Nikolaus Sommer
© bookstreet.net 2012
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Ask yourself: just what is my
C.V. - what is it about - what should it do - what am I trying to achieve when
I send it, or give it, to someone who barely knows me?
The one thing that people often
think about their C.V. is that it should be a real documentary record of their
life, often warts and all.
Well, let me begin
by saying a simple thing: when you send a photo of yourself to an admirer, do
you select the one with the zits, or do you get one that you feel is just a
little less revealing of your negative points and just a bit more informative
about your good ones?
It’s the same with
a C.V. Just as you wouldn’t dream to
tell a stranger about your private life, a C.V. is not a document about those
parts of your life which one normally thinks of as separate from one’s
professional activity or normal everyday working life: if you’re a
tailor, do you tell a prospective employer that you enjoy abseiling? Well, the true answer to this is, would it be worth it?
Of course this could be
mentioned later in the course of a conversation, and it might well turn out to
be useful, but in a short and concise history of your working life, abseiling,
playing bridge or going to the supermarket, and enjoying talking to your
friends is actually i) not only
understood implicitly - i.e. taken for granted, but if used wrongly as an instrument of
communication ii) prevents the
prospective employer seeing the real thrust of your life - that which it is in
their favour for them
to see. In a sense a good C.V. is an egotistical document for both the giver
and the receiver: they both require it to deliver what they most require.
The real
motivation that a prospective employer has for asking for a C.V. is their wish
that perhaps your life’s progress will in some way concur with the progress of
their business, at
this moment in time. Oh, and
positively, in order to make gains.
Money is the lifeblood
of business, and decisions within business are predicated on the need to
proceed, to make profits, ultimately to do better than just survive. And time is a critical element in business
too, with the taking-on of staff an expensive, sometimes risky element, but of
course an essential to ensure profit.
So asking for a
C.V. is not altruism, and neither should a C.V. be given, or thought about, in
that way. In reality your C.V. is
currency, it has value like money has, and an added value because it is also a
package, a snapshot of abilities and potentialities, and a record of your
achievement in life.
So what does your life have to do with the business you’re submitting your C.V. to?
Now, that is the
nub of the question; if it is not relevant, then there is no point submitting
it: after all we have established that an employer is looking for something
that they require: it could be a palette of things or else a thread of
information about capabilities, more often a set sequence of functions: Typist/WP operator, with clerical
experience for example, a defined set of tasks.
But
now I hear you say: ‘Yes, but I practically ran the Company!’
This is where this
sort of C.V. scores, if you’ve taken the trouble to get it right.
Chapter
1
Presentation or
Communication?
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n past times
a Queen or important personage would have a portrait made of themselves in
order to communicate ideas to a distant audience or individual (see the Portrait of Elizabeth 1st
in the National Portrait Gallery in
So
besides being a simple portrait of ourselves, the C.V. is also a tool of
communication, a sort of telephone line direct to the person we’re trying to
target which deals with all the things we wish to communicate about ourselves:
our strong points and our plus points.
In marketing this would be called the expression of our ‘USP’s’, our unique selling points.
Each of us
is separate, different, special, particularly skilled, and unique. Remember
that when you deal with yourself, and others.
In my personal experience I have never seen a
well-constructed C.V. about a particular person that actually directly reminded
me of anyone else. And that is how it should be - a C.V. should express your special-ness,
your
particular-ness, your perfect fit at that time and in this place for the job you’re applying for.
But, as in all closely worked things, such simplicity
doesn’t come easy. Apart from the old
hackneyed forms of the everyday C.V., which managed to disguise just what made
us all so interesting
and yes - different
and uniquely skilled,
not just a product of some machine churning out clones. Perfect communication, simple as it may seem,
requires practice, even experience, for practice makes you good at what you do.
Chapter
2
Who is the central Idea?
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o, what is it
about you
that makes you so special? Well, let’s look at the different approaches we
could make.
Skills.
Many people have particular things which they are often
very good at, but which they never talk about.
In the old style C.V. some of these things went into the
‘Hobbies’ section: but this section omitted much more than it contained, it was
thinner than thin on many of our hard won life skills.
