CV and Interviews: A Discussion with Mark O’Brien

[MUSIC] >> Welcome to this episode of the Biometrics Leadership Lab podcast. I'm Amanda Cross and my guest today is Mark O'Brien. Mark is a founder and CEO of Warman O'Brien, a life science recruitment agency. With over 20 years of experience, Mark is expert in helping life science professionals find the right job. A true believer in people first philosophy, he's adept at making the perfect match for both clients and candidates. Mark first started working in IT recruitment, and then realized that life science had niche skill sets that clients were finding difficult to source, and so he evolved to become a specialist in biometrics placements. In 2017, Mark and his wife Caroline launched Warman O'Brien, and since then, they have expanded globally and successfully placed candidates in over 25 countries. One of the main reasons for launching their recruitment agency, having the opportunity to combine the industry knowledge of Caroline, who is an experienced statistician with the recruitment expertise of Mark. When not recruiting, Mark is a fitness enthusiast having recently completed his first half Iron Man. Today, we are going to talk about CVs and job interviews. If you are looking for a new role, this is the episode for you. Mark, thank you so much for joining me today. >> Pleasure, Amanda. Thank you for having on the podcast. Looking forward to discussion. It's something I'm very, very passionate about. Would it be helping with resumes, CVs, interview preparation, and some of the key parts of looking for new roles? Hopefully, the product of them, podcasts. >> Just to talk a little bit about what's it been like to go and start your own agency? It's a big risk sometimes to step out on your own? >> Yes, certainly. I mean, I've been in Azure for a long, long time, and had a lot of expertise within biometrics initially, but had recruited across globally within a lot of a number of other functional areas, and managed a wide variety of consultants as well. It has been daunting, exciting, and equal measures, challenging to get it set up. As you kind of mentioned there, and set up on my wife, Caroline, we met at a conference over 20 years ago. She was an industry expert, and I guess I was combining my recruitment knowledge, so that was one of the main reasons why we started the business, and that was initially, as a biometrics recruitment consultancy. But since then, we have evolved, expanded into other functional areas, and recruited a number of experienced consultants, some who I'd worked with previously within clinical, regulatory, medical, and pre-clinical as well. So, yeah, it's been exciting and daunting. Obviously, with COVID and that, it's been a lot of the challenges with managing people, working remotely, but equally, yeah, it's been, yeah, very, very happy how it's gone, and yeah, challenging nonetheless as well, especially how the market has been the last 12 or 13 or 18 months, but it looks like it's in a few green shoes now, and looking forward to 20, 26. Yeah, and I guess I didn't realize until I was working on your bio, just how recently you had started, not even at 10 years, yeah. Does feel like a long time ago in some ways. I mean, eight years, yeah, come on, 10 years, does feel a long time in some respects, but yeah, I guess navigating a small company, and in obviously with COVID and that, there were certainly challenges with managing people remotely, and as a lot of people had to pivot in some respects, but yeah, we've successfully navigated that, and yeah, built a number of other functional areas, expanded globally. As you kind of mentioned, we do recruit across more than 25 countries, and we have a colleague based in New Zealand who recruits, who's involved in our global business development team for the US market as well. So, yeah, so still quite international, and yeah, excited about how it looks for next year. Yeah, I was thinking it's a lot of reach for kind of a company less than 10 years, so that's well done. All right, so we're going to jump into the conversation. We're going to start with a few essentials on CVs, but you know, people use the term CV and resume interchangeably. So is there really a difference and does it matter? I guess it depends on if you're looking to the US or Europe, obviously we recruit globally, so I guess it's like similar differences are, I guess, for US resumes more probably a shorter, more concise CV, I guess if you want to call it that, but I think in what we do within life sciences, I think it's still important to maybe have a day, maybe your two or three pages rather than a one-pager. But yeah, I don't think it matters too, too differently. And I guess I say, CV in Europe, and then US obviously just mentioned resume, but I don't think it makes a material difference really. So what are the three must have sections that people want to see on a candidate's CV? Yeah, I mean, the fundamental one is obviously your professional experience. That's really, really important what you have to have, and maybe had on chronological order as well. So it's important that you list the most recent role you have, and it depends on how long you've been working with any industry and how old you've, it's been that you've written a CV as well. So it's important that you put a professional experience at the very beginning in chronological order, and the next one I probably put at the personal summary, I think that's kind of how you sell yourself, what are your key attributes, and it kind of gives it, gives some of the an idea of the type of person they would work with. So it's going about your culture of background as well. So it gets a bit more of a fit, how you fit in within the team as well. So that would be probably the second one. Third one, more likely to be key skills within your resume or CV. So it's important that you list those. You shape it back to what the job description looks like, and making sure that any key skills that you have are mentioned on your resume, because obviously a lot of internal recruitment teams, or attack-acquisition teams, a lot of it goes onto the portal or an ATS, and if it's not written on there, then even if you have done or not done, if it's not written on there, then it might not get picked up by an ATS. So it's really really important that you include that as well. So I would start with professional experience, person summary, and then key skills with probably the main three. Obviously education is important, probably