great. And, um, and,

Mm-hmm.

obviously our audience now, we’re all market, all involved in marketing and have been for, for, for years most.

Okay.

the amount of times I’ve heard from clients of ours saying that, if a marketer can’t put together a good cv, from the off, that tends to be a qualifier either in, either in or out. So super important,

Interesting. Interesting. No, that’s fascinating.

it’s very much, yeah, it’s, it’s very much about our own interpretation of how we want to craft the cvs and things like that.

So.

I love that. That’s really, really cool. I, even that insight, so I, I take a couple of things from that. So the first is, uh, it feels like an obvious point, but actually until you made it, I hadn’t really thought about it, which is, different roles of CVS are gonna have different sort of purposes almost, they need to show different things.

That’s a really, really great point. And then secondly, I wasn’t even aware that the technology had moved on, so I remember the days of. Sending through a Word document, doing the PDF that thought, oh, look, look beautiful, and then sending through a Word document and feeling really disappointed about it.

So, so it’s really cool to know that you got the, the technology to be able to, , to, to look at these things. Now. I, I really like that. That’s, that’s a great tip in itself. , so I know that you’ve got some templates that, that you could, you could speak through now with some tips on, uh, what folks can, can look out for. creating cvs and, and editing them. Um, so I’ll give you the stage and, and say, uh,

that’s

you could speak through that, that would be great.

Basically what we’re looking at is, um, I think it’s really important to. So not divide it up by role, but we’ll divide it up by, by seniority because this is where maybe the differentiation comes in terms of the way that people should be presenting themselves in, in some way.

So, so just open the screen share, um, on it. Um, and then what we will do, so, um, so we’ll just jump into that. first template. So, um, so this is the, um, the, the, in short, we, we’ve labeled it as an entry or exact level, um, CV template. So the, obviously the purpose of this is to, to introduce yourself. Um, obviously you’ve got name here, um, LinkedIn link.

Um, it’s, it is always advisable to have a LinkedIn link in there. And the, the reason being is, um, Obviously people can have photos and things like that, but it’s, it, it really is about the, the humanizing nature of, um, of a cv. looking through a cv, it’s very, very easy just to get drawn into just purely the text. Whereas having a LinkedIn link in there, it does humanize you as a candidate. Um, As long as all the information is correct and it tallies up alongside the cv, I would absolutely say go for it. In terms of putting in a link to your LinkedIn there, or, or any other socials you think is being particularly prudent, really.

So, um, introduction. So, um, we all know what an introduction is. Um, however, I think with a CV it’s really important to. Doing a qualifier really, really early, or as early as as we can really, so we’re looking at, um, credentials for people. So for instance, it might be something along the lines of, um, uh, a marketing executive with X amount years worth of experience. Um, a CIM qualified marketing executive with x amount of years worth of experience, um, educated and so on like that. But it’s, it’s just a, it’s a bit of a qualifier element where we need to be talking about our credentials very, very early on. Um, this does serve as a bit of a kind of, a tick box. But very honestly, the very early stages of any CV reviewing process is exactly that. It’s, it comes through as a, a tick box exercise. We are looking for certain things on the candidate profile, on the candidate cv, which means that we can qualify in or qualify out on the basis of various different elements.

So the introduction as well. This is obviously really, it’s interchangeable and this is the, the, the good thing about this element of the. I do always advise people that if they are, looking at a specific role of, specific nature or there’s a particular, let’s say, brand manager position, brand, bramer manager roles, there are really good ones to reference because of the fact that it’s probably got lots of. Lots of, know, background connotations to do with brand management. There’s lots to talk about. There. Probably more of a, coming from a consumer background, so within your introduction you can lead on there from saying that you’re a seasoned brand manager, CIM qualified, having worked on a number of household brands.

Feel free just to note down the household brands within the introduction. It’s a hook. Think of it as a hook in terms of, how can I get the. The attention of the reader. Um, and it’s, it’s a little bit like when marketing campaigns are going out. We’ve gotta hook people in pretty early to, to ensure that they read through the rest of the content or the document or, or something similar.