Just consider a moment: what are you good at - what I mean is, what things do you
enjoy that others can share in, or that could be used as a means of exchange
between you and others. In the
traditional C.V. these things are often mentioned in passing, for example, membership
of a club, the playing of a sport, the past membership of the forces, police -
whatever.
All these things are positive, good, because they add to
the sum of your available abilities in all kinds of ways which could make you
much more successful at what you do, and make you more profitable for the
company (always emphasise that). But the problem in a C.V., is how do I tell people how good I am
at things that could be very valuable in their particular working situation?
Many of our skills
are less easy to paraphrase: how do you express the skill involved in your care
for someone who is long-term disabled?
How do you express your highly developed ability to think about others
and put yourself last? How do you express
the fact that you are capable of holding your own aspirations back when you see
someone else realizing their potential - this after all is the life force of
any group: a group or team is only as good as the sum of it’s realized
potential.
Adults
often have sets of highly developed skills that are not at all obvious, and
even less visible. The problem for the
CV maker being that potential employers and contacts are not ‘psychic’ and
cannot, from a couple of sheets of paper, or a few words on the ‘phone, divine
their particular, personal sets of skills, whatever these turn out to be.
Historically,
up to now, most of these considerations have been ignored in the development of
the C.V., perhaps understandably while the C.V. has been a very specific
document for basically a small percentage of people dealing with very specific
tasks. Like any machine, which it is, the C.V. has to be tuned and refined in a
very particular way for each person, because no one person is like another.
Part of the reason for this rounding-up of our skills is to develop a positive
sales ability: and I mean that as an ability which helps us to sell ourselves
in a tough marketplace. So how do you sell a complex product? One way is via The
Package.
Chapter
3
The Package
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hat does a
package consist of? Lets start with the
core of the package: which are the goods that it contains - think of Soap
Powder: well, how many times have you spent any time inspecting it? The fact is that the core product here is
standard, which is why you don’t inspect it, but what makes it special is in
the qualities of the package, consisting of:
1: The
Core Product - Soap
2: The Variations on soap/colours/
textures/feel/consistency/material
3: The Box /Container
4: The decoration:
The Container
5: The Advertising i.e.
awareness
of the product
6: The Public
Relations Messages which have been
associated with this product in the past, from the media and the newspapers
7: The way
The Package is finished,
physically or psychologically.
Typical
applications:
for ‘Whites’, for ‘Colours’, for ‘Delicates’, for ‘Wool’ - but the core product
is virtually identical -so what is the difference? Why - The Pack, it’s Image it’s Presentation.
Remember
that the selling of soap, water,
petrol, or people have amazing similarities.
These include: differentiation, specific attributes, perceived
differences, actual differences, imagined differences, differences that can be
measured or quantified in logical ways and
attributes that have a high subjective loading. We have to work on these
similarities to product marketing, but exploit the subtle differences as well,
to mark up our USP’s when we market that special package, our self.
Chapter
4
Selling
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ets look more closely
at the qualities that I brought up earlier, but change the headings and their
elements a little to dovetail them into meanings relevant to marketing
ourselves:
· Differentiation. The simple differences that we create to
separate people for a whole variety of reasons, particularly functional ones.
· Specific Attributes. Things that can be seen as obviously different,
between people in terms of acquired skills or professional attributes thus
creating distinctions, mostly logical ones, between people: particular elements
of experience, long standing in a job, ability to handle difficulties and
stress.
· Perceived differences.
Often personal attributes, which are seen as creating the right kind of
background for a particular required situation in a particular business area
.
· Actual differences. Differences in experience, training and
knowledge, which are quite clearly demonstrated.
· Imagined differences. What we call ‘Image’ but which is seen as a
difference which can be either positive or negative.
· Measurable differences. These can be as simple as size, height,
weight, eye colour, or as complex and subjective as ‘good at the job’ or
‘experienced in the right way’ or even ’over qualified’
· Quantifiable differences. The difference between having written and
experience qualifications, between having hands-on experience and theoretical
knowledge.
· Subjective attributes. ‘Good Looking’, ‘Clever’, ‘Attractive’,
‘Stylish’.
What do
these categories reflect about us?
