Hayley Taylor, who once worked for A4e and then became TV's Fairy Jobmother, has used her website to answer a question about someone's "personal profile" on his CV. It reads:
"A very experienced and accomplished Customer Service professional. A natural communicator who can deal with people at all levels. Flexible, adaptable and quick to learn new skills. A reliable team worker who can take responsibility for any task. Demonstrable ability to follow instructions very well, yet able to take the initiative as required. A determined worker who can achieve targets through hard work. Looking to continue to build a career in the retail sector."
Ms Taylor says: "Well done, thats great, just watch your punctuation so that there is a continuous flow and maybe elaborate a little more."
If you spotted the irony in that reply (big punctuation mistake, it should be "that's") well done. But what about the original profile? It has all the cliches, which I doubt any employer takes much notice of, but you feel obliged to include them. I largely agree with Ms Taylor about the lack of flow. It isn't written in sentences, just detached phrases without verbs. Perhaps the writer was trying to avoid using "I", but it would read much better as, "I am a very experienced ..." etc. And yes, it does need elaboration with some specific examples. A personal profile should be genuinely about you.
"A very experienced and accomplished Customer Service professional. A natural communicator who can deal with people at all levels. Flexible, adaptable and quick to learn new skills. A reliable team worker who can take responsibility for any task. Demonstrable ability to follow instructions very well, yet able to take the initiative as required. A determined worker who can achieve targets through hard work. Looking to continue to build a career in the retail sector."
Ms Taylor says: "Well done, thats great, just watch your punctuation so that there is a continuous flow and maybe elaborate a little more."
If you spotted the irony in that reply (big punctuation mistake, it should be "that's") well done. But what about the original profile? It has all the cliches, which I doubt any employer takes much notice of, but you feel obliged to include them. I largely agree with Ms Taylor about the lack of flow. It isn't written in sentences, just detached phrases without verbs. Perhaps the writer was trying to avoid using "I", but it would read much better as, "I am a very experienced ..." etc. And yes, it does need elaboration with some specific examples. A personal profile should be genuinely about you.
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