The post from Innovation Hub Kathmandu approached my Facebook newsfeed and boosted up my excitement level. I went through the post in detail and registered for the session. And by now, I’ve ended up attending the CV Crafting Workshop. The workshop was conducted over Zoom with the presence of nearly 100 participants. The session was organized by American Spaces. The resource person for the workshop was Mr. Prayas Rajopadhyaya (Director, Job Dynamics) who’s actively been engaged in corporate training with more than eight years of professional experience in understanding people, bringing the best out of them and helping them excel in life.
I got fascinated by the title of the workshop. Generally, there are plenty of sessions happening regarding the CV/Resume Writing but this session was something very different. Anyone can write a CV using templates or following some specific formats. But, crafting a CV is skill that is learned over time. The session formally started after Mr. Sulav Bhatta introduced the speaker; Mr. Prayas to all of the participants. Since there was a huge number of interested participants, they had decided to broadcast the session over the Facebook page as well.
With nearly 100 participants from different corners of the country, there had been an informal intro-session prior to the event whereby the participants gave a quick introduction through chat. The session was kicked off at 1 PM sharp beginning with the general differences between a CV, resume and bio-data.
CV
- CV is originated from a Latin word for “course of (one’s) life”.
- It has been the most important and crucial thing asked for in almost all of the job vacancies.
- It contains briefly about your professional life which can be used for various research, grants applications, and academics requirements.
Resume
- Resume comes from the French word résumé meaning “summary”.
- The 1-page resume has been a common trend.
- They are short and focused towards the specific requirement.
Bio-data
- Bio-data includes the biological data about you including your height, weight, etc.
- They are mostly asked for when the physical body matters in a career like; police, military, modeling, air-hostess, etc.
“Creating a professional CV isn’t actually a difficult task” adds Mr. Prayas. All it takes to come up with a professional-looking CV is a few tips and tricks. Mr. Prayas acknowledged that he had learned about a CV for the first time through English class back in his school days while he was studying in Grade 8. According to Mr. Prayas, crafting CV is a must-have skill with the graduates from almost all fields whether it be technical or non-technical.
CV; the biggest mistakes by graduates!
You got it right, CV is the biggest mistakes made by the graduates. But here, ‘Ctrl C + Ctrl V’ has been best describing the CV very often. Mr. Prayas shared it with one of the personal experiences. He came to receive 3 CVs for job application which had almost everything in common including the typo mistakes. By noticing the single typo mistake in one CV, it was proved that all of the 3 applicants had copy-pasted the CV. With that being sharted, Mr. Prayas emphasized to customize CV while sending out each time. The CV designed for one company might not be suitable to send it out for another company. Though most of the contents in the CV are the same, customizing CV as per the company requirement creates a vast difference. Creating a single “master CV” comes in handy while customizing the CVs, Mr. Prayas added. What he meant by the “master CV” is the collection of all information that might be handy for CV into a single document so that it can be extracted while customizing the CV. The trend of passing out same CV without updating it on a regular basis can be a pitfall for the graduates to get hired.
Be damn serious with your CV
CV is the thing which we make it ourselves but not for ourselves. Rather, it’s made for the recruiters. Whatever things one has mentioned in the CV must reflect it in their real life. Just in case, if the recruiters find a silly mistake in one’s CV, they can straightly consider it to be careless and least concerned with their career. How would the recruiters expect to hire the person for a very serious job who’s not serious themselves while just working on with their own CV?
There isn’t any hard and fast rule to come up with a CV neither has any standard format. All it takes for a CV to be stunning one is; making the recruiter genuinely visualize the applicant. If one has mentioned anything in the CV then the person must be able to prove them while cross-questioned about it. If you’re missing out on the experiences for your CV, feel free to share about the achievements from college whether it be organizing any kind of events or getting involved in volunteering.
Throughout the session, I got an opportunity to explore CV in a way different way than I had ever thought of. The major takeaways from the workshop are:
- Avoid the simple typos for real!
- Keep updating your CV on a regular basis.
- Customize your CV each time you apply for a company.
- Use a professional and decent email address always!
- Quantify with the achievements and experiences.
- Refresh yourself prior to attending the interviews.
- Take consent from the person before mentioning their name under “Reference”.
- Always be honest about what you mention in your CV.
- Avoid mentioning unnecessary and irrelevant information on your CV.
- Avoid using abbreviations, you can’t assume the recruiters to understand some random short forms.
The post-lockdown time definitely hits very hard for almost all of the companies. They shall be in seek of dynamic, young, and proven human resource for their company. Lockdown is the best time to grow your skillsets. Make the best use of time to learn something new and keep growing!
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