One thing is that they show how daft most assumptions
about people are - just as they are about products: anybody in marketing and
advertising has heard stories about the craziness of perceived
differences. The problem for us here is,
well, how can I cut my
way through the jungle?
Some, up to now, relatively modern C.V. systems, for
example the DIN C.V. (or standard EU
C.V. Format), which, to do them justice, refer back to the early data C.V.
type, have tried to make some sense of the confusion - but anyone reading a
C.V. model of this sort simply cannot imagine the robot-oid who is so
successfully masked by this method of mechanical logic. Just as you can’t
humanise a machine, you can’t mechanise a person. It doesn’t work in any
realistic organic sense. See
Figs.
The EU DIN
C.V. is a disaster, because it imparts data in a basic sense only and at the
same time obscures the fact that here we are dealing with a living vital human
person, who brings to a job real experience, as well as personal skills, apart
from purely mechanical ones. This model
is simply obsolete, which displays the failure of such a bureaucratic and
ill-considered way of doing things.
The jungle
of mis- understanding is not as threatening as it seems, though, for we have a
quiver of human methods to achieve what we’re seeking, which is ultimately, The Conversation.
Chapter
5
The Capsule
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emember
what I said earlier about portraits?
The capsule is your opportunity to paint yourself a portrait which says all the things about you which you feel proud about, your aspirations and your successes and your skills, both logical, but perhaps moreso, personal.
Elizabeth 1st, when she sent her portrait to a king or
plenipotentiary, knew that they would see it as just a picture, but she also
knew that a picture can say a thousand things that mere forms cannot.
And she was right, as Mlle O’Murphy later proved, albeit
in her own particular way. Louis had seen this sort of thing before, but the
particular and canny way she presented herself in the picture tipped the scale
her way. Perhaps she mirrored some of
his interests. Probably. And it worked. Details must be relevant, and timely.
This is your first
real task, to develop a portrait of yourself in words:
keep it brief and keep it concise, don’t lie, but give a true picture of
yourself while you’re doing it. And make it positive. It has to tip the scale
your way, that’s its task, as the capsule is the only part of the C.V. that has
the ability to sway the receiver, to make them think positively about you.
Above all be positive and informative, and remember that no one else will be
capable of saying good things about you without distorting the truth. It’s up
to you, edit, cut, practice - remember that practice will make you
perfect. First write your capsule your
way, and then to tighten it up refer to the C.V. models enclosed (figs). But don’t cheat - copies will
always look that way, there’s no pretending, it must be yours.
Check:
1.
Are there any negative statements?
-Take them out.
2.
Are the statements you make as full
as possible in the circumstances?
3.
Is your basic capsule less than 60
words long?
4.
Does it talk about you in an
acceptable way, and do the selling well?
5.
Is it a good edition of your life’s
achievements
Now
check a few of the capsules on the next pages: note positive words, note the
use of phrases which could be construed as negative but which hold the text
together: a certain amount of negativity is not necessarily bad, and that is
because when we put our personal thoughts and mental shapes into any document
it begins to re-form itself to fit the personality involved; and that is
something to keep in mind, the fact that your C.V. should fit you well, like a
favourite pair of shoes, but in good order.
Chapter
6
The Conversation
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said earlier
that a C.V. is the beginning of a conversation. The conversation in point being
that which brings you into the general area of work or to the situation where
you are being interviewed about work.
An
interview is essentially a meeting between you and someone who wants to know
more about you, and if the facts on your C.V. are right for the company, well,
almost right, the interview will be a conversation about those things which
have been left unsaid, about potential, about the sort of skills which are hard
to express in writing, and about the specific things which an interviewer wants
to know or is unsure about in the context of your relationship with their
company.
So
treat an interview as not so much a formal meeting, because formality often
cuts out those things that we’d like to express (and never get round to
expressing in this formal situation) but rather as a conversation; for the more
of a conversation it is, the more likely you are to exchange thoughts and ideas
and thus be understood and valued as well as clearly seen as who you are,
rather than as a statistic or an entry on a sheet of paper.
