Hi and welcome to the workshop, a synchronic workshop by me, Tina Persson. We’re going to talk about how to write the perfect CV or resumé, but I’m also going to show you how you think and the strategy behind tailoring a resumé to a job ad. So I will focus a lot about looking for keywords, understand the keywords, understand how important your transferrable skills are, drive, motivation and the work style of the job. So let’s start with film number one here. Just shortly about me, I’m not going to stay here for very long. As you see, I show a bit about who I am. I’m a fitness, I do CrossFit. So it’s a lot of energy, a lot of outdoor activity, a lot of action. I have a fairly multiphase background, but for you it could be interesting to know that I worked as a recruiter and head-hunter for eight years, so I hope to share some really valuable tips to you in this workshop here today. It’s not rocket science. It’s just to unlock and understand the job ad and that can take some time. Many, many jobs at the moment out there on Indeed and Glassdoor, LinkedIn. So take the time and plan carefully. So having a look here, how to attract hiring managers and recruiters. Some basic understanding how it works and the world that recruiters are working in. When I worked as a recruiter, I could have – in one job, I had over 100 people applying for a position. With that said, I didn’t have a lot of time to read each resumé or CV, so the shorter and the conciser you write, the better. The most common mistake is that you have a sloppy, if I put it that way, structure and layout. Many people today are not native English speaking, as I am, I’m from Sweden. So there can be some typos and grammatical errors. Many recruiters or most recruiters today understand that, though it doesn’t mean that you put them there and that you have many of them. So please spellcheck and check. So it’s a clear layout of your resumé. What’s also striking is that when you apply for a job, you need to tailor it to the job ad. So I understand – or let’s put it this way. You make it easier for me to understand why you want the job and what you can add, the value you can add to that specific job because the recruiter’s job is to sell to you. They’re going to sell you to the company or to the organisation. So they need to dissect your resumé in a fairly short time period to get an idea of whether they should call you or not. If a recruiter have up to 100 job ads, their job is to start the pre-selection and that pre-selection is super fastly done. They come up with a shortlist, maybe up to ten to 20 different resumés and then they start the next selection round. That could then include a screening interview where you get a couple of questions you have to ask. If you pass that, then you come for the real interview. In some cases, you go directly to the company and they take over the process. Hiring managers, they look for the keywords, where you come from, your background, your drives, whether you’re going to fit to the job. So please make it easy. One of the biggest challenges when people straight from academia apply is that the resumé, CV is still very academic. The English, the language is not translated to the corporate language or to the industry language, or for that matter, any other organisation. I’m going to show you one of those resumés here today. The language, when it’s not an academic position, is fairly different, so please pick up the trendy words as well. Take your time. This is, I would say, the vastly most important in many ways, and that is take your time because if you have never translated your academic CV or resumé to an industrial or an organisation for NGOs or any non-academic job, if I put it that way, it will take time for you. When I coach my clients, I advise them, you know, take one to four weeks. Start to think about things like what you like to do, what drives you, what people you like. Reflect on the job you have or had in the past. What kind of specific tasks did you like to do? What tasks did you not like to do? So you sort of get an idea of already then what job field you’re interested in. That way it will be much, much, much easier for you to apply for position and to tailor every resumé to the job ad or CV to the job ad. In the beginning, it takes time, but after a while you get very, very skilled and in the end you more or less just change the subheadings or the bullet points or the heading, and a bit in the prior file. That, you will do very, very quickly. So this timeline here is to show the importance of don’t be too quick and don’t expect from yourself to make an overnight application and you succeed and you get the best resumé ever. If you do, that’s wonderful, but don’t be disappointed if you think it takes just a little bit longer than you think because it does. First though, I will repeat what I said in the first workshop, CV design workshop. I wrap up the six strategies. Look for keywords, even the trendy ones. Make your resumé easy to read, so I get it and I very easily find your skills. Important bullets, important subheadings Help me with the headline so I understand what you’re looking for. So draw attention to important sections. Include only relevant information. You could have maybe a six-page academic CV, please shorten it to maximum two pages. Remove things in your fantastic background that is not relevant for that job you are applying for. That goes also for only including the relevant subheadings. Then it is to communicate the value you offer to that job. Coming back to that, I’m going to show that clearer when I show you the different job ads and the CVs. This is a print screen. Today, there is so many downloading pages where you can go and you can download CVs and resumés from the net and please do so. You don’t have to sit and design everything from the beginning. It’s perfectly fine to go there, buy it and download. As you can see in this picture here, they almost