The Countdown to Unemployment Thread

Can anybody recommend a service, or professional, who can I ask to review my CV and help optimise it? I'm comfortable either coding or designing – my current title is a "UX Engineer" – and despite talking about this in cover letters, I'm not getting past the CV sift with roles I'm actually interested in. I'm looking for product/ux/interaction designer roles, and I fear I might have gazumped myself.

Also, pick your lane really tight: product, ux and ID are very different roles. Pick one.

Job agents will do that will they not? At least they did the last time I was job hunting (2010). I suppose you'd have to be on their books to use that service though.

Hey! Genuinely not trying to be snotty here - it’s hard to not be a generalist in a smaller company but generalist CVs make me nervous. Unicorns might exist but if they do, they’ll be devastatingly expensive.

We most always hire specialists - whether they’re researchers, UI/ID, service designers or design strategists and generalists always make me worry about the Jack of all trades thing.

I’d use ChatGPT to tailor my CV to every individual role and avoid paying some burnt out rec consultant to do the same job but worse tbh.

Go and work for Twitter

On the CV front try and keep it to two pages. Vacancies can sometimes get 100 plus applicants and it's possible the Hiring Manager won't be reviewing the CV, they'll just see a shortlist from a recruiter or HR. That recruiter will have multiple open roles so they won't be spending time reading every paragraph and bullet point trying to decipher what you do.

As was mentioned previously pick a lane or try to highlight your specialism, Your CV is a foot in the door it doesn't need to have every detail and project. A specialist in X is likely to get in ahead of a guy that can do a little bit of everything.

As for rejections, don't take them to personally. A lot of the time an advertised role may already be in the late stage of interview or even offer. If that's the case it's possible your CV might not have been reviewed but you will get a generic decline from the ATS system when the role gets closed (Most systems won't let you close a role without moving candidates to decline and sending a template email form a very limited selection.) So getting a decline doesn't always mean you aren't good enough, just the timing wasn't right.

This is very, very true. Ten odd years ago, after an unspectacular career in IT for small businesses, I found myself good at a lot of stuff but not actually great at anything which was absolutely killing my chances of progressing on to anything well paid. I ended up taking a more junior role at a larger company just to specialise in something but that step back lead to a few leaps forward in the end.

Hypothetical… what happens if you interview well and get an offer for a role, but your heart is set on another that is currently in the pipeline? I can still 'afford' to be enjoying my time off, but I've got to admit, I'm not sure how stay-at-home folks don't go stir-crazy.

Just be upfront about it. It's not uncommon for people to be in contention for multiple roles.

I wouldn't disclose you have a preference at this stage just that you would like to take some extra time to find out if you'll be offered both.

If they push and say they need an answer you may need to make a decision.

Any update? Did you get the 'dream' job?

24 hours later… I declined that first offer. While it was a hefty payrise (sorry inflation), there were too many nagging feelings. I'd left my last role to pursue other aspects of career progression – not just money! – and I didn't feel they would be satisified.

So now you know

Fucks sake. I got rejected for a civil service role after my personal statement only scored a 1: "No positive evidence was demonstrated."
WTAF. I STAR'd the shit out of each of the experience criteria they were after, and recycled examples I'd used on an earlier application with GDS which had gotten me a 6. Whoever sifted that needs a kick up the arse. I'm tired of having to play the 'game'.

/rant

Thanks Dougs. Just needed to vent about it. Maybe it was crap, but it wasn't a "No positive evidence demonstrated" crap. These particular roles seem to be fairly rare, so it's extra galling. For what good it'll do me, I did write to the recruitment email asking for some clarification, though I don't expect to hear anything back.

I've PM'd you the the essential criteria and my response, should there be any glaring flaws.