Chapter
7
The Product
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hat is it that makes us buy
one product as distinct from another? The supermarket shelf is very often a
dizzy array of what is in effect the same product, only with very small
distinctions that have been created manufactured or imagined, made for the
market (i.e. this washing powder is for coloureds, this one is for boil washes
- this is an ordinary water, this one is ‘chic’
and expensive and thus select, in some unaccountable way.)
There are
several factors at work here: a brief list would include:
·
Personal Preferences (prejudices - many consumer goods work this
way)
·
Lack of Knowledge -information
exchange (handbooks)
·
Ability to catch the eye -
attractiveness (Sweets)
·
Ultimate use (bleach and suchlike)
·
Re-marketable ability (uncooked foods)
·
Quality (now what is that?)
·
Packaging
·
Perceived Value
·
Real/Actual; Value
·
Relevance - to time related factors
What is interesting
about all these things is that they relate to any product range at any time,
anywhere.
And that’s where we come in. Whether we like it or not we are in effect, to the unseeing employer, like a product on a shelf, though to ourselves we might more closely resemble the complexity of a book - but remember, in a library. One cannot fault an employer for trying to find simple ways to evaluate the appeal of a potential employee - bring it down to a few key factors. To give a simple example, if you’re looking for someone to drive a truck, what are the parameters of the task:
Obviously a
licence; fitness for the job - and what else?
This is where,
at a psychological level, the list above comes into play. Most people are chosen for their roles for
non-objective reasons: there’s no getting away from it: if you’ve done a
potential employer some sort of favour in the past you’re more likely to get
the job - there are a few well known people who’ve drifted into extraordinarily
well paid jobs after, for example leaving Government jobs. We all know that
their talents are fairly modest, don’t we?
The bases
upon which people are judged for most jobs come down to subjective ones: given
certain basic requirements, like those mentioned earlier, the other
capabilities are assessed in a host of ways. Even government employees filling
in their comment boxes on an interview board have their subjective input, and
the final collection and extraction of forms is naturally affected by various
political considerations (with a small ‘p’ naturally). Whether we like it or
not, then, given that we’re strangers in a market, there’s always the element
of the Auction.
Another factor of course
is that, at the interview stage, you are only as good as the data gathered by
the interviewer - substandard interviewer (common), substandard interview....
and the outcome?
This
is something we have to contend with in an imperfect world: if the interviewer
is incapable of seeing your strong/plus points, then you’re all at sea: and that’s horribly common: personal
prejudice is part and parcel of finding a job.
These
things are off-putting, but remember, he who has the data will have ultimate
control, though it might seem frustrating in the short run, given a built-up
knowledge you’ll benefit - and prosper
in the end.
What this
is all about, is the fact that your C.V., however good you think it is, has to
be capable of multiple functions: it has to inform, it has to promote,
communicate and sell, develop potentialities within situations which are
previously unseen, and in order to fulfil all these functions it must be
tailored and edited and shaped to fit perfectly. So it’s form belies it’s
content, it’s not a simple thing to make: whether or not it looks good to you
is one thing is in fact neither here nor there, what is relevant is that it
fits it’s function perfectly.
Perfectly being the active part of the phrase, for it must look good to
whomever it is intended to be seen by; it has to be bespoked.
To bespoke anything is never
easy: for example, what if your clothes fit you, are well made and stitched in
wonderful fabrics, but are out of style? That’s the nub of the thing, the CV,
like anything which is the product of a fast changing universe has to be fit
for the job, it has to be in style, which implies that it has to be upgraded at
intervals, honed to fit the situation, and that means every
situation individually. Like any special product
about something or someone very special, the C.V. has to fit the task
perfectly, or else the pieces won’t fit in the receiver’s mind, and you won’t
ever get to have the Conversation.
8
The Offer
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ur path to the
conversation is via ‘The Offer’: or more accurately, how eloquently we make
that offer. So let’s consider those factors I mentioned earlier, putting them
into context with our personal marketing plan:
·
Personal
Preferences We all have our minor prejudices and likes
and dislikes: when this is put in the context of making a choice it becomes a
preference. You’ll notice that a ‘choice’ has a strong element of personal
input by the chooser, and so objectivity is a relatively small part of this.
