70. The 7 Second CV: What recruiters wish everyone knew | Libby White

0:00Welcome to All About Business with me, James Reed, the podcast that covers everything about business, management and leadership. Every episode, I sit down with different guests who bootstrap companies, masterminded investment models or built a business empire. They're leaders in their field and they're here to give you top insights and actionable advice so that you can apply their ideas to your own career or business venture. Welcome to All About Business Shorts, where we share practical advice you will actually use. In this episode, we're doing things a little differently. Instead of a career journey, we're focusing on one thing that still trips up even very experienced professionals.

0:44That's your CV. I'm joined by Libby White, one of our top re-consultants who reviews CVs every single day for mid-level and senior roles. We'll unpack what hiring managers really look for, how to distill years of experience without underselling yourself, and the small strategic changes that can make a very big difference. If you've ever wondered why your CV isn't getting the response you expect, this one's for you.

1:15So today in our Spring Short Series, I'm really pleased to welcome Libby White. We're going to be talking about a subject close to my heart, the CV. The CV is a document that is just so important in recruitment and in career progression. And it's something that people have sort of said for years, you know, the CV's over, it's had it, but it seems to persist. And Libby, I'm so pleased you can join me. You've got three years experience as a specialist senior consultant in reed um you're based in southwest london you look particularly at marketing communications pr and design type roles so the cv is a is in a sense a marketing document yes i mean that's the function i think it serves but what what does a an employer look for in as my title of the book suggests the seven seconds they take to evaluate a cv what is that they're looking for?

2:15Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, firstly, thank you for having me today. It's a pleasure to be here and obviously to be talking all things CVs. In terms of what I would say clients are looking for is somebody that's grown within a company, I would say is super important. We like to call it sort of bunny hopping. If somebody has been there for six months, been there for nine months, compared to somebody that's grown through a company and maybe gone through promotions in different levels, it really does stand out to the client because it shows their dedication to work and achieve whatever it is that they might be doing.

2:48So when you say bunny hopping, they're looking to exclude people who bunny hop. Not necessarily, but I think the market has changed so much since the book came out in 2019. I think there's always a lot of questions around why people have bunny hopped and people have been in situations where they've been made redundant or they've had to do interim positions. So there has been a lot more of that over the last couple of years. So if you're in that situation, you need to make clear why. Yeah, absolutely. Make clear why, but obviously that's why we're here as an agency to understand that. There's perfect reasons behind it, but it's just about them being aware of that will potentially come up as a question from a client.

3:23Right. So if you're not in that situation and you've been at the same place for five or 10 years, you want your CV to show your progression in that employment. Yeah, absolutely. Really important. So what sort of things does it need to illustrate? right? Absolutely. So obviously you can show the different sort of titles that you've had within the company. So an example that I can give you is senior marketing executive. You know, if somebody's had quite an execution based role, and then in the next six months to a year, they've been promoted to assistant marketing manager, and then on from that.

3:55So I think a lot of people, if they've worked for the same company, they'll just keep their relevant information at the top. But it's really good to show that progression throughout, you know, what it was that you were doing at that level as a senior marketing exec what it was that changed when you were promoted to marketing manager just showing the difference in terms of responsibilities is is really important and key so if you've been promoted then it needs to be clear yeah in in terms of the job titles that you've got so you wouldn't just put five years at one place you've got the different yeah absolutely and and how you've progressed why is this that you know a lot of people have a what's called a professional summary at the top of their cv why is that considered so important these days and And what buttons do you need to press to make that work for you?

4:37We say it sets the tone for the CV. I think the first three sentences of the professional summary is incredibly important. It's so industry-led, the market at the moment. If you come from a luxury background or you come from a financials background, that's the key point that people will be looking for. So, yeah, it sets the tone. It shows exactly what it is that you're looking for and your niche within that particular market. And it's three sentences? I would say three sentences, yeah. And within those three sentences, you should probably say how many years of experience you've got. Because when I'm first opening a CV, my first question to myself is, okay, how is this going to help my client with the role that I'm recruiting for at the moment?