So we’ll move down into the job title and company name element. The reason why we’re jumping straight into this one is just because if we’ve done our introduction correctly, The, the reader should want to qualify you in pretty quickly on the basis of whether you match the kind of indu, the industry specialism, or if they’re not looking for any industry specialism, whether they can qualify you in, in terms of job title, I would always say put your job title first. The reason being is, let’s say you are, you are, you are, um, going forward for a marketing manager position, for instance, and you are currently a marketing executive or senior marketing executive or something similar. Again, it’s an instant qualifier on the basis that you may have done a more, slightly more junior position than the one that you’re going for moving forward.

So it, again, it creates that relevance and um, and uh, feeling of a step forward, along the same linear path. That’s probably the best way to put it. Bullet points. I know some people absolutely hate doing bullet points, but the beauty of bullet points, again, we’ve got to be thinking. If I am the reader, what am I looking for?

And I am the reader and I really have to dig for, what I’m looking for is, is the purpose of the CV really doing, what, what it needs to in a sense, so, but I would always say bullet points are a really good way of getting to a point. That’s a whole point of a bullet point. And we’re looking at something quite definitive.

We’re looking. A qualifier, uh, a reason to progress you within the rest of the interview. And, sorry, the rest of the CV review, um, I would always say as well, um, obviously depending on your, your seniority and we’ll, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll go onto that in a moment. But it’s just important to put a bit of variety in your, if at all possible within your, your roles.

Um, so when you’re doing the job title element here, company name, dates, and a brief summary of the company. When you go into actually writing the elements of your role, try to be as broad as you can without over egging the pudding. Obviously, if you are involved in SEO and PPC and you’re purely based on, roles based on traffic driving, getting people to the sites and something like that, don’t note down everything to do with broad marketing positions if that’s not telling the true tale of what you’re all about.

Again, we’ve, we’ve gotta be honest, and is for our own benefit as well as. As people within the application process. Just going back a little bit in terms of the brief summary of company, obviously we put that there. The reason why we’d put, why we’d always recommend putting a brief summary of the company and we’re talking literally a sentence, so it might be, brief summary of the company, a global leading, um, software as a service business, um, servicing the construction industry or the property industry or something similar. Um, household brand name, uh, within food or something similar. Again, obviously you are familiar with the name of the company you’ve been working for, or at least you’d hope so, but, um, but the reader may not be. Um, and the brief summary. Again, it does allow people to get that instant link, and, and understand the reasons why you might be applying for the role, which you are. Um, so any which way you can give them information on that. Fantastic. As we’re on the entry and the entry or exec level cv, I would just say again, keep it linear, so we’ve got one job title here. You wanna move on to the next role that you’ve done here, and then if needs be the next, for instance. um, education degree, title, university, um, and dates and things like that. I would also put in any kind of extracurricular elements to your education, which you have been involved in. Put it into this part as well, because it is really, really handy. So for instance, if you were part of, um, uh, an athletics union within your university studies, or you were, um, peer support or something along those lines, again, it’s just adding to the credentials that you are a team player, et cetera, et cetera. And then obviously you’ve got the interests, bits and pieces like that. Again, this is just about humanizing you. Um, there’s lots of different things that people put in there, motor sport, yada, yada, yada. Um, the gym, walking the dog, obviously, it’s completely down to you what you put in there in terms of interest, but again, just it is just about humanizing you and take and taking you from that paper based CV element to becoming somebody who they can envisage. Working within their team, with others potentially of a, of, with similar interests. Pets is always a very good one. So if you’ve got, know, hopefully your dog, people, hopefully. But, um, uh, if you’ve got pets walking the dog, for instance, I enjoy going back to my cat for instance. In some ways it should strike a chord with the, with the reader of some description.