Evaluations on these bases would include ‘good at the job’, ‘confident’,
‘caring’, ‘well dressed’, ‘well presented’, ‘good taste’. It’s almost
impossible to imagine that we don’t nurture our personally imagined
characteristics: after all that’s why we are all so employable, but find it
mysteriously difficult to get the right job. Advertisers use people with
spectacles, because people believe that they are somehow wise. Personal
preferences are built from all these, with the added factors of academic or
professional likes and dislikes, about areas of business. The trick here is to
cater for those minor prejudices. You’ll find that some people prefer others
with Latin backgrounds, or dark hair. You can always fib about your Italian
granny, but you’ll have been picked already for your dark hair.
·
Information
Exchange One thing that will get you into a job is
background knowledge. Professionals use acronyms and phrases between themselves
which convey more than meanings; they convey group membership, and there’s
nothing quite like being recognised by your peers. So brush up on the jargon and the buzzwords, read the trade journals and get yourself up to speed;
make sure you’re word perfect on them.
And remember that the exchange of information creates a warm and shared
atmosphere. Exchange information wherever you can, but don’t give the family
silver away - that’s a sign of weakness.
·
Attractiveness
There’s one thing that separates everyone, and that is his or her appearance. Everyone is capable of
developing some small element of personal style: do it, make yourself
distinctive without being garish and remember the different packages around
you, from the supermarket shelf to the bookshelf there are different, memorable packages everywhere.
·
Ultimate
Use When it comes to profitable business, the effective use of employees is of course
a critical factor in the employers plans. Without a corridor of potential
activities an employee will often not be doing enough to create profit for the
company, so use and it’s natural end activities are always at the back of an
employers mind. Keeping this in mind is a good strategy for the self-marketer.
In the short run this means being resourceful in showing lateral ability, because in the longer term these abilities will
probably have to be exercised. So be careful about what you say, and don’t make
false promises. However, always keep in mind that progress always requires
something of a leap, often including a leap of faith too.
·
Re-Market
ability What often occurs to a potential employer,
or anyone who deals with a product used in manufacture, is, ‘How easily can I
turn the product/person into profit?’ It is crucial to any process that it’s
product can get to the market as clean and new and perhaps innovative as
possible: thus also with ideas - ‘Can
this person deliver our message to the market and turn around well... how will
they perform?’
Make sure you
have formulated a way of dealing with this before you come to the market.
Innovative ideas are one set of potential considerations: come up with a new set of ideas here and use them judiciously, and they could score you
points in terms of future achievements. Hope is one thing you’re selling, and
put this together with belief from the person you’re talking to and you have a
potent chemistry to work with.
·
Quality.
So what is quality? Why do you buy a certain sort of shoes, wines, perfumes,
clothes, scarves, ties? The Answer lies more often with the perceiver of quality than it does in
any logical sequence leading to that recognition. Branding has something to do with it, as does
texture, colour and a well arranged set of elements like clothes. Quality of work can be judged relatively
simply, but often subjective elements such as ‘Delicate touch’, ‘sensitive
handling’ make the precise meaning of quality in that context very vague. Quality,
like beauty is very much in the eye of the individual, but it remains a factor
which is manipulable given a reasonable understanding of the sorts of factors
involved. Use it, because your use of the tools available to you mark you out
as someone who is thoughtful and resourceful, which gives you Added Value and that’s something, like
goodwill (which is what businesses are often traded upon,) which makes you more
desirable.
·
Perceived
Value. Perception of value is another
imponderable. We all know what we think when we see something and invest in it
‘real’ value; but do we really think that? Perceived value has much more to do
with a sort of chain of events leading to the final analysis than it has with
any concrete, factual analysis. Nevertheless, it often becomes the clincher -
at point of sale perceived value can often make the difference between success
and failure.