5:15Have they got three years experience? Have they got over a decade of years experience? So it's really sets that tone in terms of seniority in the industry that they fall within. right so make sure your experience is is highlighted in that opening statement so what turns what turns a recruiter off when they're reading a cv or a person question yeah quite uh quite uh yeah ai is probably going to be the first on the top of my head ai is great you know everybody uses it day to day um but as a recruiter who looks at cvs day in and day out i can spot straight away when a cv has been built by ai um so i probably would say use it to help you with certain you know letterings and new words but don't build your cv just solely off you know co-pilot or ai because we can spot it from a mile off i got a request for a reference the other day from someone i've known a while back and it didn't sound like him at all and it was clearly Yeah, you know straight away.

6:12So you do know straight away. And that's not good. So how do you know straight away? It's just the tone. The format is another thing. I don't think AI is established enough yet to be able to generate a CV that looks like it's been made by a human being. It's very much the format is exactly the same. The wording, even the grammar. They love a long hyphen on AI. So, yeah, if you are using it to build your CV, great. but just make sure that you're going through and you know taking those hyphens off and the important point is it's your cv not chat it's your cv yeah absolutely i'd say another thing that turns a recruiter off is your generic hard-working collaborative using those types of word i think we've moved away from that and within this industry you know you're going to work for a business to show them what you can add whether it's saving money or making money so using words like commercial is going to benefit you in the long run rather than hard working and collaborative.

7:11But don't you have evidence that you're commercial? Exactly. That will come with statistics. Key achievements is incredibly important. Business one or sales made or profits achieved. Growth. Growth. Growth is such a good word. People like growth. People love growth. So chat GPT CVs is a turn off, but growth is a positive. Growth is a positive. If you can demonstrate it. And how do you decide what to leave out? How long should a CV be? Good question. I mean, again, depends on the level that you are. If somebody's got 10 to 20 years experience, it's going to be quite difficult to get that all onto a CV.

7:48We normally say two pages, but two pages of relevant information. And, you know, I appreciate people want to add everything into it and make it feel really respected within the market. But sometimes it does the opposite. And I think that's why it's important to have multiple copies of CV. just so you can apply that to the specific role that you are. Yeah, I've often said it should be one page. But I suppose if it's one, I mean, in old language, one piece of paper. Yeah. Could be on either side, but yeah. But it's got to be edited and concise. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Because our research does show that people will look at it for seven seconds in the first instance.

8:24Yeah, absolutely. If it's anything longer than two pages, it's too much. I'm not taking in the information and neither is the hiring manager. So normally two pages of relevant information. You know, normally the first sort of five to six years is what's really important. That's going to be on the front page. But anything after that, still include it, but don't highlight it as much in terms of responsibilities. Is your organisation prepared for what's coming next? At Read Talent Solutions, we don't just manage contingent worker programmes and fill roles through our RPO solutions. We future-proof your workforce.

9:00From scaling operations to upskilling teams and navigating digital transformation, we are your strategic partner in building resilient, future-ready talent ecosystems. Visit readtalentsolutions.com today to discover how we can help your business grow. So you just mentioned the importance of demonstrating growth, if you can. So why is it you think that achievements with numbers matter more than responsibilities? on their CV? It's so much more tangible. Anybody could say on their CV that, you know, they grow a campaign by 47 % or, you know, they worked really hard on a particular project, but having that tangible information makes it really, really relevant.

9:44Again, going back to my point of why people are being hired, it's either to save money or to make money. So if you're that individual that's been able to, you know, decrease a certain marketing budget or, you know, within the sales team you've managed to boost revenue they're the sort of commercial aspects that clients will be looking for on profiles yeah i've always thought that a job is a problem to be solved so you want to position yourself as the solution with your cv um how far back do you think you should go in your sort of history i mean i mean cv means curriculum vitae the course of my life sort of thing i mean how far back is appropriate probably 10 years 10 to 12 years again depending on experience i represent the sort of mid-level to senior market so i have quite a few people that really want to include everything but i always say just focus on your five to ten years and how that's going to be relevant to the role yeah things are the most important but i suppose you don't want to leave a big gap so you might just put in a very brief summary what you were doing or where you work you could just have a say for example if it was 20 years ago you could have marketing manager the dates and the times that you did it but you don't have to elaborate as much on what you would probably need to on the first five years.