depending what client's looking for, whether it be a master's or a PhD, but the top three would be with those. I love that you mentioned write it down, because it's going to go through ATS. I say a lot and a lot of different circumstances in my life. If it's not written down, it didn't happen. And that goes on your CV too, people, so if you did something spectacular, but it's not on your CV, people are going to see it and it might not come through an ATS if they're looking for that as a key skill. It's funny how often people you speak to, and then as yeah, I've done it. And then when I look at the resume, I said, where is it written your CV? Oh, I didn't put in the same key skill, or it's maybe a different, you've ordered it differently. But if you're dealing with internal recruitment teams, or maybe it's not niche within one area, then it might not come picked up. So it's really important that you look at the job description, and what you've done within that is that written on there. And it's to say, if it's not written on there, then it says you haven't done it. And even on the key skills as well, sometimes I've just put on the key skills, but not really mentioned within each rule. And then it's very hard to distinguish, well, how much detail experience you have within Databricks, or Java, or SAS, or what have you written. So I think it's important that you do put in a lot more detail as well. Yeah, and I think that's one of the, I was going to, I was actually going to say, and now I want to take back what I was going to say, but I was going to say, that's probably one of the advantages of working with a recruiter who's working on your behalf, because they can give another summary of your experience directly to the hiring manager, and you're not getting lost in some sort of ATS. However, it doesn't matter how glowing of a summary you're providing to a hiring company. If they don't see that experience on the CV, they're going to say, well, where is that on the CV? So I think you've got to get it on there if you've done it, and you're good at it. I think nowadays, because you've only got 10, 15, 20 seconds to impress somebody, I think if it's not written at the top, then no matter how many pages you're written down on the resume, then the further you go down, then I think you've got to capture the key things at the very start of it to gather their attention, otherwise they might not even go down to the rest of the CV. Okay, and so what are three things you should never put on your CV? Well, I think probably personal details is probably one. I would just obviously going to have personal information, but there's certain things in certain countries where, I guess, personal data in you don't have to have put in as much detail. So for example, the marital status or what do you have children, your date of birth, et cetera. So some personal information is irrelevant for applying for a job, and obviously in certain countries as well with anti-discrimination laws, you've got to make sure that it can be cool. And you just put in the basic information that that's needed. So contact details, et cetera, which is probably the most important thing. Are you eligible to work in that country so that those are the key things? And my biggest pet peeve when reviewing candidates is when they're putting job responsibilities, it looks like a job description. So they're not actually giving any detail about what they've done. It's almost like copying and pasting from a job description. I guess a lot of candidates who come from a serial background, you know, the almost user company, the CV, rather than actually what they've actually done themselves. And it's very generic. It doesn't tell a true picture of the candidate. And especially when you're speaking to the candidate, let's say how great they are and what they do. And then when you look at the CV, it's completely different. They're really kind of underselling themselves. So I guess what one of the advantages of working with recruitment agencies helping them obviously craft a CV, selling themselves, giving more information. What are the USPs, though, all those kind of things. And I think the more they think about it, the more they don't actually, yeah, have done that or actually I need to put that on my CV. So a lot of people are quite shy about telling how great they are. And it's important for us to demonstrate that and making sure that it comes out of themselves, rather than just meet and tell them on the phone, than actually putting on their CV resume. So that would be another thing. Yeah, and I guess the other thing is sometimes they put an objective statement, or they put a very statement about, but it's very generic about what they're looking for. I'm looking for a forward-thinking company, but it's not really saying much. So I think the more important thing is your personal summary of what you've done, and what you've done, your key attributes. That gives a bit more feeling about what an potential employer is looking for in a candidate. So that's probably one of the key things I'll probably put in there as well. So objects with statements, probably the personal information that you put in, just you don't need to put in everything on there. I guess it's probably more in Europe. You see photos, you see every information possible, and half it is not relevant to the role. So I guess we're always trying to explain the candidates, particularly in Europe, that you don't need to have that as much information on there. But probably the biggest one would be listing your job responsibilities, and just looking like a job description, rather than actually what you've actually done and achieved in the role. But the other thing is talking about people trying to sell themselves and highlight their successes. One tip I always like to give people is keep a little notebook of everything you've done where you've really succeeded. It can help you on multiple fronts. It can certainly help you when you're looking for a job, and you're spiffing up your CV to look more accomplishment-based, rather than task-based. So you can make a note if you got a database live really fast. You can put that out there if you cleaned up a site that was really struggling, and as a monitor, you went in and turned them around. You can put that on there if you've got a bunch of tables out, and a really fast timeline, you can put that on there. But anything that's spectacular that you've done on your job, keep a log, because eventually