·
Real/Actual
Value. Now we are on safer ground. At professional
level one can be Accredited, Chartered,
Registered, Licensed. At Vocational
level one can hold Diplomas, Certificates, NVQ’s and other qualifications. Many
jobs use licences for control. These are real values, values which can have
cash directly attributed to them: professionals are appointed only after the
scrutinization of their paper qualifications and these qualifications have
recognised fee levels and as a result, pay levels. Thus qualifications can be
used almost as currency. These are real values, tradeable commodities. A proven
good salesman will have a definite value to a company, quantifiable in terms of
sales and ‘pulling power’ things which relate to the other factors we’re
discussing here, like ‘Quality’ and ‘Relevance’, actually, all of them - and,
for example, an engineer will have a directly attributable fee rate,
quantifiable if the outcomes of contracts are known, and probably an industry
standard payment rate as well.
·
Relevance.
People and their jobs have relevance to companies in terms of their functions and their cost to the company itself. So skills and training are also factors in this relevance because they
effectively reduce costs: skills brought complete to a company, like training
which is up to date, reduce costs and create higher skill levels, which in
their turn create higher profits. Demonstrating that you have skills (simply
stating that somewhere in your profile for example) will make your application
far more relevant. In a sense the way you demonstrate
your relevance - their need for you - is more lateral than literal.
Chapter
9
Oddjobs
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ddjobs is the word I use
for all those things which can be included in, or excluded from, your C.V. They cover headings like ‘Hobbies’ ‘Pastimes’ Achievements’
and other less obvious possible exclusions like ‘Age’ ‘Marital Status’ ‘Number of children’ ‘Sex’ and’ Race’
including
‘Nationality’. Oddjobs are in an awkward category.
Occasionally they are relevant (for example if you’re applying to run a
developing country’s music festival, where ethnic background could be
considered a factor), or where you want to inform potential employers that you
understand the problems of families - but very often they will effectively bar
your from a job too.
I
suspect that very soon ‘Age’ as a C.V. factor will become obsolete, if not
actually legislated against, (it already is effectively irrelevant, judging by
the way that some large employers are ignoring it), and it seems logical that
asking someone that most irrelevant of questions, their race, will soon become
‘Politically Incorrect’. Well, roll-on that day. For the time being however,
people like Government Departments, glory in asking about ‘Ethnicity’ (another
word for race) albeit as a way of judging ‘Equal Opportunities’ factors.
As
you’ll see in the illustrations contained in this book, there are many ways of
tackling these questions: mostly, I think, by ignoring them. Which sounds like
a crazy idea, but not when put in the context of ‘The Concept’.
Chapter
10
The Concept
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hat is so exciting about The
Concept is that it offers us so many possibilities within what one may well
regard as a constricted area.
As
we’ve seen from the examples here and from the discussion earlier, is that the
C.V. effectively has many potential lives.
When
you consider that any person of a certain age who has real life experience (and
who doesn’t?) has played many roles in their lives so far, then the C.V., being
as it is a product of the communications gap between an individual and a
potential employer of some sort, can be used to explore the potentialities of
that gap. Or to put it more succinctly, it is a library of the information
which is at that moment of time current and above all relevant
to the needs of both parties.
Can you see
what I’m saying? The fact is that any
adult is going to have a range of differing though not necessarily unrelated
C.V.’s. Simple as that
Now,
for the Concept Image is an
important part of your modern life. When you walk into a doctor’s surgery,
you’d be put-off, to put it mildly, if he was clutching a bottle and reeking of
alcohol. Why? Because doctors shouldn’t be like that - they have a job to do
which precludes attitudes, appearances and behaviour of that sort.
Image,
in this case, is a finer development of this sort of slightly caricatured
individual, and we all need to generate image. A video Director friend of mine
was once told that because he was wearing a suit he could not be taken
seriously in that role.
You
see, role-play is an important way in people’s lives of isolating fact from
fantasy, fiction and irrelevance. So we must appear relevant, real and above
all acceptable
to other people, even if we find it faintly ridiculous. Image is the fine point
of all this. You must look right, speak the right jargon, affect the right
gestures and behaviour, think the right things and speak in the way of that
business in order to convince a stranger that you really know what you’re
talking about.
And so must your C.V.
Your C.V.
is the thing that says to a stranger:
‘I’m right for the Role’ and says it convincingly, clearly,
concisely, quickly and above all without irrelevant detail. Like the pack on
the shelf, the C.V. is your mirror to an employer’s consciousness, your way of
saying it all in a moment.
Which point brings us to The Concept.
