The First Thing An Employer Looks At Is...

....the first page of your CV. Don’t waste the space on photos and stylish cover pages.

Employers and recruiters often see hundreds of resumes per job vacancy and do not have time to search through volumes of information. Research says that an employer will spend approximately 40 seconds in the initial screening of a resume. All the important information about you needs to be on the first page, giving a clear reason to tailor your CV to the position.

Your CV is the ”silent salesman” that represents you to the employer before and after any interviews take place. Not only can a good resume win an interview, it can also provide a competitive edge.

A good CV is more than a chronological listing of skills and experiences. An excellent CV should also:

• clearly state your abilities and boost confidence
• explain and clarify what you are seeking
• help make the interview easy for both you and the recruiter by giving worthwhile information that helps generate discussion.

When preparing a CV, avoid making these common mistakes:

• Being too modest and not addressing key achievements
• Claiming ability, qualifications or experience that don’t exist
• Using passive writing, listing job activity rather than explaining it in visual terms
• Not providing interesting information with which an employer can consider how well you would fit in with the culture and values of his business
• Giving too much information. At this stage you should mention key achievements and current skills, summarising any significant past activity but not including every detail of every job and training course.
• Not tuning the CV to local requirements: A New Zealand format CV tends to run to about 7 pages, an Australian one will usually only run to 3 pages.
• Not pitching the CV to the audience. It is worth having two or three versions that enhance different parts of your career, depending on the type of job being pursued.

This link takes you to more information that will help you put together a good CV, or request our help in improving what you have.

Hire A Migrant employs Tom Hannemann, Seek's resident CV expert who has been writing CVs since the year 2000, many of which were for migrants. Tom holds MBA qualifications and has been an HR specialist, senior manager, business developer & consultant for 20 years.

This site is not intended for use by either migrants or sponsors who are directly sponsoring a future employe. It is a condition of use of this site that all users acknowledge that they are not seeking migration advice for themselves as migrant or to act as sponsor of a future worker. For full legal entitlement and disclaimer please click here (c) Hire A Migrant Pty Ltd ACN 124 164 138 unless attributed.

The Australian Government is now in caretaker mode ahead of the national election scheduled for August 21. The timing is very unfortunate as a long series of major changes to immigration policy are still unfinished, leaving many thousands of people in a state of great uncertainty.

Although it is possible that State Governments may be able to submit their new lists of State Sponsored occupations for Ministerial approval, it is unclear whether the Minister still has the ability to authorise their implementation at least until a new Government is formed. Similarly, other unwelcome legislation for capping and ceasing certain visa categories is also unable to progress. Another choke point is that quotas for certain occupations may also be implemented at State and Federal levels soon after the election.

Or not! One major party view is that smaller employers should find it easier to become a sponsor, which would enable many more job applicants through. Applicants affected by change and uncertainty may still consider applying for 457 permits until their visa pathway for permanent residency is made clear. Even without the election, Immigration is in a bit of a mess and it will probably be October before it’s mostly cleared up.