someone's going to ask you what you've accomplished, and you've kind of got it all there, it's your list of wins. It also will help you in your current job when you're doing those annual self-assessments for how you've done in your role. You've got kind of a log of everything you've accomplished over the year. That's one way to get that done. And we've kind of just touched on the personal details on CVs. But what are the biggest differences between US, and Eastern Europe, and Western Europe, in terms of what's on a CV, and like, I can't believe the first time I saw CV with a photo on, I'm like, what is it? It was somebody I think in Germany, so that was their standard. And I guess the one thing you can see is, I don't know, it's completely Europass, and you've got your photo on there, and it's so generic, and there's so much information on there. That's the first page is their personal summary and details, and half of it is irrelevant. So, yeah, I think that's the specific difference between Europe and the US. The US is very succinct, there's not a lot of that information under, but it's fine, it's not needed. And obviously, there are some strict discrimination laws in the US, which is understandable. But I guess if you've even looked from GDPPR, our first was in Europe, and you've got to be careful on how much sensitive information you put under, you know, if you're talking about race, or a relation, or sexual orientation, etc. So it's important that you don't need to put half of the information under. And it's just, yeah, the guidance that we will give them is basically, keep it as minimal as possible, keep the key things about context information, location, eligibility to work in that certain country. That would be the key things for me. So, do you think that the. I don't want to say requirement, that's what I'm struggling, I don't think it's a requirement. But do you think that it's shifting a little bit in Europe to become maybe more, like America in terms of what's going on to CVs? Because, you know, even 10 years ago, a European CV would have a lot of personal details on there, like how old they were, how many kids they had. And I think, you know, do you think that the new standard in Europe is much more Americanized, don't put the personal stuff on there? Definitely getting closer now. And I still think there's a lot of people that are a bit more old school and they just, they just put it up there, they don't think anything different. But I just think we're more conscious and make it simply with GDPR purposes that you don't need to put on that sense of information. And yeah, it's going to make sure that there's no bias within an into the situation. So, we've got to be careful at what information is put on there. So, when we're speaking to candidates, particularly in Europe, we obviously mentioned that listen, all that information doesn't need to be on there. So, some people just happy to keep it on there. And others are okay. We'll take more heat in our advice and actually tweak it slightly. So, but I think the key thing within the US is that less is better in some respects, particularly in the US. But as long as you have the key information, that's going to be thing. And the most important thing is they're not hiding anything on their CVR resume. That's the one thing that when we're looking at the candidates, and yeah, are they a genuine candidate? Are they? Okay, so if someone is looking for a new role, and they haven't looked in 10 plus years, how should they approach updating their CV to fit the requirements of today's market? I think probably not rehash their old CV. I think that's probably one of the biggest mistakes is the fact you're just kind of covering all ground. It's very bullet point. You're not updating the bullet points. It's almost like starting from scratch again in some ways. It's probably better and actually focus more on some of the achievements, the accomplishments that you mentioned as well. So, I think that's where probably it's easier to just fall into the trap about just updating your old resume rather than actually thinking more about, okay, well, most recent position, what you've been doing, what was your role? What did you achieve within that role that are accomplished? That would be key things I'd focus on rather than a lot of the old school CVs. I have very much job responsibility, etc. So, that would be probably the biggest thing I'd look for is is rather an updating your CV is almost like starting from scratch and actually with the most recent roles and responsibly. So, a mixture that's up to date and obviously the key achievements within this. All right, shifting a little bit to interviews. What do you think are some of the biggest shifts in interviews post-COVID? Certainly teams interviews, zoom interviews, that's very much common and I think that's accelerating the interview process. So, that's a positive in many respects. But I think what candidates need to make sure that they are fully prepared for the interview as well. And Pegasus is a quicker process and first impressions as well. So, if you don't have a first good half an hour or 45 minutes, then that is gone. Whereas normally you tend to have a first call with a higher manager for 30 minutes and then you have a face-to-face interview and that's where you can show your key skills. Whereas now, if you don't pass your first interview, say it's 30-45 minutes, then you've lost it before you even started. So, it's important that you are fully prepared going into the first interview because it's going to be on teams as less likely to be face-to-face with remote working these days. So, it's important you make a good impression. And I think interviews are a bit more structured now. I don't think there's seem to be as much as formal as maybe before, so there's probably less to be. So, it's important that you focus on what answers you're going to give giving specific examples. That's going to be key things when you're having an interview because, as I said, you might only have 30-45 minutes. And obviously, on the video camera, ensure that everything is working. And jump down at 10-15 minutes beforehand and there's no background noise, all the small details where you have to have headphones depending on if you're in an office environment or you're working home. So, it's important that you do test it before you do it before you have it. So, yeah, they'd be the key things I would be thinking of. Yeah, I really like the tip of that. Get on the call 