The Concept
is the mental image you have of yourself allied to the product mirrored in the
C.V., and if relevant (as it often is) the letter of Application, Introduction,
or a supplementary conversation.
Just as you buy a complex product, say a car, for a
whole host of reasons which wind up into a single fact, the Concept summarises
all the things you are in a public sense, all the things you are to the reader,
talker, and the person who meets you and works with you. And the beauty of it
all, as I said before, is that it is yours very largely to control
The C.V. Control
your C.V. Don’t let it get away from you, make it work for you, work on it so
that it says all the right things about you and none of the wrong. And make a different version of your C.V. for
every application. Think about it, when you buy a car there are several
versions to choose from, but yet they are all the same model. Well, that’s you:
you’ve had lots of experience and interests in your life, which should all be
mirrored and glossed-up in your C.V.’s - but remember, don’t try to get all the
chocolates into one box because (logically) they’ll get squashed and damaged.
And who wants their chocolates in that state? No, pack them nicely, give them
the right spacing (time sequencing) and they’ll look at their best, won’t they.
Obvious, really.
You must work on
this approach. Be more aware of the way that you appear
to others, accept helpful criticism. People do buy you for yourself, but above
all they buy what has a very personal meaning either in terms of self interest or profit. Being realistic about
yourself, heaped up with all the things we bring with us from our many lives,
is one of the most difficult things to achieve, but achieve it you must in
order to be successful. It’s all part of the Grand National of life.
And remember, to
the Winner, goes the Spoils.
Think about your
image, think about your self-image, and keep in
mind the Concept. In that order. That’s the way in which you will succeed.
There is
one thing that has not been dealt with here yet. And that is the Letter of Application. It’s part of the
Concept because even if you haven’t written it on a sheet of paper and sent it
to the respondent, you should still have a clear, concise, version of it in
your head.
When
you apply for a job, there is always an unspoken dialogue in your mind. ‘What
will they think of my experience? How will they see this application? I’m
perfectly suited for this post. This is something I’ve always wanted to do.’
Whether you
have these thoughts or not, this sort of wish must always be there in order for
you to apply for that particular job. Remember
that at the interview, and in your letter, the person who hears you speak
will be less worried about you than they will be about your profitability
vis-à-vis the company. So always talk about the opportunity offered by whatever
it is in terms of the
company. Do not refer the job to yourself as if
it’s something you really want to possess: after all in reality, as they are
doing the paying it is they who want effectively to possess you in order to
build assets, so that being a possession of yours could turn out in time be a
major bone of contention for them. Think of people who empire-build within
organizations - they often cripple them. In conversation always be careful to
make statements that refer to you in relation to them, and never the other way
round.
Or to put it
another way, make sure that The Concept
that you have of yourself for any function is crisp and sharp and clear as
crystal.
Chapter
11
The Presentation
|
L |
et’s for a moment consider
what we’ve been discussing. Well, we must always be positive. No
Unfortunately’s’, ‘Nevertheless’s’, and no negative statements which don’t have
a positive slant to them. No
irrelevancies. Nothing that will not be a marketable commodity in this context.
No Apologies. No Implied criticism of a former employer.
What is critical
when you are selling a product is that it looks, feels, talks, sounds and
replies right, and that all the outward appearances on the outside of the
package are borne out by the appearance and performance of the product when it
appears. Thus with you, The Product. Think of yourself as a
product of quality: no cheap finishes or tacky paintwork here, solid and well
founded throughout.
This is emphasised
by the backup which you deliver: the right key words and phrases as used in the
business you’re in*, the correctly casual or formal or well tailored or
laid-back way of dressing (all businesses have their biases), the way you
present yourself and your obviously well-turned knowledge of what you’ve seen
and experienced, are what will get you believed and understood. And at that
point others begin to see things your way!
*Use trade publications, magazines,
journals, newspapers to get these up to date and smartly turned in your
conversation. Technical information is easily gleaned by simply keeping up to
date with trade publications and also by talking to technically astute people.
The bottom line of all this is, be smart
(after all that’s how anyone succeeds in business).
Chapter
12
The Bottom Line
|
S |
o now, let’s look at how
we create our own bottom line.