10:57Well, marketing has changed a lot in 20 years, hasn't it? Yeah, absolutely. So what about people who've got sort of vague experience, but they want to turn it into something more impactful or describe? How do you advise them just to almost mine more interesting information from their career history than might be immediately obvious when they first see their CV? Anybody's role can be... so broad like my my job for example is so broad i'm doing something different every single day but i think it's about really honing in on that information and you know having those three copies of your cv if you know if you're a 360 marketing manager have one cv that's relevant to that if you're applying for a brand position make it look like you're really special in the brand industry so i would say it's really looking at your experience and really honing in on the important factors growth commercial aspect and so Libby this is this is called tailoring your CV depending on who you're applying yeah and it's important to stress it's not saying you know make things up it's about it's about presenting the most relevant to that particular hirer and the one thing that I can't stand is when people put their CV and then mirror the job spec onto that that is one thing that you should not be doing you know nobody's CV is gonna be perfect but it's just about adding and tailoring, as you said, to get that interview.

12:21Do people use AI to do that? Yeah, absolutely. It sounds like that's a new thing. Yeah. Because it's easy to do now. You see that, do you? A lot. I know straight away. So don't take shortcuts with your CV. I mean, it's a life-changing document, I say to people. It is. I mean, and how many life-changing documents do you actually create? You know, because this could... Not many. I can't think of many either. So if you're going to be creating a life-changing document, it should be yours and it should be really good. Yeah, definitely. So when you come to this sort of tailoring, I mean, if you're applying for jobs, I suppose you're going to be applying within a category that might be slightly.

12:59I mean, how many different versions should you have? Well, there should be some version control. Yeah, absolutely. Where the market is so industry led in that I suppose that touches on my point from earlier. I normally say two to three. Two to three copies is average. I wouldn't want anybody to have six, seven different versions of their CV. It takes too much time. You're probably repeating yourself quite a lot. But it's just about for you to understand as a candidate what it is, the market that you want to go in, the type of role that you want, and just about putting that and evidence in that onto the CV.

13:30So you could have a marketing manager CV. You could have a brand marketing manager CV. You could have a senior marketing manager CV. So if you're looking for that next step up, obviously put the senior one forward. If you're looking for a more creative and brand focused role, it'd be the brand CV. so a lot of people think that their CVs are never going to be right but having those three different tailored ones is going to be really beneficial so you're drawing on your experience but you're just you're pushing some parts of it forward first in those different documents I mean the CV I've always thought has one purpose and that's to get you an interview do you agree with that absolutely I represented a young lady recently she's really struggled to get interviews um her cv was all over the place it wasn't formatted correctly it had information on it that just didn't need to be on there for example her full home address um you know references upon request that's just a waste of you know valuable time and you know areas of the cv that you could be adding to more beneficial so she came to me and she said look what can i do with my cv i supported her we focused on the industries that she wanted to go out to in the market and it took some time you know it took about a week to get it to where we wanted it to be um I obviously did my job in terms of taking it out to market and we got her two interviews with two different businesses so with a CV it's about being relevant and not you know this broad person that's just applying for any position it's just about being market relevant so you're you're presenting yourself to that prospective employer as a as the solution to their business you're the product yeah absolutely you can you can solve their problems yeah so did she get the job she's interviewing this week well fingers crossed she's interviewing today actually at 12 no it just shows the difference though i mean it's worth mentioning that we have templates on read.co.uk cv templates that people can use to complete and there's also cv templates in the book and advice on how to sort of activate your cv in the seven second cv which is as relevant now as it was when it was written and people use a lot i know so um there is help out there yeah absolutely and don't just go on ai is your message it seems to be to sum it up that would be it what about this question when does adding a photo help and when does it hurt because some people Very controversial.

15:59Very controversial. Very controversial. So why is this controversial? I like this question a lot. I mean, again, not to be so industry focused, but the lady that's interviewing for me today, she really wants to get into the luxury field. And a lot of my clients in that sort of Chelsea Fulham area, their offices are above their showroom. So the way that you present yourself on your CV is going to be really key. So sometimes it works in your favour and sometimes it doesn't. If I was representing someone from the financial sector or public sector, I probably wouldn't say so. But if it's that more sort of B2C, that stakeholder environment, face-to-face client contact, I would definitely say have an appropriate picture on there for sure.