Again, if they’ve got. So portfolio links, I would say, at the, at the back end. and the reason why have to take portfolio links is a good thing to do is just because sometimes, again, if your CV has been, uh, piled into, um, multiple other cvs, they’ll want a differentiator. And actually portfolio links, really good. Showcasing your experience a little bit, a little bit more really, um, and giving a real good snapshot of actually what you’ve done within your marketing, pr coms, um, or copywriter work. Copyright is actually just one quick thing to note. copywriters probably hate for me for saying this. Typically you will find that copying content people, cvs, um, tend to be really quite brief and actually, um, having looked at cvs, fought from copywriters and content people for the last 12 years, um, I would definitely say they are in the bracket of people who go into less detail on their CVS than anybody else.

And you’d think that was probably the difference. You, you would think that actually, well, copy and content people should be doing really amazing cvs. That’s what they, that’s what they’re doing in terms of the content they’re coming out with. actually a lot of the lean then comes through on their portfolios, um, and copying content people if they’ve got copying. Portfolios. That’s where they’re really, really showcasing the, the skills and experience really, um, on that side of things. So, so that’s a, it’s a bit of an overview in terms of what the, the, um, the CV should look like. We’ll hop straight into the second one, don’t worry. We’ll, we’ll, we’ll rush through this just to, to make sure.

We’re just getting the, the clarity for those particular points and the reason why these differ, I suppose, in terms of. So, um, obviously we’ve covered entry in exec. This is more of a managerial level CV template, really. So again, name, LinkedIn, link, humanizing, everything like that introduction. So this is the introduction for this person will probably need to be a little bit different in the sense that it needs to, it needs to qualify them in as a manager or at least somebody who’s got an element of leadership with their. Um, would really include, kind of team management here, if at all possible. So the number of people you’ve managed or, budget management, I’d manage a budget of X amount. Um, I’ve managed marketing campaigns, um, from initial conception through to implementation and report. Write that in there. Um, the level of management and what you’ve done, both on a hands on element and also in terms of man management experience. That, that, that’s really handy. Again, credentials, cims, MBAs, um, it’s really impressive when you see, I, I’ve attended Mark Ritz’s MBA and it’s, It’s a, it’s a really nice little, um, to be, to be seeing on a cv cuz again, it just shows that the marketing people, pr, comms people, are all trying to our skills, our learning within our craft.

And um, again, anything you can put in there to do those credentials, that’s, that’s fantastic. So we’ve added in an extra box here, um, and this is key skills. The reason why we would suggest doing a key skills box for a managerial role is just because by this time, you’ve probably, you’ve probably tailored your, your role or your experience a little bit further than maybe what the, the last entry level, um, TV should show.

Really, you, you, you probably, you found yourself as it were, within, within your, your marketing craft. So I would say here, key skills, bullet points or something similar, but I would try and add. Let’s go with an even number. Nobody likes odd number on bullet points, but, um, so eight, 10 key skills.

Bullet point, bullet point, bullet point. Um, but these key skills, I, I think it’s really important for you to lead, um, on the skills or the elements of marketing, which you really enjoy. again, this is just about making sure that who’s reading your CV is. He’s picking you up for the right reasons.

If you absolutely love digital marketing, ppc, email marketing, analytics, um, looking at metric, what we need to be doing is trying to build, we’re trying to build a bit of an mo and a bit of a bit of a background that leads on from your introduction. And now we’re looking at the tick box exercise in terms of the skills, um, which, which we’re looking for in terms of the CV review. Again, we then move on to the, the, the job title, company name, dates, brief summary come true of company. I think it’s also, again, if you’ve managed a team, it’s really, really handy then to put in the number of people you’ve managed really, really early on. Um, again, it’s just to make sure that. The reader can apply your skills and your experience to their current situation. Um, so if they’re, if the current team in which they’re having. To be managed is five people, and you’ve managed a team of four. Fantastic. It, it shows a step for you in terms of managing more people and also it shows that you’ve managed multiple people previously before. If you’ve not managed people, that’s really not an issue at all. But what I would do here in terms of the management of the team side of things, maybe do something along the lines of complete management, uh, within a standalone position. Um, and you could almost merge the brief summary of the company and also the management of the team or management. Of your role for it to become a, a, a brief introduction of your role and its context within the business, um, reference to growth and roi.

