#11: 6 ways to hone your mid-career CV.
Midlife crisis? What midlife crisis?
It wasn’t actually about him having a midlife crisis.
When Mike Patton of the (let’s face it, mostly 90s) rock and alternative metal band Faith No More penned the song Midlife Crisis, he said he had no idea what one might feel like.
In fact, the working title for the song was Madonna. He said it seemed like he was getting barraged with her image every day. It felt like she was “going through some kind of problem”… perhaps she was going through her own crisis of confidence, trying to work out what her next incarnation would look like. Who knows.
👆 Mike just spotted someone dressed up as the Queen walk past the window.
One of the song’s lyrics ‘Sense of security | Holding blunt instrument’ forms a perfect springboard for me to talk about getting your mid-career CV sorted out. Seamless.
Many clients come to me with the same problem.
A new problem they’ve not faced before, so it’s completely bewildering as to where to start.
“I’ve not needed a CV for the last [insert your own number] years, because [I’ve always been approached | my employer has been bought out and my job’s changed | I’ve been promoted]*- and now things are different.”
*delete as appropriate
They’ve usually held some pretty senior jobs, and recruited a lot for their own teams, but not really gripped what “good” looks like on a CV for their own use.
They’ve had the sense of security that they’ll always be tapped on the shoulder for the next job. It’s never been a problem, has it?
So making the leap from what they’ve seen in a few decent CVs and countless duff ones, to putting it into practice for themselves - well that’s difficult, isn’t it?
They might have an old CV - too long, heavy and unwieldy - a blunt instrument they’ve swung about when push came to shove.
But that’s not what they need now.
The world has moved on.
They need a sharp tool.
Whether they’ve been used to earning £50k or £250k, this is a very common challenge for leaders.
So here’s 6 pointers to help you out of the mid-career “I’ve never needed a CV” hole.
Just Start.
Procrastination is a killer here - so simply sitting and starting to type SOMETHING is better than putting it off and putting it off.
Begin with your current or most recent role, and work backwards.
Imagine your CV is a funnel shape - you want to write more about your most recent experience and less about that from the 90s or even the early 2000s.
Context counts.
Give some basic details about the scope of each role. Team size, budget, the main problems you were there to solve.
Write bullets that answer questions.
Write a few points about the things you did to solve those problems. If you can cover three of What, How, When, How long, How much, Why, and Who in each sentence, you’ll be hitting the basics.
So what?
By using those questions, you should engineer an outcome into the bullet point. £ revenue improved, process steps reduced, costs saved….
Get the tense right.
Put it in the past tense and start the sentences with verbs. Influenced, project managed, delivered, honed, created, developed, built, led, shaped, owned, designed, implemented… just a few off the top of my head.
Clearly, there’s more to it than this, but it’ll get you started.
If you’re struggling, you can always ask me to help. Just reply to this email and I’ll send you a template and some guidance.
Whatever you do, don’t rely on Mike Patton’s blunt instrument approach, make sure you’re hitting the market with something more like this:
Right, I’m off to put the Faith No More Angel Dust album on really loudly and consider the launch strategy for my upcoming premium paid content, coming soon.
Oops, did I just let that slip?
Phil
Job search tips in the socials…
Here’s one to get some focus into your CV’s profile section.
Here’s one about some of my extracurricular activities and how they help me help you.
Here’s another with a titter from my favourite cartoonists at Modern Toss. Less job search tip, more “sentiment analysis”.
Wondering what the song I was talking about today is?