Talk with Jo Carter

Today we had a talk with Jo Carter from Concept Personnel. 

She started a recruitment agency for creatives 12 years ago. 

She gave us a scenario where we were given 24 CV's, with an outline for a job that they had all applied for. 

She then gave us half an hour to decide 6 that would be taken forward to interview, as the manager of the company looking for the job would be a very busy.

Afterwards she went through everyones groups to see which ones had been chosen the same etc and then showed us why certain ones wouldn't be chosen and why certain ones would.

She then gave us tips. Our CV needs to stand out - be in the yes pile not the no. As employers are very quick to say no.

Don't need our age on it any more, because of discrimination against younger people etc.
As people form opinions about you from what they see.

The CV also needs to remind them of you, after you have an interview. 

Consider what it looks like visually as well as printed. 

Consider it's layout, typography etc, not to bright on colors. Don't make them hunt for the main information.

Put key words in such as illustrator, branding, etc so that if they type it into a big database such as CV library it will come back in a shortlist. 

Make sure your social networks aren't gonna give you a bad reputation or get you fired.