CV Clinic Update

by Emma_Chappel on 04-Feb-10 13:30

CV Clinic - The Feedback

We had a great response to our CV clinic held here at the SWS offices last week.

27 of you turned out to have your CVs scrutinized by our industry professionals, Jules Hussey and Katie Bevell, who kindly took time out of their busy schedules to dish out the tough love and share their top tips on how to improve your CV.

These were just some of the comments from those who attended:

“Brutally helpful and searingly encouraging”
“Friendly with the right amount of firm and really good constructive advice”
“Really helpful in explaining what was wrong with my current CV and how I could go about improving it”.

One of our attendees said that it was the most helpful of all the ‘filmy type functions’ he’d attended over the past few months!

For anyone who missed it, we’ve been so pleased by the responses, we’re planning to hold more of these, so keep an eye on the South West Screen website and e-bulletin for details of the next clinic.

A big thanks to Jules and Katie, who really went beyond the call of duty to help out everyone they saw with tips, advice and relevant contacts where they could. Before they left - with CVs blurring before their eyes - we managed to pin them down to ask for the top three most commonly made mistakes.

These are their comments*

From Jules Hussey:

•    Don’t include your address unless you want work only in the town where you live!
•    Don’t include laborious detail of what your duties and responsibilities were - it should be clear from your job title
•    Don’t include a personal mission statement - incorporate these elements into a covering letter

From Katie Bevell:

•    Don't waffle - we all know what a runner/AD/camera assistant does, keep it as concise as possible
•    Make sure layout is easily readable
•    Make it clear what job you are after - tailor CVs if needed.

Katie is also less critical of the mission statement, saying that she often only looks at the CV and not the covering letter. As long as it’s concise, it could be worth keeping in.

*These comments are the personal views of Jules and Katie only and are not the views of either the BBC or South West Screen.