10 minutes before it starts because if there's a problem with your tech and you need to reboot that computer, you don't want to be doing that. When the interview starts, yeah. So, I mean, when we do interview preparation, so we do kind of give some feedback about how, if we can hear them or not. So, I think that something helps them reassure them so that when they do go on the on the call and they're fully prepared. So, I think that's one advantage they're refusing to reboot agencies, in fact, that you're doing a number of teams calls before either you send them to a higher manager and also then when they do get into requests that you do jump on, you do jump on a team's call with them just to get everything checked before they actually jump on it. So, yeah, a lot of candidates really appreciate just the attention to detail and information that we can help them as well and it reassures them as well. For example, you got a lot of candidates who haven't interviewed for five, 10, 15 years sometimes. They've never applied to a job. They've never written their CV and it can be quite daunting. So, it's almost reassured and that listen, you've done it many times before, you have done it before, you've had the experience, it's just a matter of them going through the interview preparation with improvement consultant, for example. So, and that makes them much easier for them as well. Yeah, I think it's really different. I think post pre-COVID, doing interviews, you bring somebody on site and they would sit there for half the day and they'd meet with a bunch of people. We'd give a little technical assessment and that's the day and so in some ways it moves much faster. Now, because it's easier to schedule, you don't have to coordinate everybody to a single day, but on the other hand, you might be doing more calls over that same time period. Also, I've struggled with how you do a technical assessment of somebody on a virtual call. We have successfully come up with several ways to do that and they have been fruitful, but it's a totally different look and feel. What are red flags that people should be aware of on interviews from both sides? What is the candidate going to do that's going to be an immediately red flag for the client? What kind of clients they are doing that should be a red flag? I think the first thing, if it's definitely a team's call you're going to have, then you get the odd person who don't put on the camera and that's an immediate kind of a red flag. And I think, as I mentioned you earlier about the closing candidates, that's something that comes up quite frequently in the fact that if not willing to put under video, then that's an immediate red flag from my perspective. Probably the other thing is focusing on looking at your answer has been very vague and not focusing on you rather than we, for example. So I think that would be the key thing is I did X, Y and Z rather than what we did. Probably another thing to look at is trying to be, if people are asking why did you leave your previous role not being negative about previous employers? Yeah, obviously we have a difference of opinion and there's different reasons why people leave businesses but I think it might have an opposite of what you expect and if you start talking about being negative about previous employers, that's one thing that when we're prepping candidates, that's one thing to look at as well. I guess the other thing is when you're presenting your winner, a higher manager is talking through your CV and I'm talking through what you've done, what you've achieved and then they're asking you what you've actually given examples and if you can back up those examples of what you've done, then you've got to make sure that you truly believe in what you've written down your CV is accurate and correct and I think that's just a lot that sometimes can be just laziness rather than actually I've not done it so I think that comes down to how much interview preparation you do and how really keen you are on the role so the more for me interview preparation you do, the better chance you're going to get the role so that would be the key thing I would do to make sure that you read through your resume again and take all the boxable and you do how to compare against the job description and just give some highlights writing some examples so that when you are in the interview that you can back up with a specific example of the guess it might be a small point within the ordinary key skill or personal summary but if you can give specific examples then that would be a there'd be questionable from the higher managed perspective as well and so that would be and yeah kind of mentioned about unable to explain your key achievements skill key skills that would be probably one thing I would look at as well so most important thing is making sure you give some specific examples of yeah would it be achievement or a key skill and that's probably that would probably remain things that would focus on the red flag perspective but you know work-life balance is important and you want to ask that at this comes up a lot because my background is so CRO have a which can be really really busy a lot but as a candidate how do you ask about workload without sounding like you don't want to work hard or that you won't work hard right so how do you ask that all important work-life balance question probably one thing to look at is maybe how do you how do teams ensure quality delivery in tight timelines it's probably a good open question ask and how the companies prioritize in their workload when something is urgent it shows that you care and that you understand the things are busy because the reality is if you're working maybe in the CRO there's going to be tight deadlines it's going to get busy there's going to be times where you kind of have to work late for example so yeah probably understanding how you prioritize work and also when higher managers are interviewing anyway those questions will come up so it's important that you have specific answers for that because if you're applying for a role within the CRO primarily then there's going to be tight deadlines it's going to be makes you deliver within those deadlines as well and you got to understand that yeah that might be workload at going bubbly on what you're currently doing so it's important that you show urgency within it but also the fact that you you care as well so those would be the kind of key questions I would ask you know how do you ensure the quality is