CV/career articles

  How to write powerful accomplishments in your CV
Select the accomplishments you write about with care and make them as powerful as possible by telling the reader how you achieved your results, and not just the fact that you achieved results.

  Start your CV off on the right foot
Recruiters prefer CVs that stick to the facts and clearly articulate them. For CVs targeted to NZ recruiters, self-descriptions at the beginning of a CV can be seriously counterproductive.

  How to shine in structured recruitment interviews
If you’ll be interviewed by a panel, gather together some narratives of incidents at your work, each of which can be used to answer to different questions, and practice your answers.

  Including personality profiles in your CV
If you’re writing a detailed CV, it can be useful to take a couple of free online personality tests and include extracts from them in your CV.

  Don’t let your referees wreck your job applications
Select your referees with care, have a chat with them whenever you’re seeking a new job and make sure they’ll support your job applications.

  What sort of job do you want?
If you want to change the employment field you’ve been working in, investigate the options, assess your talents, and take advantage of opportunities to extend your skills and discover new talents.

  Take a proactive approach to the job market
In some situations, it can pay immediate dividends if you take the initiative by directly approaching prospective employers and presenting them with a complete skills package.

  Networking and cold calling
Make use of your referees in your job search, contact other people in your industry at events such as trade fairs, and use informational interviewing to canvas employment opportunities.

  Work your way into a new job
Before investing time and money in a training programme targeted to a specific industry sector, check out the jobs in the industry by offering employers unpaid work experience — or use unpaid work experience as a way to leapfrog ahead of other applicants in a competitive industry sector.

  Including a photo in your CV/resumé
Consider the advantages of including a photo in your CV/resumé, and take note of the employment fields for which the inclusion of a photo is not advisable.

  Getting a photo taken for your CV/resumé
If a photo is desirable for the position or employment field you’re targeting, prepare yourself for a CV/resumé photo session with a recommended photographer in Christchurch, or select a suitable photographer in other locations.

  Preparation for a CV session with Chris Eilers
If you don’t have a CV already, or if your existing CV is incomplete, it’ll save time and money if you get together the basic information we’ll need for the preparation of a CV/resumé.