School Leavers: What distinctions do you have?

For those of you who are contemplating on leaving school, or are actually in the process, writing up your CV can be a daunting task, especially when you are unsure how to 'sell' yourself, or when your experience is limited.

Below I have outlined some ideas that you may wish to consider when thinking about your Point of Difference i.e. what makes you different and special in your own unique way. To help you think about this you will need to reflect on your distinctions, here are some idea starters to get you going:

• Youth Club member (e.g. archery)
• Youth Group member (e.g. church – but do not put the denomination)
• School debating team
• Scouting/Girl Guide Leader
• Peer Support Leader
• Drama Club or similar
• School Librarian
• Contributions to the school magazine (e.g. writer, editor, photographer, etc)
• School prize winner (e.g. essay)
• Merit certificate(s) (e.g. Merit Certificate in English – 1st in Class)
• Prefect
• Head Captain, Class Captain, etc
• Duke of Edinburgh Award (Gold, Silver or Bronze)
• AFS Student (e.g. AFS Student exchange to France)
• School orchestra, choir
• Student Representative
• Representations in school sports (e.g. Colours in swimming, representative in school hocky team, etc)
• Awards
• Scholarships
• School activity clubs (e.g. computer, history)
• School productions

In fact think of anything that shows your active involvement in the school community.
Written by Paula Stenberg

How to Write Achievements

When developing your CV a major focus will be to concentrate on what achievements you encountered in the positions you have fulfilled.

Achievements can be drawn from a review of your performance appraisal where you can check what projects you were involved with, or KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) you had to measure up to. Then re-write these as achievements.

To help you with this, I have compiled a selection of accomplishment based verbs I like to use when constructing people's CV:

Turned around ...
E.g. Turned around the company's loss into a profitable venture within 7 months.

Accelerated ...
E.g. Accelerated the ROA by focusing on corporate finance.

Executed ...
E.g. Executed asset purchase of Whitcoulls in Australia.

Consolidated ...
E.g. Consolidated 29 warehouses down to 4 generating annual savings of $5.8m.

Generated ...
E.g. Generated over 100 key client profiles.

Launched ...
E.g. Launched systems engineering group to managed predictive failure analysis, root cause analysis and remediation projects.

Surpassed ...
E.g. Surpassed all regulatory compliance standards despite issues negatively impacting product performance.

Spearheaded ...
E.g. Spearheaded prototype development of next generation products.

Enhanced ...
E.g. Enhanced product manufacturability with the introduction of an in-house systems engineering and design group.

Initiated ...
E.g. Initiated human resources partnerships with key operating divisions worldwide to drive common vision and achieve financial objectives.

Championed ...
E.g. Championed development of offshore operations to reduce labour and overhead costs associated with food product manufacturing.

Increased ...
E.g. Increased ROA on real estate investment by 26%.

Saved ...
E.g. Saved $4.6m by reducing headquarters space by 30%.

Reduced ...
E.g. Reduced costs by 20% by putting in place strong inventory controls.

Created ...
E.g. Created a worldwide international sales organisation through direct, VAR, reseller and mass merchant channels.

Instituted ...
E.g. Instituted a new procedure to increase efficiency by 40%.

Restructured ...
E.g. Restructured corporate pricing on all major product lines and delivered a 12% margin improvement.

Upgraded ...
E.g. Upgraded the computer system to SAP.

Aggressively ...
E.g. Aggresssively marketed the launching of the Dolby Prologic stereos in the markeplace.

Assumed a key role in ...
Played a pivotal role in ...
Played an instrumental role in ...

Pioneered ...
E.g. Pioneered innovative organisational development initiatives including pay for performance, diversity management, process redesign and change management.

Abated ...
E.g. Abated the number of problems from staff relating to the introduction of a new machine.

Streamlined ...
E.g. Streamlined corporate operating infrastructure.

Actively participated ...
E.g. Actively participated in company driven initiatives and committees.