delivered within tight timelines and and more around how do you prioritize work when something is urgent yeah and I think if you're interviewing at a CRO I mean it just goes without saying that there's going to be times when timelines are really tight and you're going to be pushing to get something out the door high quality on time and you know just ask how that's approached you know like how do you resource that during that as a hiring manager you might want to preempt that a little bit because I think it goes a long way and just saying you know when you have a time like that we always try to make it up with some comp time or some extra time off or you know how you are helping and a candidate see that extra effort maybe requires sometimes and here's how you try and compensate for that to give an overall balance to it I think if you say it upfront as well I think there's nothing worse than not expecting it and when it when there is expected over time so it's not in my contractor I'm nine to five and then so well that's not the reality and yeah that's not a bit more challenging when you have certain expectations and yet then I'll be followed through so I guess you're just going to go back over previous companies and what they've done within those previous companies how they how they worked within tight timelines as well so that's where you just got to make sure you're being honest as much as you can but know the expectation could be that you are working that later in others and sometimes and then obviously if you're based in Europe as well if you're working global with global teams then is it is the expectation to work early mornings when you're working with Asia or vice versa if you're working with US teams you know what's the expectation about working after five o'clock for example so and does that come up often yeah I mean there's a lot of questions to ask like what does such and such look like in practice what does working on a global team like look like in practice what does how does resourcing look like in practice when three projects are colliding and you know the the question that you're going to ask is a little bit dependent on what level of role you're interviewing for and and what the expectation might be but they're the the resourcing is a great strategy so I I like that one Mark a lot um okay so here we are moving into some practical tips and tricks for navigating your CV under job interview and a little bit of LinkedIn too I think um is a one-page CV ever acceptable yeah I can ask it a lot and my personal opinion is I think it's probably too short I think you're understanding yourself if you just have a one-page or I think yes it might be a nice summary but the reality is you want to be showcasing your skills say you want to be showcasing your level of experience you want to be showcasing not just your profession experience but your key skills your professional your personal summary etc so an education and then some more about your hobbies and interests as well any publications anything within with regards um conferences attending um those kind of things as well so I think that would be very hard to put in a one one-pager um someone asked me okay well it's two pages too much and as I will actually I think it's probably even too short as well and but it depends on what role you're applying for also and so I I think yeah at least two pages and probably three and it just depends on obviously publications you can put publications on requests rather than having lists of pages of what what you've actually done um it's kind of like how much is too much and I think if you if you are very well published or if you are presenting at six conferences a year you know a selection of items to go on your CV with a full accounting available upon requests is probably the way to go I've seen 25 page CVs 20 of which were publications and you know that that's good to know I I would argue may not be necessary for the roles that we place um so it's the same with um references I mean a lot of people put references on there and full details and that's not necessary to put it on there in the first instance yes it's important if you've got gaps in your CVs etc that um um you can you can explain why there are gaps but ultimately it's the most important thing is that um yeah keep it simple at a bit again somebody's first job one page enough if they're like just starting to um yeah I guess there's but normally I think I like to look at um yeah I mean one and a half pages maybe one page seems seems too short but I think it's more about what you've done what are within university uh any other bits and pieces you've done with work experience across what multiple things what are and then obviously what you've achieved within university but also anything you presented you've been involved in working as well so um yeah one page it's it's okay but I think the more detail about how you present yourself person summary those kind of things will obviously help and obviously education also so there's still enough that you can put in there to make it slightly bigger than one page um because you might feel like you're underselling yourself okay yeah and I think that a lot of times you're in in some roles where you've been promoted something a lot of people tend to put in this they rewrite the same response with these the sorry that same response you're rewritten and so that's not really as relevant so you can cover as you make it is a bit shorter but rather than repeating yourself the whole time so and I would probably just focus more on your most recent experience rather than if you're say a very quite experienced person that I wouldn't worry about too much what happened along long time ago some rise it but focus more on maybe the last five to eight years rather than what you did previous it up should CVs be tailored for every um every application I mean an ideal world yes but the reality is it depending how how many roles you're applying to and if you're applying to lots of roles and that's that can be quite time-consuming and I guess you would probably have a general kind of generic CV I don't like to hit the word hit the word generic in some respects but I think having a general CV ball so you can tweak it slightly depending what the job is because each role is slightly different so you don't have to change it massively but I think the key thing is looking at each job description and depending what the client is the company's looking for then you tweak it