So when we’re looking at growth at the managerial level, um, it’s really important to be starting to focus in on what you have tributed and what you. Built, within your, uh, within your role, um, managing the team or managing marketing itself, anything that you can do in terms of figures, um, roi, I took social media following from, uh, we used Joe as an example.

I took social media from. 200 followers at 1.2 55,000 followers. You want to be, you want to be writing in there. The real plugging, points, the reasons why somebody should be considering you for that role. Um, and again, I would say sales figures as well at this point in terms of the managerial level roles. The reviewer will be looking at applying your skills and experience on the base of what they can get from you. As much as we don’t want to think about marketing as being, ROI based all of the time, is certainly that element of, still that we, within the marketing space, we have to justify. Our budget of half a million, bringing in a million or something similar or, so really, really think about your wins, wins, what you’ve been involved in, what you’ve, what you’ve, um, what you’ve led, what you’ve strategized on as well. I think that’s, that’s really, really super important. Moving down to cv, it’s exactly the same structure. Then for the rest of the, the cv, for the, the entry and exec level. And in terms of length of cv, I, I was gonna cover this, cover this at the very end, but I, so entry and exec, um, one to two pages, absolutely fine. Um, if you want to do three pages, that is also fine.

It’s completely up to you. Um, please do not listen to people saying that, you need to have a cv, which is two pages. Um, you don’t, it needs to be what you are comfortable with and what truly represents your, your skills and your experience. So, um, so yeah, managerial roles it’ll be two to three, possibly four pages at a, at a push on the basis of, um, skills and experience. If you do feel like you’re over egg, the pudding somewhat. This is really pertinent for the, for the senior level role as well. You can, on your final page or where you want to start cutting it off, start batching your roles together. So if it’s roles from 10 years ago, um, typically, um, very honestly, um, the reader of the CV will only really look at your first two or three positions. They really won’t go. Back much further than that in terms of clarity surrounding what skills you can bring to the position. Of course, unless you’re a, you’re a contractor and freelancer, but we, we can, we can cover that towards the back end senior level. So we’ll whistle through this because it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s obvious.

I, I think so. Um, the senior level, again, set up introduction. We really need to be pushing on the words surrounding, The reasons why we’re in that, that, um, that that top table role, what we’ve been doing terms of a leadership perspective that might be, building a team. I took a team from three people to 15 over the course of three years. Um, or, I led, uh, on new marketing initiatives. Uh, first of all, On a UK level, and then across the group we need to be looking at things, which again, um, really promote our skills and experience for the reader so they can apply. Well actually, Joe has been doing this so far. Can Joe do this for me actually?

Okay. We’re starting to see the reasons why I should continue to read Joe’s cv. So leadership, budget management, super important. Budget management strategy and and proven roi. cover budget and strategy together. Just super quick now. So budget and strategy just mentioned, just small elements of, what sort of budgets you’ve handled.

Again, it qualifies you in, qualifies you out potentially. Um, uh, and then also the building of strategy. So if you have built strategy and you have guided, uh, the top table on and you’ve guided a company through, know, um, if there’s an acquisition, you’ve taken the brand and you’ve, you’ve. You’ve reenacted it as, as a group business and so on that sing those, sing those songs at the top of this, uh, the CV in terms of introduction, team size, growth, leadership, credentials. I would say here a little bit like the last one. We’re looking at the, the size of team that you are looking, that you have been managing previously before the growth of the business, how that that business has transformed since you took up your spot as at at the top table. Um, and in that top leadership marketing role. And then leadership credentials. Leadership credentials. I think actually this is your opportunity to really say, What you love about leadership and the reason why you want to remain in a leadership position, if that is indeed what you want to do. Um, if you, if you want to forward into another leadership position within, with a bigger team, just mention the reason why you, you enjoy managing people, mentoring people, and growing those, uh, those teams and functions. Um, and then finally, then just heading back into the same, the same setup, uh, as the managerial level. thing to really mention about this element is just this part of it is, is just a little bit more, it’s a bit more beefy. It’s, it’s a bit chunkier, uh, and it’s a bit more of a story. I mean, bearing in mind that if your CV is being review, would hope that the reader, um, has dedicated some time, especially at the senior level, to really consider the profile, um, and to make sure it’s, it’s, uh, it’s, it’s off the right caliber and and level.