look the same, these two resumés here, but they are different, small, small details. It’s perfectly fine to look what do they call the headlines? What is the different names and the structure of the resumé? Either you download it, as I said, or you design it accordingly yourself in PowerPoint, in Canva or in Word, of course. I’ll just show you the vast variation of resumés and CVs today. You can have a plain one, black and white. You can have a colourful one. You can have with or without a photo. You can have the infographic one, and you can have the one that is kind of half academic if you prefer that one. Today, there’s so many different resumés and CV templates so you can choose the one that you like. You can choose the colour you like. So don’t hesitate to do that. You don’t have to invent everything from the beginning. The first time you design it could actually be fairly smart to buy a template so you can follow the structure and the wording of it. This picture here just shows what you need to prepare to make it easier for yourself. When it’s easier for you and you have a strategy, you most likely also help the recruiter and the hiring manager. Understand what’s behind the job, the work style, whether you’re going to travel, if it’s a more extroverted job, is it a more detail-oriented job? Is it a creative job, investigative job? Is it a practical hands-on job? That defines the work style, the drive and motivation in the job. Then they ask for a certain sort of personality and we are all different. Whether you’re outcome focussed, you’re more people focussed or you’re creative or you’re very detail-oriented, you’re kind of the person that’s very cautious, you want order, structure, planning, or if you’re more the big picture, spontaneous person. That could indicate that we prefer to work in a certain way and maybe in a certain position. Also, whether you like to work in the corporate world, small, medium enterprise companies, NGOs, organisations, governmental positions. That is something I would like you to carefully evaluate before you start to design your CV because otherwise, you most likely will have to redesign it and rewrite it so people can really learn to know you, who you are. So by reading it, they know. So when you come into the interview, they say, ‘Oh yes, this is you. We reckon you from the resumé.’ That’s my tip.

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Hi and welcome. Tina here again. I hope you enjoyed the first film and the first part of this workshop. Now it’s time to go through the second one. So just some general strategies and how you practically tailor and what you pick from the job ad and how you put it into the CV. I will be very clear here now that the CV that I have designed here is a very plain CV, so I wouldn’t recommend you to write that one, but that is to easify for you to see what I have written and where I have put it in the resumé. I would recommend that you write exactly the same thing into one of those earlier CVs and resumés I showed in film number one. We are going to look for the key skills and transferrable skills, soft skills, work style, etc., in the different CVs. This is a course coordinator job advertised in UK. As you see, what I’ve done here, I have started to colour it. I love to do it in this way, and I still do it. I use different colours depending on what I’m colouring if I speak so. The yellow one is sort of a mixture of values, transferrable skills and work style that’s really good to know when you write the job ads. I highlight it so I easy can see it and translate it into my CV. The green part is what I say, I have it. That’s what I have. That is a master degree I have. I have, as you can see further down, a PhD and professional doctorate, I have. I’ve done course and programming leaders. I have been doing teaching. I have my teaching qualifications. I have it. Then the blue one is something that, oh wow, that’s maybe not everyone has in academia, but I have it, network with relevant employees in industry sector. That is something that I should highlight a little bit extra because I think that’s a little bit extra important. Anyway, we go back from the start here and I will take it step by step in the approach here. The first I take in yellow here is leading the course and from supporting the programme and partnership. This is a job where you’re going to lead courses and support programmes. So it’s already clear here. It’s an administrator job and supportive job. I’m wrapping up. You’re going to like to work with undergraduate, postgraduate courses, foundation courses. You’re going to lead programmes, I take it, again here. You’re going to develop, probably manage courses and programmes. You’re going to monitor. You’re going to have follow up, probably a lot of web service. It’s administrative and you’re going to report to the academic director. As they also write, you’re going to work closely with the academic director. It’s also enhancement of existing and development and planning of new awards with colleagues. So it’s a fairly academic job, but in the administrative part at the university. You’re going to like to work with policies and regulations. You’re going to – feedbackings, web service, as I said before. It’s very good if you’re familiar with the different processes and systems at the university, including e-learning resources. So I would say any sort of experience you have with web service, the CRM systems, typical academic support systems, various e-learning or digital platforms, going to be super, super important for this sort of job. Also, that you like the fact to support and help students in their projects, help them in their academic training as PhD students, also postdocs, is something that is good to have in your work style. So just having a look on the above one here, and then you take the transferrable skill. These jobs goes under what we call in drive and motivation, administration