To summarise, look over the headings:
1: Presentation or Communication
2: The Central Idea
3: The Package
4: Selling
5: The Capsule
6: The Conversation
7: The Product
8: The Offer
9: Oddjobs
10:
The Concept
11:
The Presentation
1: Your C.V. is both Presentation and Communication: all presentations imply that an
introduction is being made, and all introductions need appropriate and
carefully thought-out methods with which to clarify the situation: ergo, Communication.
Thus
we have to clue ourselves in about a job, get to know the parameters which
border or describe it in order to be effective, graphic, sufficiently catchy to
have an impact: just think, each C.V. will get an initial couple of seconds
before it’s first sorting, and then a further ten or so seconds before it is
given time to be considered. After which the impact of the C.V. must be clear
or else the whole idea will be lost. This final phase? I would say around a
minute.
If
you add that all up, you’d be lucky for your Personal Selling Proposition to
spend much more than a minute or so being looked at, at the paper stage. It’s
logical that most fast thinking managers will have made a decision one way or
the other in this time. And it’s your job to convince them, but fast.
2: The Central idea. Well the central
idea is to communicate you - in all the best and most positive ways. Any other
way is a waste of breath, effort, and everyone’s time. So get it right in your
own mind before you push on.
3: The Package. This is a combination of Communication and the
Central Idea. When you buy something (a package, very often) the packaging
itself will have two distinct functions: i) it communicates the idea of the
thing to you and, ii) it actually
delivers the thing to you - in a desirable, communicated form. In other words
you know what you’re buying, and what it should be delivering, even if you
never see it. Don’t believe me? Most of the packaged things you buy are never
actually seen
(Petrol, milk, canned foods, washing up liquid, detergent, tea.)
4: Selling. Very simply, what you do to move the
product, having fulfilled the previous functions. Remember, the product is you,
and your job here is to get you off the shelf and into the desired place as
quickly as decently practicable.
5: The Capsule. The Capsule is a still
finer, more different than any other personal definition of yourself: it’s a
purpose built portrait without zits, it’s politically correct (from your point
of view), it communicates you in less than fifty words, in a flash, and it looks good
and is positive. Think about advertisements for packages, they
do just that in a few seconds. The capsule should be relatively seamless and
should point-up and complement the total C.V. See the enclosed examples for
reference.
6: The Conversation. Is the meeting,
formal or otherwise which the C.V. is geared and intended to create. An
opening, the beginning of a dialogue which may well go further than a simple
interview, because people always network, and word gets around in any business.
If the Conversation is a positive one, you may well be referred by one contact
to another for reasons which are not evident to you, but which are of relevance
to them. The Conversation is in fact
almost a way of life in some business environments, and in reality it changes,
but it never ends, even after the interview. All conversations about work are
in effect ongoing dialogues.
7: The Product. This is what makes a product
different from any other. The difference
in question, being you. Can you communicate that special quality to the person
who wants to hear your message? As I
mentioned earlier, this sort of communication is not simple, easy, or
intuitive, it has to be learned, practised, worked on. The next time you buy a
product casually remember that just this train of events has taken place in
order to effect that transaction.
8: The Offer. Your USP is just one part of
the offer, which is a combination of USP, Package, Product, and Communication,
which is anyway, part of a Conversation. That’s what happens when a salesperson
speaks to you. They call it ‘closing’
but what they’re closing is their special
version of The Offer.
9: Oddjobs. When constructing a package in
the marketing business these are often called peripherals: add-ons and
take-offs. They can augment a product (you) if used well, but in this case they
can also divert attention from important factors. Use them sparingly and
judiciously.
10: The Concept. The Concept, like the
Image, is an important final gloss of the package, tied-in with an implicit
reference to its value as a central idea. For you this means the tie-in of
skills and training, attitudes and background experience and knowledge linked
with all the other things we’ve put forward. Like everything that has to be
well and clearly thought about because it’s complex and difficult to extract,
The Concept, like the wheel, seems bewildering simple, and as a result of it’s
simplicity it has the efficiency, when tuned right, to be sharp as a blade,
another apparently simple idea which took thousands of years .....