16:37Right. So sometimes it's a good idea and sometimes it's not. Sometimes it is, depending again who it is. The other thing, I mean, pretty much everyone it seems is on LinkedIn and they have their picture there. Yeah. So it's not as sort of unusual as it used to be. um what about is thinking of linkedin what about if your cv doesn't match your linkedin profile is that a problem get that quite a lot you get that quite a lot i get now what's going on here yeah because i i noticed this too yeah it's a funny one i think people worry about what they're going to put on their linkedin but sometimes they change their titles sometimes they change their responsibilities but i understand why people do it but i think that's where inflate on linkedin Yeah, they inflate on LinkedIn or they could make themselves be more senior than actually what they are.

17:26And across the different industries, titles will vary in terms of seniority. This has affected the most highest echelons of public life. I've sort of noticed that people have inflated their titles. Yeah, and just made themselves maybe something that they're maybe not in terms of their experience. You don't want to be doing that on a CV, huh? But I suppose that's my job to really hone in on actually what it is they do day to day and to be able to present that in a profile to a client. Because people will take up references. Yeah. And you don't want to be misleading. I mean, it's like saying you've got qualifications you haven't got, isn't it?

17:59Yeah. If I put, you know, I was a TV producer when I was an assistant producer, it's pushing it. Or if I was an ice skater when I was 15. Were you? No. I would have loved to have been, but no. So that's an interesting, that takes us into an interesting sort of final section. The sort of hobbies and interests. this was something that people used to advise putting on cvs what's your view on that no why not it's not relevant to the job in hand i mean if you're in an interview and i have an example of this actually i was working with a travel company that do ski solutions and the girl that went in and interviewed me is an avid skier goes every year of her dad and her brother just absolutely loves it wasn't on her cv um but went into the interview and obviously it's a travel company they were talking about what it is that you do out of work time and that topic came up and she got the job so if it's relevant in the interview you know mention it what it is that you do outside of work if that question comes up but i think it's a waste of space on your cv i think there's other relevant information that you could put on there instead what would you what would you suggest putting there probably systems use is a real one i've seen within the last two years um you know the likes of salesforce as a crm has been so popular within the market but there's so other many different platforms that people are using for example hubspot and mailchimp so if you have that on your cv that's going to come up in our key search words when we're looking you know to sort of headhunt candidates so i probably would say systems use is really important as well okay um if someone had to fix something on their cv or just one thing you know this week what would you suggest they fix key achievements key achievements yeah it's incredibly important there's two ways that you can do key achievements you can have them at the top of your profile great you know as soon as we open that cv we can see what you've done but another thing that i really like is when somebody has their role there are key responsibilities and any key achievements that they've done within that specific role it really just shows your point of being there as that product and what it is that you've done for that particular company in that position and it just goes to show what you've done and had any access within the role so you're saying if i understand you rightly that each role is you should have a key achievements yeah bit at the end of it yeah absolutely how many achievements probably two to three depends how long you've been there if you've been there for a year and there was a big you know project or activation across that year have that on there having anything is going to be better than nothing but key achievements is something that really stands out within this market what about i mean i find this sometimes people say oh you know I did all this but you know damn well that they're part of a team I mean and sort of saying sort of aggrandizing themselves they I did it all to me seems immodest and dishonest yeah so you want to be careful of that yeah yeah definitely come across that yeah I do a lot actually I mean if you're a sole marketing person within a function then you are probably doing everything but if we're looking at teams of 10 to 30 everybody's got their own hats right so So it's about that key achievement and what you did for that role rather than the team.

21:11It might be our team achieved this and my role was X, Y, Z. I led X. Yeah, or supported the team in achieving whatever it might be. I think that's important. I mean, because for me, it's so obvious that business is about teamwork. We work together. We don't achieve anything on our own ultimately. So I think that's important that comes across. So what about these sort of dynamic verbs, you know, delivered, built, initiated? What place do they have in the CV? They're good words to build the foundations of a CV. But within this market, it's extremely competitive after COVID. You know, it's about having that profile and that CV that stands out between five or six other people.