and support, organisation, planning, executing projects. Initiating but also executing is a valid drive to have. Also that you’re interested in university regulation and policies, and that you can work in a top down, which usually universities are, in the way of taking order and follow up in the academic environment. That’s the yellow part. Of course, teaching, if you like teaching, that’s a bonus that you have that behind you. The rest is fairly clear. So you have a PhD preferentially, or desirable, so you don’t need it, but it’s desirable. Any experience in teaching and course programmes is going to be super important, that you like to network and that you have been networking, interacting with people beyond academia is a very good asset to have in this position here, and to highlight and bring in to your resumé. So now I’m going to show you how I put that fairly clearly, I hope, in the resumé. As you see, this is very plain. So I would say this is not very attractive from the layout, but it’s easy for you to see what I’ve been writing here. So you can take the text and then you use the design as I described in film number one here. So I start with the profile where I write, ‘I am an ambitious and curious PhD in humanities who gets energy from leading and coordinating projects to support organisations, stakeholders in administrative matters. I’m actively looking for a position where I can utilise my interest in undergrad and postdoctoral affairs within the university. My most valuable asset is that I see solutions in challenges like solving problems. I have excellent planning, organisation skills. To that, I have, for the last two years, been involved in postdoctoral career activities, supporting their career transformation from academia to a non-academic career.’ You can write this very differently. I just want you to take a look on the essence, what I’m writing here. I’ve tailor it to the job ad, and I explain I like to work with an administrative job. I write that I have worked a bit with postdocs, organisations, within the university. So any sort of activity as a PhD or postdoc is a huge asset for you in this application as it shows that you know what the job is about. So therefore, when you say you’ll most likely like the job, they trust you there. So this is just an example what you can write. You can most likely do much better than this, but this is one way of doing it and how to write it in the profile. A common question I get here is that do I have to write this in the CV? Can’t I just write it in the cover letter? I say it’s very clever and very smart to write it in the resumé and CV, in case the cover letter is, you know, maybe not attached to your resumé when they send it around, to make sure they don’t miss your drive and your interest. Going a bit further down, what I like is that you put an area of expertise. That is that you just highlight key words like project management, digital communication, university administration, web service, e-learning, postdoctoral affairs, career development, social media, teaching. So it’s very easy for the eye to just highlight your skills and area of expertise. It helps the recruiters and hiring managers to catch the eye on something that they know you need to have or must have in the job. Experience and achievements, I call these sections here. Here, I’m writing in that this is the person, Lisa here. She had a volunteering time. We know that any volunteering jobs and internships meanwhile you do your postdoc or PhDs is valued very, very highly for most recruiters and hiring managers. So here, Lisa has been an advocate for postdocs and also career event coordinator. University of Liverpool, very clearly and then in bullet points, and I like these bullet points because when you then tailor this job or a similar job in the future, it’s easy for you to change the bullet points so you can match and tailor to the next job ad. One way of writing it could be coordination and management or web service connected to career activities, created and developed researcher blog programme, collaborating, attracting external stakeholders to postdoctoral events. Implementation of career events in collaboration with internal stakeholders at the university. Human resource directors, professors, and support the postdocs in career related matters. This clearly shows that you have been working with it. You have been reporting to directors, internal stakeholders at the university, so you, in some way, have some insight to what the future job or the job you apply for might actually involve. The postdoc time you write a little bit like this here. Planning and execute on scientific projects within behavioural science. Here, I wrote planning and execution because in the course coordinator job, you’re going to execute a lot and you have executed a lot as a scientist as well. Driving and submission of ethical correspondence with ethical board at the university. That means you, again, you collaborate and know the routines within the university. Writing scientific reports, submission of scientific articles, development and facilitated e-learning platform connecting undergrads to improve communication proficiency in English. Shows here that you have been involved with different sort of platforms at the university. If you have that, that’s a super asset to this job here. Then presenting my science at international conferences, shows that you’re trained how the academia works. Then of course I will not go through it. You write also in your work experience that you are PhD and you’ll write it in a similar way as I’ve done above. I will not show you further, but education qualification is important. You write down courses if you take them. You can write any course like support, teaching, administrative tools, university course that are relevant for the job. Also, language skills, social media skills, software system, CRM system, web design, surveys