So do put some effort into this element of the, of the, of the cv. Finally, we’re moving down. Obviously this is three or four pages for a leadership position in reality, uh, portfolio links, you can put them in if you want to. Um, it may. Be expected that at this level that you have portfolio links, because chances are, you may not be quite as hands on as what you were previously before, so that’s fine.

But likewise, if you do want to, include those, then that’s fine. From previous, from previous roles, some candidates as well at the moment. Um, and within the application process, they’re attaching recommendations, received any links to blogs or content and things like that. I think it’s a, it’s a really good idea.

And again, that’s something which, um, which we’re, we’re sort of suggesting more on our senior search, um, side. We also embed videos at this element. So we, we, Joe obviously mentioned the, the technology element. We have got a, a platform which allows videos, a video interview to be carried out for two or three minutes, um, just as an introduction to you as a candidate.

And then it’s embedded within the, the cv, which is, which is really sharp actually. It’s, it’s a really, really good piece of, um, tech and software. So, so yeah, that is, that’s the, the, the, the CV templates pieces. So I’ll, I’ll stop, I’ll stop sharing now. So, I’m hoping Joe’s still there. So, um, so there we go.

I am indeed. Dude, that, that , I’m still here. That was so useful, mate. Uh, really, really, really useful. Like there was a bunch there that I’m like, if I was looking right now, then I’d, I’d be changing my CV on the basis of, of what you shared. And it’s not even just. Here’s the format, but you know, just those little, uh, bits that sort of almost come in between those little sort of like off the cuff remarks, which are really, really, really, really, really useful.

So, I hope that’s, that’s been, uh, good for folks listen in because I’ve certainly enjoyed it. So, so thank you for that. I,

Yeah,

really appreciate it.

a minefield. It’s a

which can be navigated. That’s the thing. So it’s, it’s, yeah, but it’s, it’s an enjoyable minefield once you, once you get through it and you get to the end result, so yeah.

That’s it. Bang on. Uh, I want close out just by, uh, asking you about a couple of questions about, uh, getting in touch with, uh, recruit recruitment professionals, uh, both in-house and, and recruiters, uh, uh, professional recruiters, uh, working for recruitment firms. So, um, I remember in my previous role, Uh, the, the HR team, they welcomed the initiative of folks who were getting in, in touch with them, uh, to, to, to do something a little bit special.

But they also said we’d built this process for a reason. We, we’d sort of as for a CV and a, a cover letter and stuff like that for a reason. So if you wouldn’t mind please going through the process, that would be really useful. How? Useful is it for folks to try and get in touch with recruiting managers on LinkedIn, to find their email addresses, to, to send gifts and cakes or, or whatever it is, uh, with these folks, beyond the CV and the cover letter that, that, that we so often accept as, as the norm,

Sure.

it’s.

there is an element of how long’s a piece of string with this answer.

That’s,

again, it, it,

on a lot of the time, the mindset of the receiver, the mindset of the

Mm-hmm.

and, and their current situation to do with their recruitment process, how far along the process they are.

it’s.

Uh, as well how busy they are in terms of the volume of positions which they’re handling. I mean, bearing in mind that, um, the, uh, so we’re talking about in-house roles here, so HR professionals, I’m pretty sure most HR professionals won’t mind me saying this as well. Um, obviously this may be footed mouth syndrome for me now considering my position, but. Many HR professionals are really overworked. They’re really, they are really overworked with,

Last.

both managing the HR side, so general business operations, but then also having the bolt on of the recruitment process. Yes, indeed. You are so right. Businesses do put in place certain processes to

We, the box just needs to be a bit smaller that.

Chances are they doing that? Twofold. Um, one reason they’re putting the process in place is to make it as easy as possible for the HR professional to manage, but then also the second element is to make sure that the, the hiring manager is a degree protected, um, against, candidate volume. Um,

Yeah, it’s still too close to

it’s a double edged sword, what I’m just about to say here, but the application process itself in, its, in its initial, um, timeline.

