May
07
2008

SEO for your CV- Letting Web Jobs Find You

Posted by: Christina in Categories: CV, Web, job hunting.
Using Tags: , ,

Do you have an unusual skillset, a willingness to relocate, or a fairly senior job title? If finding you is a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack, potential employers may be using Google to find you. How can you make sure that your CV is easy to find through a search engine? Try the following:

  1. Have an HTML copy of your CV with a SEO-friendly file name, title and meta tags- a good choice would be along the lines of mydomain.com/webPHPdevelopercv.html or similar with a useful title along the same lines. Use the meta keywords to provide several alternate job titles (”cake developer, web developer, php developer, php programmer, web team lead, CV, resume”) or your most critical skills, and the meta description to sum up what you’re looking for, including location (”PHP Developer with M.Sc. in Computer Science for lead developer role in Dublin, Cork, or elsewhere in Ireland”). Read the entire post…

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Apr
22
2008

The good: This CV has a clean and simple format with enough details to create a clear picture of the person’s background, but not enough to make the recruitment specialists’ eyes glaze over. Click here to view.

The bad: This CV is much too generic and short. For QA positions, knowledge of specific technologies or industries can make or break, so being vague will keep you from being considered for some roles. Here’s an example.  

The Ugly: Coming soon. It takes a surprisingly long time to invent bad CV’s.

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Apr
03
2008

So as you may or may not know, Jobyssey is a start-up web company designed for IT employers and IT talent. The general idea is to create a comprehensive search site whereby IT professionals can find opportunities suitable to their skill sets, and employers can find experienced IT professionals in Ireland. Sound like a good idea? We thought so.

It is a fact that Human Resources officials spend most of their time trying to identify potential hires for their respective companies in order to meet the business requirements. Realistically, most of their time should be spent with developing initiatives to improve the work life of the professionals currently employed by the company. The primary reason for the time spent on identifying new hires is that highly skilled, experienced people are hard to find. HR staff have plenty of resources available to them in order to identify potential staff ie. job boards, agencies, print ads etc. The trouble is most of the time these methods are ineffective and costly.

So the challenge now is to try and relay the advantages of Jobyssey to very busy hiring managers and Hr staff. After several frustrating phone calls, and a fair amount of hair being torn out, we have decided that cold calls is not the way to go. We are now creating a flash demo “presentation” of the site to distribute to potential employers so they can review t in their own time. What do you think of this idea? Do you have any innovative business development ideas of your own? Any suggestions greatly appreciated…..

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Mar
25
2008

This is an axiom that everyone constantly repeats, but that is really a pain to put into practice. “Great” you think, “it was enough of a pain to come up with one CV, I have no idea what else to say to make 5 different versions of it.” It is worth doing though- even if you’re sure you are right for the job, make it blindingly obvious so your CV makes it through the gauntlet and onto the right desk.

Some ways to get started after the jump: Read the entire post…

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Mar
19
2008

With a diverse population working in IT/software/telecom jobs in Ireland, a whole variety of CV formats are floating around out there. It’s a cliche, but even with great experience a confusing or inadequate CV can get you screened out early in the process, or worse, it can give the (mistaken) impression that yo have something to hide. Sometimes it’s just crummy CV writing you can see the world over, sometimes it’s adhering to a format that isn’t really common in Ireland/ Europe. To have a CV that gets positive attention:

  1. Thou shalt put clear and accurate contact info at the top- The first thing on your CV should be a block with your full name (first name first, family name last), complete address, mobile number, home number, and personal email address. Don’t include your work phone number or email address. Check your email several times of day, and for the love of Pete set up the voicemail on your phone. Read the entire post…

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