and teaching tools that are relevant to the job. Language, you can write down. Lisa actually is multi-language here. Then IT skills or any technical skills as I’ve done here. You’re very welcome to write, because in this case here, most likely they’re going to like that you know and have an asset of them. Interest, I get a lot of questions about. Write only if it’s relevant, and if you do it, maybe you don’t write it in text. You can have it as small, small figures. That would do, I would say. So now we will go to the next job ad and that is a sales job. It’s an inside sales job, and it’s going to be Brian that applies for that one. This job is very different from the previous job and it’s connected completely different drives and motivation. I will show how a postdoc and a PhD in this case, Brian is a brand-new PhD, can apply to a job where he has absolutely no experience, at least what it looks like when you read the job ad. This one here is fairly interesting because they are writing very clearly. They are looking for someone and experience might not be super important. Anyway inside sales, representing and sequencing, and real time PCR. It’s already written in the headline that any experience in sequencing and real time PCR is the key. Leading, but what about the company? Now we’re first going to read – you know, this is Thermo Fisher and this is leading in serving science. They help people and customers finding cure for cancer, protecting the environment, making sure our foods is safe and moving forward with thousands of important projects that improve millions of lives. Here, the company show the values. Don’t hesitate in your cover letter to write that in. You don’t write it in your resumé, CV, but don’t hesitate to really take a close look on that. So you’re in the beginning of your cover letter, mention that, why you want to work for this company. Do you want to be part of a journey in the future, and you say, absolutely, I want to be part of your journey. I’m passionate about to make a difference in life science. Again, write it in the motivational letter. They also write that this is a job for a recently or newly graduated bachelor, master and PhD within the life science field with some sales experience. I’m coming back to what some sales experience could be, looking at transferrable skills, drive and motivation. Then they write a lot about you as a person. Guarantee an interesting and challenging position in an international – so this is a challenging, they will challenge you in a way, and it’s international. They will give you training. It’s very clearly written here. So you get an insight and will learn about Thermo Fisher’s product portfolio and you will also get some selling skills training. So when you feel that, or if you feel, ‘Yes, but I don’t have any sales,’ they will train you. Then they describe about the job as an inside sales representative. You’ll be using the telephone and digital aids as your primary tool. So this is a person applying for this job must like to speak up, to use the phone and contact people, approach people. You can’t be shy here. So it is for sure a person that can take the initiative. So just by looking on this yellow, where the yellow is drive, motivation, transferrable skills, sort of, personality and soft skills, it’s clear that this is an enterprising job. An enterprising job with a bit of supportive in. Now I take the blue ones, that, the technical skills, here, sequencing and real-time PCR and qPCR is something that you should have. So if you have that, write it very, very clearly on the resumé. I put the green in it because what they are writing here is that experience from academia and know how academia works is an asset. So you will work with a variety of clients. So in any case, if you have, during your PhD or postdoc also worked, so you have contacted biotech companies in different career events or internships or in any other kind of activity, it is hugely, hugely advisable for this position. Also, the fact that you as a PhD know academia that make you – that they could be – make you attractive, sorry, for this job here. Key responsibilities, and now I just write it down very, very briefly. Look at the wording that I’m highlighting, manage, service, coordination. It doesn’t mean that you must like sales because you don’t have that experience but manage, coordination, databases, any CRM system. They’re going to use Salesforce CRM. You have maybe used other CRM systems or software tools at the university that could be an asset for you. Written and verbal communication. Communication with research scientists, that you communicate science within the scientific community is, here, equally good. Coordination, guidelines, supporting again, trying to work with programmes or coordinating programmes, manage and close. So you start, you manage, and you execute, and you close things. The experience, minimum bachelor. So it’s minimum bachelor. That means that they can take a PhD, but when they write it like this, it could impact the salary. That could be depending on the country here. Excellent written and verbal communication, and in this case, interesting enough when I saw it, it’s in English but also in Swedish, which means that any Swedish for a person here applying is a super asset. So this is also something that many forget, that the language, don’t forget your language. High-performing team. It’s high tempo, high pace, it’s action and energy, and that you can prioritise, you know what to put on top and what can wait till the next week. Then shortly about some computer skills, PowerPoint and etc. I know that this is Thermo Fisher, so it’s a big global company here. Now I’m going to show Brian’s. Again, it’s very plain, and as you know in this case, I think you should add one page and you should have more infographic one. Those templates I’ve shown you in the previous workshop and you can download from the internet here. What I have written here, now, in the profile is something like this and you can absolutely write it differently, but this is highlighting certain things that could be good to have in the profile. ‘I am a PhD in molecule biology with solid experience in real-time PCR and qPCR.’ I write that on top because that is super important that I have PCR, that you have real-time and qPCR. Then you write, ‘I am actively looking for a position to combine my interest in life science, sales and marketing.’ You are indicating there that you will not work behind the bench. You want to go to business; you want to go to sales. ‘I’d like to work in an environment supporting lifelong learning and with colleagues promoting high-performing activities.’ Now you explain what you like. In the job ad, that was learning, quickly learning new things, and you’re indicating that’s what you like. You also say that, ‘I like to work in a high-performing, energetic environment. My most valuable asset is that I see solution in challenges.’ This is good to do in sales and marketing. ‘I want to solve problems and have an excellent planning and organisation skills.’ This is also important in sales and marketing. ‘In addition, I have been responsible for career-related networking events at the university.’ So anything – now you can write, you can say that you’ve been responsible for coordinating companies at the university or anything. Anything that could indicate that you have reached out to external stakeholders. Then we go into the area of expertise and, again here, I take project management, life science, molecule biology, qPCR, real-time PCR, sequencing, networking, career event coordinator, travelling grants, teaching. I write travelling grants because there, you have attracted funding that can show some initiative, that you’re actually good in writing and to attract money to your science. In sales, you should be good at that, but of course, you reached out to clients differently. This is one way of showing some transferrable skills. Career event coordinator, your interest of doing other things at the university that’s connected maybe to external stakeholders, where you like to organise, but at the same time be with people. There, it gives you a possibility in an interview to express your interest in doing that, and there, you can get the networking in and other activities indicating or showcasing that you are a fit for being a future sales representative. We go to experience and achievements. Now, this is a PhD student in BioMed molecular medicine. When I take in bullet points, here are common things that most PhD students have when at work in life science at any university. All right, design and execution of scientific project shows that you can execute, you can start things. I highlight very early on that you used qPCR. Writing scientific reports, submission of scientific articles. Communicating scientific results at international conferences. Initiate collaboration with biotech companies, attract travelling grants for international conferences or teaching undergraduate level X and X. Supervision of master students, coordination of undergrad courses. You know, there’s many bullet points, supervision of master’s shows that you’re interested to help and to support people. That’s part of sales as well. Attracting travelling grants, as I said, shows your interest to get money in. If you have done anything with external stakeholders, you put it down in the bullet points here. Now you might wonder whether I don’t have more skills in life science, and you should have in the skills section. There, you can write down other of core skills that you learned in molecule biology apart from PCR and qPCR, but that can go directly to the technical section. I haven’t included that in this example here, but this is just to highlight how you write those sections like achievements and the profile. Then, again, I’d like to highlight that any sort of internship or volunteering, don’t forget to pull that down, because this is my experience that you do a lot at the universities, but you forget everything you’ve done or you don’t put a value on it. Please do so. So for example, there we have a PhD student, been doing some networking at the internship of HUB, responsible for attracting companies to the internship programme or designing web page, development of communication channels to connect the university with external stakeholders, responsible for budget. So you’ve been active at any sort of student activity programmes, please add that in as a volunteering activity. Then the rest I don’t have to go through, education, qualifications, this is clear. Any courses connected that could be important for the job, absolutely. Teaching, administration, university courses etc., language and etc., as in the previous job here. Then, of course, language, and then you put down the IT skills, as you noticed here and then interest if it’s relevant. In this job here, in the sales job, it actually could be relevant in the sense that you show that you are energetic, that what sort of activities you have on your spare time. It shouldn’t dominate, of course, but why not have some figures showing that for you. Then, you know, as I said, this is just a very plain, so easy file for you to see here on the film and on the computer how to highlight the certain sections. You should, of course, in this job add more skills than just qPCR and PCR, but I think that’s fairly obvious. So that was it. I do hope that you have got some important tips and tricks, how I take the job ad, dissect it and then move it over to the CV in the sections of profile, results and achievements. You know, your position, your work experience and your achievements connected to it. So thank you very much for listening. It’s absolutely a pleasure to share my knowledge with you and good luck with your applications. Take care.

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