Technology has moved on significantly in the last few years and despite what you might think, the research recruitment market is no stranger to technological advancements. Granted, the recruitment industry has a long way to go to achieve some of the standards you would expect from technology-driven customer experience industries. However, it’s worth remembering that these days your market research CV and its contents are, more often than not, being scrutinised by an electronic eye as well as a human one.


Indeed, in some cases, the electronic eye actually determines which CVs are allowed to make it to a consultant’s inbox, so it’s worth thinking very hard not only about how your CV looks, but also about what to put in it – right down to the words you use.


To ensure your CV gets through the electronic sifting process, here are a few tips.


1. Don’t be too clever with formatting and avoid fancy templates


Putting your contact details in special text boxes or in headers may look great but it’s the kiss of death for CV parsing systems. These systems don’t cope at all well with this kind of formatting trick and will often miss your contact details completely, meaning your CV will end up in the ‘manual verification’ queue (which is the candidate equivalent of the tradesman’s entrance) where it will sit waiting for an administrator to load your details. This just adds delay and could even mean that you miss out on being presented for the job.


2. Use a standard document type/format


To be safe, stick to Microsoft Word, in  97 to 2003 format (.doc). It’s the standard that most systems have no problem with.


3. Formats to avoid:


Microsoft Word 2007 format (.docx), WordPerfect, PDF and HTML.

 

4. See what your CV looks like in plain text format


Once you have created your CV, copy and paste it into a basic text editor. If it looks like a dog’s breakfast, redo it, since the CV tools will convert your CV into text first before scanning it. Also, a plain text version is often presented to the consultant when reviewing, so they need to be able to navigate it easily.


5. Use terms that are standard within the market research industry


Avoid using jargon, especially if it’s in any way internal to your organisation. People who have worked in large organisations for a number of years are particularly advised to look out for this. If in doubt, go online to various job sites or look at a range of job adverts and see what language and terms are being used to describe your experience. The software looks for these terms and attempts, among other things, to rank you according to your suitability when a consultant uses the system to search for certain skills. The clearer and more standard the definitions, the more likely you are to appear in the search results.


6. Avoid using a friend’s CV as a template


Beware taking an electronic copy of your best friend’s CV and using it as a template for your own. Even if you delete all their data, you would be surprised what lurks in the bowels of the document settings. If I had a pound for every CV that came through from John Smith but ended up on the system as Bob Jones (or, worse, Anne Evans) I’d be a wealthy man. Names and all sorts of other data are retained in ways that can lead to many problems for you, not the least of which is another delay in finding you and getting you in front of the client.


Stick to these basic principles and you should safely make it through to the humans among us.

 

For more career advice, please visit the Stopgap Group blog at http://blog.stopgapgroup.co.uk