Realigned ...
E.g. Realigned product mix and captured a 12% margin improvement.

Revitalised ...
E.g. Revitalised corporation and introduced market-driven management systems to accelerate revenue growth against competition.

Fostered ...
E.g. Fostered employee empowerment and participated management practices throghout the manufacturing organisation.

Improved ....
E.g. Improved occupancy ratings by 27% within the highly competitive corporate travel market.

Co-founded ...
E.g. Co-founded the company's social newsletter.

Founded ...
E.g. Founded the Institute for Editors in New Zealand.

Expedited ...
E.g. Expedited the elimination of bulk wastage resulting in a reduction of expenditure.

Leveraged ...
E.g. Leveraged the company's position into the marketplace with strong brand development.

Strategised ...
E.g. Strategised and implemented TouchTone's first ever corporate risk management insurance.

Orchestrated ...
E.g. Orchestrated complex due diligence reviews in co-operation with outside financial advisers, accountants and legal counsel.

Captured ...
E.g. Captured the niche market in scrapbooking, gaining competitive advantage.

Outmanoeuvred ...
E.g. Outmanoeurved competition in a selective field.

Penetrated ...
E.g. Penetrated the brand into new emerging markets.

Positioned ...
E.g. Positioned the company ...

Quadruped ...
E.g. Quadrupled sales within 6 months of tenure.

Significantly ...
E.g. Significantly increased sales from 12% to 50% within one year.

Troubleshooted ...
E.g. Troubleshooted technical problems and glitches in the mainframe system.

Chosen ...
E.g. Chosen to lead a team of 50 support personnel.

Requested ...
E.g. Requested to join a select committee.

Invited ...
E.g. Invited as a guest speaker to give a talk at the Career Counsellors' Association Conference in 1998.

Selected ...
E.g. Selected by the CEO to direct a cross-functional team evaluating potential re-engineering, change management and technology acquisitions.

Awarded ...
E.g. Awarded the Salesperson of the Year Award in 1999 within the company (a nationwide context held annually each year).

Yielded ...
E.g. Yielded a large gross profit margin for the introduction of a new product line.

Negotiated ...
E.g. Negotiated $2.5m in World Bank project financing for economic development programmes in Niue.

Expanded ...
E.g. Expanded the company's market into South East Asia.

Resolved ...
E.g. Resolved staff downtime by putting into place whole team/project approach based job descriptions.

Introduced ...
E.g. Introduced proactive management techniques to strengthen focus on cost avoidance and elimination within each manufacturing process.

There are many more but these will get you started.
Paula Stenberg ©

CV Writing Tips

1. Use a clear font.
   There is nothing worse than an employer or recruiter trying to decipher a fancy font. Simple and plain is best, leave the fancy fonts to invitations, etc.
   Fonts you could use are: Arial, Helvetica, Palatino or Times New Roman.
   
2. Have your name and contact details easily accessible on the first page.
   A recruiter doesn't want to have to sift through your CV and find it on the last page in order to contact you. Make it easy for them.
3. Contact Details:
   If you have a non-English name, rather than stating female or male, put in Mr, Mrs, Miss or Ms.
   Include your full name, address, telephone numbers (work, residence, and mobile), and email addresses.
4. Add a career objective.
   This determines what sort of role you are wanting and what industry. It targets the CV. Don't make it too long, and don't embellish it with purple prose (i.e. pompous language).
5. Add your personal attributes here.
   The best way is for someone else to sing your praises for you, so take 'pull quotes' from any written reference, performance appraisal, testimonial or even a well done written assignment. It is a way of adding value and credibility to your document.
   