slightly to what your your CV looks like so it doesn't need to take that long to keep changing it but it shows that you genuine interest in the company genuine interest in the role why you're applying for that specific role you've done your research those those are the key things because you want to try and stand out from the crowd if you're applying to a role and there's lots and lots of candidates applying for the same role then you've got that's probably one thing that would maybe can stand out rather than just sending your CV to lots of different jobs so I think it's an understanding what role you're applying to if you're speaking to a group agency how many applications have been put forward for that role then you kind of get an idea okay well what is the competition so then maybe then hopefully the agency will tell you yeah and you probably need to tweak it slightly or tailor a bit more to what the client's the company's looking for so that might make it unique for yourself I agree I like to think about what is what is it in the job description that makes you say oh I'm perfectly qualified for this I'm going to apply and then whatever those skills that are in the job description that you're saying I'm perfectly qualified make sure those are showing in your CV really clearly and make sure that you're using words that they've used in the job description one because you want to show that you've done what they're looking for and two if it's going blind into an ATS you can be sure that those are keywords set up and so you want to be sure that your CV is making it through you get a lot of times when people are managing tons and tons of rolls hundreds of rolls they're not specialist in one area so yeah if you're not if you're not tailoring it then that could be the difference between getting it into your notes so and that's the challenge about working directly with a company on a portal or ATS then it can go down the rabbit hole and you never you don't even know if your CV or resume is getting through to a higher manager for example so yeah that that could be the difference if you if you tell her does formatting and design matter and yes and and the reason why is because there's many many of our our clients currently and previously who've rejected CVs based on the format of the CV how it's designed how it looks because the the way it's formatted sometimes could be the difference we didn't have that's it shows your the reflection of the quality of your work so if it's badly written formatted gaps spelling mistakes grammar if you haven't done the the broad and research and then checking of of your of your resume then that's that that's the reflection of the work you're doing the quality work you're doing so and we try not try and format the CVs ourselves it's almost we go back to kind of a listen your CV would be rejected based on what you've given us I think you need to go back and and redo your CV spell check checking everything as well looking at what the job description looks like as well so and yeah and I get depending which area you're looking whether you're within IT data signs those kind of areas where they're techy kind of CV formatting CVs it can be quite bewildering how much information is on there in a very short one-pager and I think that's how it can be quite clumpy as well so you've got to be on courses about how the reflection of what it looks like on a resume maybe you need to reword it to put on a two-pager rather than trying to put everything on one page I think that's where definitely more on day data analytics data scientists type of people they tend to try and put everything on one page and it could be bewildering whereas everything there's no certain format and it's very hard to to navigate it so what about overly formatted with multiple colors and fonts and I think that's a block of something on this side and basically what I said I mean if because you're trying to put it maybe on a one-pager to try and put it on there and it's just too bewildering it's it's not easy to see it's not easy to navigate there's too many colors and too many tables across every part of the resume and yeah it's it can be the difference between yeah getting through to it and hire a manager and that so I think it's important that you try and reflect on what it looks like and how maybe you view it against maybe a recruitment agency so it's always important to get feedback whether it be a talent acquisition recruitment agency to give an idea or what actually what that looks like and maybe if you need to tweak it slightly or not how should employment gaps be presented on CVs and yeah it's difficult when obviously there's there has been a lot of layoffs and redundancies in the last couple of years so I think you got to be honest as much as you can and more often than not you get found out at some point down the interview process so it's important to be upfront to as honest as you can initially there's a lot of different ways you can present it if there's a gap in your CV whether it be a sabbatical it could be maybe a career break and parental leave or what have you or even redundancy it's important that you just keep it simple you don't have to put it put in that much detail on why that's more for the interview to explain a bit more to it about why there's a gap in your CV but more often analogy starts tweaking whether it be the month you started and just putting in the year and then it's a difference gap in the year but there's no reason there's no explanation why that means you're trying to hide something and that there's a reason why you've left that particular company so I think it's important that you're trying to be as upfront as honest as you can clearly and explain why on the resume but just keep it simple would it be sabbatical redundancy relocation layoff etc and parental leave so if you just keep like that you don't have to go into too much detail beyond that so are you saying it's better to actually go ahead and put the the times on there and say that you were unemployed for whatever reason rather than just have this missing time period on your CV if it's longer than three months yeah if it's shorter than that then I don't know you you needed obviously you finish a role and you're going to take the summer off or we'll have you it can take time to get a new role but anything beyond maybe three months I think you've got to put in a specific reason why you there's been a gap within this and that's something that you've just explained to