So when we’re talking about, Hey, I want to go and apply for a job, how easy is it for me to do that? It’s become almost too easy to apply for a role. In all honesty, that’s my opinion. Um, there’s now something called one click apply. and it allows you, Click on, click on an application. don’t even need to populate any details anymore.

You have your CV loaded in and you can just press apply. Unfortunately, for many people who are genuine candidates, they get lost in the massive sway of people who have just one clicked apply, who have seen the, the salary bracket or seeing the location or seeing a very small element of that, that role, and unfortunately, they are completely irrelevant for that position. Again, double edged sword. It may be that the job advert is not, it hasn’t been written correctly, and that’s where the, the, the bot needs to stop with the recruiter in that sense. If they’re receiving too many applications for a role, chances are they haven’t taken the care to qualify people in sufficiently enough when writing their job advert. But likewise, know, there, there is also cause of that one click apply. Um, Function. It does then mean that the volume of applications coming through for roles, even though the market is really candidate led at the moment, it’s we’re, we and also clients, we’re still receiving just the same amount, if not double, triple the amount of applications for, for, for, for roles. In terms of the direct approach, I think it’s a really good idea. I honestly, I think it’s a really good idea. Even, I think it needs to be targeted. Obviously we’re, we’re in marketing. We need to know who we’re looking at, who’s the customer who wants to buy. Um, so we, we need to figure out who the best person is to, to, to drop a quick note through to. Um, I would always say, if you are doing a direct approach and you are approaching a company directly, just make sure you target the, the person who’s going to be most interested, and the person who, who, who has that need. An HR person may not have that need. Obviously they need to, they need to fill the role, but it sounds awful.

They, they, they will probably need to fill the role, irrespective of who gets the role, as long as they’ve got the skills, and the hiring manager is happy as an HR professional in working in house, you. Yeah, a message is great, but at the same time, they’ve probably been bound by their own processes and they can’t deviate from that. if, if it was a marketing manager for a role, for instance, I’d be messaging the head of marketing to say, Pam. Um, I just applied for the marketing manager position. It looks fantastic.

just a feeling. The

might see that I’ve got experience within. This industry already, or I’ve got skills of managing a similar size team. I love what you guys are doing, especially mention something about a recent article which they wrote. They love that. The Think of it as as an ABM thing, marketing. Take that one person, create that mo, get that hook, and that sort of thing.

You could even attach your TV. To that LinkedIn message as well, if needed.

Yeah.

but yeah, it’s, it’s just about the relevance and unfortunately we, we just, we have to dodge the, the LinkedIn function that has happened where even the messaging now can be generated, also generated, just about that specific kind of way of, of doing that.

So The tech is killing

I love that. I, I think, one of

but I think actually, it’s interesting to, to almost finish on that point because the thing that came through in all of the analysis of the CV and how to do it well was the work that you kept using was human. And actually what we’re trying to describe here is, is giving a quick snapshot of, yes, I’m going to be competent for this role.

Um, and everything you’ve described so far feels like such a, just a, a lovely demonstration of how you can very neatly do that. But actually the purpose of all of this goes back to the tech is killing us. So this humanization of, of you as an individual, uh, actually is the thing that stems you apart and.

That feels like a, a quite reassuring message in a way. That, um, if, if one can embrace yourself and, and, and truly be a good fit for the role, not just any job, then actually chances are, Yeah. This isn’t a guarantee, of course it never is. But if that’s, that’s the attitude that you’re entering, that feels a, a healthy and productive place to, to start from.

So, uh, dude, I think that that may well be our time though, as well. So, uh, that was, that was, that was really, really brilliant. I really appreciate you walking us through that. I mean, I know. Brand is in a really busy place. So to get time in your schedule like we have today is, is, uh, is unbelievable. So I know that the community will appreciate it as well.

Uh, so thank you for taking the time and, uh, everyone, everyone will appreciate it. So thanks mate.

No problem. Amazing. Thanks.