6. Make a list of your key skills and strengths.
   Don't over do it and have a whole page about how great you are. Employers/recruiters do not have time to read all that, and after awhile it looks like you are trying to hard to convince them.
7. If you have recently come out of school or university you can add in your qualifications section.
   Start with your most recent and highest qualification.
8. If you have already established your career in some area, then start with your career profile.
   Outline your key achievements, and then responsibilities.
   Refer to your performance appraisal for key achievements or special projects you may have worked on.
   Refer to your job description to get your responsibilities. But remember to convert the language to resume style.
9. Then add in your qualifications.
   If you have had substantial work experience then just your degree level will do. Don't forget to add in your most professional development, i.e. courses, workshops or seminars you have recently attended.
10. Finally add in your referees.
    The usual practice is to proffer two or three.
    If you do not wish to include your referees, then simply state available on request.
    By not including your referees it gives you some bide time to think who would be more appropriate to use for specific jobs in mind, and also it lets you know when they are looking at your CV, as they will need to ring you to get your referees.

These are general tips to help make the process of writing your CV more successful.

Creativity in Career Counselling: Visual Vision Statements

Many people assume creativity in career counselling involves picking up a paintbrush or pursuing some form of creative activity. Not so.

Creativity is about a process, a process that involves the use of a person's imagination. Today, in this instant gratification, cyber plummelled world, imagination is so often neglected and overlooked. We can't imagine because it is already done for us. We watch the videos, the movies, YouTube and rarely dabble in that pastime our parents once knew so well – using our imagination, or what we used as children before the advent of the Internet.

The facility to use our imagination is one of the keystone's of creative thinking. And creative thinking in the career counselling context is not about running off to a workshop to learn how to be creative, but using our imagination to gain insight and understanding to what presents itself in our life journey. What choices do we have? What options could we possibly take? These answers are in our imagination. It is the imagination that will steer our course for us, if we let it.

This one is done in a visual diary and combines a collection of images relating to scenes that the owner identifies with: topiary hedges, lap swimming pool, books, romance, water features, historical places, beautiful homes, characters out of story books – Alice in Wonderland, chandeliers, gazebos garden features, travel destinations, etc.

Visual Vision Statements: The Collage as a Process and Metaphor
One exercise I do with my clients to help them in developing their imagination in relation to their career choices, is to create a collage. Using this technique is also a creative process. The collage approach works as a catalyst, and when used as a metaphor for a capusle summary of their life, the synthesis of these images can trigger ideas, strategies and processes that they may have previously been unaware of.

Their collage is to be reflection on what they think about themselves as a person, and what they wish their desired future to be.

• What objects they like?
• What places they like to visit?
• What hobbies interest them?
• Who are their role models (if they have one)?
• What words do they like?
• What is important to them?

To even things such as:

• What are their favourite colours?
• Designs?
• Animals?

The list is endless.

My clients are either supplied with images to help them with this, or they do it at home, downloading images and words, printing them off, cutting out pictures from magazines, brochures, flyers, newspapers, etc.

From here they then arrange them as a collage onto an A3 sized page or within their visual diary. They may use words to define special moments, words to describe how they feel, what is important to them, what they value. They may use destination photographs to places they would like to travel to. The ideas are countless, and it just involves them using their imagination along with pictures of images that they can download or cut out.

This collage depicts scenes of books, computer programs, words featuring affirmations such as success, risk, enterprise; and a photo of a child, meetings, people; things the owner of this collage felt were substantial in her life, or what she valued.

Once they have created their collage, they can add additional features, such as design swirls (if they decide it adds to the complete picture of themselves), or they can add special colour highlights, even mixed media elements (including 2D items). These combine to create a snapshot of themselves. They are insights into their past, present and their desired future state.

Once they have completed their collage they can look at it, see patterns, view it as a visual vision statement for themselves as recognition to the journey they wish to plan ahead. Participants come away with skills to engage their imaginations more readily, and to approach their life journey with increased confidence, determination, commitment and insight.

The visual vision statement can also be used in:

• strategy development and exploration;
• innovation and product development; and
• branding development.

If you wish to participate on our programme then please email me (refer to my profile for details).