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 Hi All,

Hope you have enjoyed HR blog season, here is the final blog of the season…

One of the joys of working in HR is the number of CVs we received. Over the years we have seen them all; the good, the bad and the ugly! So I emailed my team and asked them to send me a few do’s and don’ts.

It started with a few replies, then snowballed into a mountain of   ‘Also…’, ‘And….’ emails.  So as a favour to all our loyal readers, I have compiled a list of Do’s and Don’ts when contacting companies about work experience, jobs and general enquiries.
 
Do
• DO include your mobile number and an email address on your CV. Also include your full address.

This applies when leaving a telephone message- its untrue the numbers of messages we get that simply go ‘Hi, I would like to enquire about work experience. Please call me back’- we have no name or number. We’re good at Channel 4 but not that good! Introduce yourself and leave your details clearly.

• DO put Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms if you have a unisex name i.e. Jamie, Sam, Chris- your gender doesn’t matter but it saves us some embarrassment.

• DO ensure that your email address is spelt correctly; we can’t get hold of you if it’s incorrect.

• DO list the month and year on everything on your CV i.e. Work experience and length of time at jobs. DO list all jobs and education in reverse order. (Newest to oldest)

• DO a thorough spell check on your CV. If you are sending out bulk emails/CV make sure each one is personalised to that company and check its sending it to the right company. We have a surprising large number of CVs for the BBC here… 

• DO ensure that you use the same format all the way through i.e. same size font, same font and margins are correct. Using different fonts and sizes makes it look messy and like you don’t care about presentation. DON’T use fancy colours, too much bold or underlining.
 
• DO include referee details; include a phone number, email address and full address including post code.

• DO list all of your grades for educational subjects taken.

• DO group all temporary jobs together rather than spread it out.  If you had a several jobs since your paper round when you were 13, we don’t need that much detail about it.

• DO explain job responsibilities in bullet points rather than paragraphs. If you have to use paragraphs, short and precise information given. Print out your CV and look at it, does it look too dense? An employer often only scans for the key points.

• DO have all your details clear before you call - calling to request work experience but not knowing your WEX dates does not give a great impression. Like a good boy scout/Brownie be prepared!

• DO send a covering letter- explaining your reasons for applying for the role or work experience.  If you send just a CV we’re going to have to guess what you are looking for and again we are not that brilliant.

Don’t
• DON’T put your education before your work experience
 
• DON’T include a photo of yourself on your CV especially one that include someone that has been cut out, you drinking or drunk, posing in swimwear (NO!). We don’t care what you look like (believe me, you should see the HR team!), just as long as you have the right skills and qualities for the role.

• DON’T make your CV too long. It should be 2 pages and no more, however DON’T squash everything onto 2 pages and make the font too small. If it goes to 2 and half pages, that is ok. If it’s going to be more than that, put the extra information in your covering letter (which should not be more than a page long by the way).

• DON’T swear in your application forms!! This is never acceptable, no matter how liberal or innovative the company you are applying to is.

General extra info that HR have wisely suggested….

• Don’t put the Curriculum Vitae on the top of your CV!  If you have to tell us it’s a CV, it is not doing its job. 

• Don’t handwrite your CV! Or handwrite it and send a photocopy of it! Borrow you friends, neighbours; school or library computer and print several copies.

• Don’t get your parents, grandparents or any relative to contact companies for work experience on your behalf. They may be trying to be helpful, but it would make a better impression if you do it yourself. The number of parents of graduates that contact us….

• Use a sensible email address xxxlilmissnaugthyxxx@tmail.com or Imadogkiller@bol.com does not give a good impression. Have two addresses one for professional and one for social.

• Do search the internet properly. We advertise all our positions online at www.channel4.com/4careers.  If we don’t have any online we don’t have any vacancies. We’re not secretly hiding them somewhere else for our family members, despite the rumours.

• Putting your Facebook, MySpace, Twitter page link is fine, but make sure you want it to be seen by your potential employer. Pictures of you drunk or semi-clad and friends’ inappropriate messages do not give the greatest of impressions.  

• Check your spam/junk mail. The @channel4.co.uk address is not always recognised and sometimes gets set to the wrong folder.  We’ve had candidates who don’t check it regularly miss out on application deadlines and invites to interviews.

• Read instructions, our applications form gives you 10 days to complete the form or it closes it. This doesn’t matter if the deadline is a month away. It states this clearly on the applications but most people just click through this and ignore it.

Hope you found this helpful and enjoyed HR blog season. You can still get in contact with us on wrl@channel4.co.uk.

See you all next month, when the 4Talent Blogs will be taken over by the Diversity Production Trainees!

Thanks for reading,
Lauren x

This entry was posted on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 1:50 pm and is filed under Lauren Mollyneaux. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.