21:53So everybody's going to have those words in their CV. It's the foundations of making it. But it's just about using other words. You know, if you're going into a sales team, use commercial. If you're a commercially minded individual, like I have to be day to day, that's going to really put your profile against all of the others. The same way within marketing, if you're a growth individual or you did a particular marketing campaign that increased growth by 47%, it's all those types of words that are going to really make your profile stand out better to the others. So you're showing that the fact's based.

22:25Yeah, it needs to be tangible, definitely. And what about the sort of person who's just starting out in their working life? You know, they've just left school or college or university or haven't had experience. How do they frame a CV to get themselves an interview when they can't necessarily do that? Yeah, absolutely. I would say format is a big thing for the junior candidates. You know, I think a lot of the time people really overthink their CV. If you're at that junior level, oh, you know, I must have a certain graphic or I must have a certain font. But what stands out to the junior market is that real professionalism across the CV.

23:04You know, how much information you have on it is really important, whether or not it's relevant. You're not necessarily going to have key achievements on there because you haven't probably been in a role where you've achieved that. But format is a massive thing for the junior market. And I think as a takeaway, a lot of people should be re-looking over their profiles and thinking, maybe I should make it more formal. Maybe I should take that graphic out because they're the things that really stand out to us when we're screening people at that junior level. So keep it professional. Keep it professional.

23:33It doesn't need to be. You find people who go off and decorate. Yeah, I had a lovely candidate and she really wanted to get into the financial sector, but she had an orange CV. So that's not going to, as a brand and in the marketing team, that's not going to coincide with what the process is looking for. I've got an orange book out behind you. It's called Karma Capitalism. As long as you haven't got an orange CV, that's all that matters. I don't have an orange CV. There's nothing wrong with the color orange, honestly. Okay, well, yeah, that might be helpful advice. But I think part of what I'm interested in when I look at the CV is I want to try and find out something about the person.

24:08So, you know, if they're a junior candidate, what else have they done? Did they do sort of holiday jobs? did they do sort of paper rounds when they were in the old days or jobs when they were younger I think because in our business that's a real indication of potential you know contributors yeah and do they do things as volunteers or have they run a student group or you know have they shown some leadership they can put all that in surely yeah absolutely if if I could go back in time i wish that i got involved with more stuff curriculum stuff at school so ball girl link which looks great on a cv you know duke of edinburgh that looks fantastic so my advice to the junior market would be throw yourself in in anything that you can because i know in the moment you probably don't want to do it but long term it looks fantastic on your cv but yeah you might not want to do it but once you start doing you probably enjoy it anyway exactly i mean that's it's not just about what looks good on your cv it's like getting engaged with life yeah saying Yes, as we go along to more opportunities is enriching.

25:16And then your CV will be a sort of document that comes out the end. Yeah. Looking better for it. Yeah, absolutely. So throw yourself into things. Throw yourself into it and do it whilst you're young. And keep doing it. Yeah. Age should be no barrier.

25:32Thank you very much for coming to talk to me about CVs. I'm going to ask you two questions I'll ask everyone at the end of my podcast. the first one Libby because we at Read Love Mondays is what gets you up on a Monday morning I have two answers for this one is probably my Monday morning gym class if I don't go to the gym on a Monday it sets the tone for the week secondly is the variety in the position that I have today and you know I could be waking up on a Monday it's cold and rainy outside but I'm going to potentially be offering someone a position that they really want so the variety in the role is what keeps me going throughout the week definitely good what time does that gym class start 6 30 excellent nice and early difficult in the winter months energizing start yeah that's good and my last question from the interview book why you is where do you see yourself in five years time knowing my market more becoming more established with my knowledge you know working with new clients um but one thing that i've always wanted to be is a leader i'd love to lead from the front I've been in a position when I started here three and a half years ago where I needed to lean on a lot of people.

26:37So I would like to be that person for, you know, people getting into recruitment or understanding the marketing world. I really want to lead from the front. So hopefully within five years, I'll have marketing consultants working underneath me. I think there should be plenty of opportunities for that. Let's make that happen. Thanks very much for coming to talk to me. You're welcome. Thank you so much for having me. A real pleasure. thank you Libby for joining me on all about business I'm your host James Reed chairman and CEO of Reed a family-run recruitment and philanthropy company if you'd like to go deeper on this topic please take a look at my book the seven second cv you'll find links to read and further resources in the show notes thank you for listening and see you next time

27:27Thank you.