The whole CV update cycle thing
Yeah, I'm one of those who struggles to keep their CV up to date. There is a definite emotional roller coaster involved. And it's exacerbated by cynical views about late stage capitalism and the utility of any “job” you arrive at. I'm sure I'll talk more about that at some point in the future.
For me there seems to be three phases:
Just into a new role. Learning, so writing about the role and achievements can be a bit challenging. Feels a bit like cheating to be updating and being accessible for a new role at this early stage.
Norming. Been in the role for over a year now, know plenty and possibly regarded as an expert but still mostly positive about the role. This is the perfect time to write effectively about your experience and achievements in the role. But there's no real driver to updating. It's just admin. At best it's something to lean into to leverage procrastination as a super power. I'm sure I'll also talk more about this in the future.
This leaves the final phase. When you're sick of the job and or the people and or the future prospects. You're motivated to update because you want to leave and you know you're going to need it. But your writing will be influenced by your negative emotions, or updating will give rise to negative emotions, making the updating a decidedly “unfun” activity.
To the surprise of no one, I'm in phase 3 now. I'm hoping to use the holiday shutdown (my current employer turfs everyone out for 3 weeks over the holidays. No exceptions!) to de-stress and then go through “the updating” with a calmer, less angry mind. We'll see how it goes. I was definitely on tilt running into the end of the working year!
And then once the updating is done, we get to go through the job market again, a process seemingly perfectly designed to keep you down and tell you you're not worth much. And somehow gatekept by one of the great lies of the modern corporate world: Professional Recruiting Services! So we'll see how we go.
Urgh, this has turned into a long unstructured rant. Not like me at all! 😜
To finish, this is how I'm going to embrace it:
- Not rush into it, not make myself feel like this is 'a commitment' to maximise my happy vibes. And feel free to let the procrastination fairies take me where they may. Only tighten up if I start to run short of time.
- Keep using my current template as a starting point. Not going to update historic much. This CV has been in use for 20+ years and has gotten results. With a career interview/offer ratio of 13:11, I know I interview well so this just needs to get me in the door.
- Understand that professional recruiters use automation and likely AI these days, so try and lean into that and take advantage of their laziness. They don't want to read and understand, they just want to pattern match and fill an unfilled on their books.
- The “technologies used” list of buzzwords seems to work well, so start there for the current role.
- Expand out to list my “achievements”. Not “what I did” or my “experience”, but rather what did I “rock” at? What did I do that no one else could?
- Finally, leverage all that into the cover letter. This is the hardest part. Don't be too philosophical. They don't “get it”. Everyone trying to recruit is already compromised. They're not doing this for fun. They're doing it because they have too much work or someone is pressuring them to increase revenue. They just want to pick someone great and get back to what they are supposed to be doing. Corporate HR is increasingly absent from the interview process, preferring instead to favour “governing the policy”.
- Less about what is important to me, more of what is important to them, as if it is important to me. Write it as a success profile for what they would be looking for.
We'll see how we go!