the recruitment agency about why that is and then you back it up and I think that I do like when I'm speaking in candidates is if there's a big gap in the resume or the CV is how they got references as well and it's important that I don't have those references ready to share with the recruitment agency and it shows that you're not hiding anything and you if you're backing yourself to be suitable for a particular role and having references from previous employers that really kind of helps you gives more comfort to both the recruitment agency but also to be inclined that actually yet there's a genuine reason why there was a gap in their CV and whether it be written or what have you and confirming that they are who they are the the dates of employment are correct and also if they've been higher recommended and if they're suitable for that role also what we tend to do is when we're mentioning to candidates or sorry we're going to check reference checking was when we're speaking to them we're actually explained to them what the role they're applying to and almost checking if they think they'd be suitable for that role and it's quite reassuring that when we go to the the potential employer when we're sending a resume we can explain as a gap but also having references to backed it up and say listen we've contacted this reference and that reference here's a LinkedIn profile I can confirm that they they mentioned that they could be suitable for that role based on X, Y and Z so it really kind of gives comfort to both the candidates and also to ourselves that we are we've done our background checks on certain candidates and also we think they're suitable the reason why we think they're suitable even though there's a gap in their CV. So if you're going straight to a company without going through an agency is it worthwhile to put a cover letter in to talk about these things how much transparent should you be on your CV or are you just kind of I'm going to use probably some American phrase but are you just stuck behind the eight ball you know are you just yeah it's a tricky one I think if you can be as honest as you can depend on how much information you want to put in the cover sheet but I think yes on the CV you just put in a sabbatical etc and if there's a specific reason or a specific length of time that you can sabbatical then yeah maybe on a cover sheet and if there's genuine reason and maybe you can list the references on there to back it up or linked and having a LinkedIn profile and they're still present in our company then that gives some reassurance that actually I'm not hiding anything there was a specific reason why I left that company or why I haven't been working for so long and it just gives them reassurance as well so yes concise information on the CV and adding some information to cover sheet explaining why because yeah not everyone would work maybe through and it recognises the order applying directly and then yeah it's hard to get beyond an ATSN so it's important that you kind of be a bit more clear and why yeah gaps are hard and and I say this to someone who has a resume CV I guess that is that is lengthy and also has multiple gaps on it for various reasons and you know I so personally because of my background and my gaps gaps don't bother me as long as somebody can explain why they had the gap and what they were doing and what the issue was I mean it happens to everybody there can be a million reasons for them I've seen other people who are like oh there's a gap they must be a horrible person if they weren't continuously employed and therefore I don't want to even interview them which is discouraging to the person with the gaps however I think kind of says maybe that's not the place for you anyway it's as much as you might want a role so I don't hide mine um but I also have reasons I've never had anybody question any of my gaps in terms of that wasn't a good reason or how silly it was so I think I think not hiding them knowing clearly why you are on them and what you want to say about them is really the best way forward and if you're going to find a company that's really bothered by gaps then maybe company you don't want to work for and would you have it on like would you like to have it on the cover sheet as well though or would you happy to just on the resume on just I just see it on the resume and if I really like the rest of their this is me personally but if I really like the rest of their experience then I if I if I have an internal recruiter on like find out about their gap just to get some more information or I'll just ask them myself at the interview stage but I don't I don't necessarily need the explanation ahead of time those of us with lengthy CVs how much should you remove your early career experience once your senior but also the other question there is what is senior anyway right like yeah I mean I guess it could be longevity in the within a role within the industry and if you're 10 15 years experienced in your death you're going to be a senior so I kind of mentioned it briefly earlier as the fact that you still you don't want to completely eliminate it but you just want to make it very short in size I'll go back 10 15 20 years ago but I think it's more focused on maybe the last 58 years that's kind of the key thing and put a lot more emphasis within within that experience but also obviously you don't you can't completely and delete everything else what you've been doing as well keep keep that short I think the key thing would be focus more on your current experience because that's the most relevant thing that you're going to be doing within the role as well so yeah I've I've seen the advice and have done this some with my own TVs I've pretty much lopped off everything that's not quite 10 to 12 years current and just have this prior experience section partly because partly because my career goes neatly into those buckets but also and I'll just frankly say this I think you get to be a certain age and it becomes a little bit harder to find a role and there's a sweet spot of experience and then there's the level of experience where people are like oh they must be old or oh we can't afford them or oh there's too much experience and so what's really most relevant I think is what you've done in the past 10 to 12 years and where you go from there like I personally have also just taken most dates of like education and other non-current roles off my CV it's it's it's a it's a piece of advice that is given to women quite frequently I would say but when education and putting your the years is it yeah I mean that's not having the years on your education like anything that will date you as a human like they are yeah take it off yeah um okay is LinkedIn more important than a traditional CV? well I mean most people tend to be on LinkedIn nowadays and especially if you're looking for new role then clients or companies will be will question why you're not on LinkedIn it's particularly new role so I think it's important I wouldn't I'm not just saying it's more important but I think it's just as important to have a very detailed LinkedIn profile and also making sure that matches the CV we've had many companies over the last couple years who will look at the resume they'll check LinkedIn they'll check if it's neatly matches it the resume and if it if it doesn't then they might even reject and if there's no LinkedIn if there's no photo on LinkedIn there's a question mark straight away about are they hiding something if it's not verified in LinkedIn that start questioning it if the dates differ from from what is on this CV so and so the attention to details so so important so I always advise that and yeah what you have on your CV if it's why is it not written on LinkedIn and so there's no there's no reason why you shouldn't you shouldn't put it on there as well so particularly nowadays where most people tend to be on LinkedIn it's easy to verify it yourself now you can put on recommendations you've got on references stuff like that really kind of then showcases your scale set and if you're active and you don't have to be necessarily active in LinkedIn all the time but the more connections you have you build up your your portfolio you've got a brand your personal brand etc and the more connections you have you're going to call the conferences as well that kind of stands you out as well so I think it's important to have as much information on LinkedIn to match what's what's on the resume wouldn't it go a long way towards getting any role yeah I like to see I like to see it current for sure I think how much you're posting or how active you be you know everybody has ins and outs of that I think if you're at the beginning of your career it's going to look a little different than if you're you know more established in your career um the photo though my goodness get the photo on there you know when you talk about fraudulent candidates and you may be a perfectly non fraudulent human being but if you don't have a photo on LinkedIn and you don't turn on your camera during the interview or you have it on during the interview and then you don't turn it on when you start the job that's just throwing off so many so many red flags so um you know get get the photo on there and be willing to be seen be seen and that goes a long way and make sure your professional for it's a professional photo as well the amount of people who put on a photo on LinkedIn and it's like wow okay this is a professional forum here it's not Facebook or what another social media platform and so it's important and it's a very respectable photo rather than anything else as well so it goes a long way and as I said first impressions make a big difference. All right last question LinkedIn open to work banner yes or no? If you're actively applying for role then I see no reason why you wouldn't and if you're not looking for new role then yeah you probably shouldn't put it on there because ultimately you just keep you might get handed by or counted by lots of recruitment agencies or companies that directly so and you're you're just wasting their time as well so it's only if you're looking for new role then I would certainly put that open to work because you just never know what options are out there and unless this is specifically a company you're applying to and you know somebody working there then there then might be so many other opportunities you weren't aware of and I guess if you're passively looking it's maybe putting on open to work as well because and even if you're not actively looking it is you just never know what what the right role might look like and so it's important that then yeah you keep your options open so whether you're actively looking on maybe even passively it might be work put and open to work as well. The comment I see on that all the time is it just this a sign of desperation if you if you have it on there you get lots of candidates who have an honor it's like oh I found a job six months ago it's like okay well I think you need to take it off because you're yeah you just want to green yourself to recruit an agency if you just keep it open because and yet you don't want to waste people's sign really and you know there there is a way to turn on your open to work so that recruiters can find you without putting the banner on your photo so you can actually have the best of both worlds okay so we'll cover a lot of ground and if anybody would like some specific information on working with an agency or even working with Warman O'Brien how can they best contact you. I think the best thing to you can obviously share my contact details but probably a more important thing is go on our website WarmanO'Brien.com there's a lot of information on there you can register to have joined a newsletter and there's lots of information about writing a CV downloading a salary guides interview preparation there's lots of resources on there to help you with getting your CV set up and obviously interview preparation obviously speaking to recruiter one of our recruitment consultants will help as well and also you can follow some LinkedIn I think we've got over 80,000 followers so there's lots of questionnaire we share and lots of content we share on an ongoing basis as well so combination of things reach out to myself directly and go on our website and follow some LinkedIn. Great and I will put some links to all of your contact details in the show notes but I do want to give a special shout out to the salary survey that you just you briefly mentioned because I think it's really important I've seen several people talking about salaries and I think salaries structures look quite a bit different than they did four or five years ago so I think it's worth your time to to grab that. Thank you so much Mark for joining me today and sharing your insights on jobs and CVs and interviews I've really appreciated the conversation. Thank you very much Amanda much for sitting and looking forward to seeing you in a new year.