10 Reasons Why a Recruiter Hates your CV? – Interview Expert Academy//
Your CV or Resume is your first impression with a recruiter. It can leaving a lasting impression – both positively and negatively.
Get it right and the likelihood is that you’ll get an interview. Get it wrong and that’s the last you’ll hear from them. You won’t get the chance to meet them face to face.
What can you do to make sure that you get an interview?
Well, the starting point is to avoid the following pitfalls. Too many times candidates fall into one or more of these traps. Take time to craft your CV or Resume. Remember it’s your brochure. It represents you and is your first impression.
10 CV / Resume Pitfalls to Avoid
1. Poor Layouts or Odd Formats
Now I’m not a big fan of the traditional black text on white background as a way of ensuring that your CV or Resume stands out. I like to see a little bit of creativity to show that you’re different from everyone else.
Regardless of whether you go the traditional black text on white route or something more creative, be careful. Your CV or Resume needs to be easy on the eye of the recruiter. They need to be able to glance at it quickly and find the information they need. They will not spend a lot of time searching for information.
Put time and effort into crafting your CV or Resume. Just remember that its purpose is to get you an interview.
2. Too Many Fonts
Whilst I’m a fan of being creative to stand out from the crowd, it does not mean using lots of different fonts to do it.
Stick to 1 or 2 fonts. No more.
If you do use more than 1 font make sure that it looks appropriate and easy to read next to the main one.
When we read text our eyes adjust to the font and its size. Too many fonts becomes difficult to read. It increases the likelihood that you’ll end up in the ‘No’ pile.
3. Spelling Errors
Make sure that every word that you’ve used is spelt correctly. Use a dictionary or spellchecker on your computer to double check a spelling. Then have someone else check your CV to make sure everything is spelt correctly. Sometimes spellcheckers aren’t always right.
Don’t leave it to chance. Recruiters want to see that their potential new recruit is proficient in the use of language.
4. Grammatical Errors
Avoid long sentences. Keep your sentences short and to the point. It’ll make it that much easier to read.
Be careful with punctuation, commas and full stops.
Again once you’ve completed your CV or Resume have it checked for grammatical errors.
5. Weak Personal Statement
Personally I’m not a big fan of personal statements at the top of CVs or Resumes.
Why?
Because they generally say little about a candidate. Rather they appear like a bucket list of everything that the candidate is e.g. ‘great working as part of a team or working on my own’ or that they are ‘innovative, creative….’
I really dislike them!
Do you get the idea? But many recruiters like to see them. So if you’re going to use one make it relevant to the role you’re applying for. Tailor it. Be specific. Use it to draw a recruiter in to reading more about you.
Just please don’t use it as a bucket to throw every cliche into.
6. Meaningless Words
CVs and Resumes have a tendency to include meaningless words.
Words that we think sound good. Words that sound powerful and impressive.
Unfortunately those words create the opposite impression. I wrote about this in ’28 Overused Meaningless Resume Words’. Take a look at the most popular meaningless words.
Be specific in your language. Make it easy to read and understand.
7. Lacking Relevance
This is a real bugbear of mine. Far too many CVs or Resumes are prepared once and then used for every job application. No two jobs are the same, so your CV or Resume cannot be the same for each role. Make it specific to the role you’re applying for. Make it relevant.
Too many CVs and Resumes list the responsibilities or tasks for a job role.
Your emphasis needs to be on what you achieved. What value you brought to the role and the tasks.
9. Gaps
Recruiters hate gaps on CVs and Resumes. Gaps in employment usually raise alarm bells for a recruiters.
It may not stop you from getting an interview, but chances are you will get the question, ‘Why is there a gap between ‘x’ date and ‘y’ date?’
You’ll need to be ready with an answer.
Better still explain the gap in your CV. Show that you’ve used the time wisely and positively. For more information read ‘Explaining a Gap on your CV’.
10. Too Long
How long is too long for a CV or Resume?
Well it depends.
Some recruiters will tell you to stick to 2 pages, but sometimes that just isn’t enough space to detail everything about you.
One thing is for sure, 8 pages is too long! I had a candidate with a CV that lasted 8 pages. Far too long!!
The point of your CV or Resume is to interest and intrigue a recruiter. A CV or Resume is not your life story. Make sure that is contains all the important points. It’s long enough to cover them, but short enough to keep a recruiter interested.
CV Pitfalls
If you’re about to put together your CV or Resume or if you’ve already crafted it, take some time to review it against these 10 pitfalls. Does yours fall into 1 or more of these? If it does change it.
Remember you want to stand out for the right reasons, not the wrong ones!
NEW YORK (MarketWatch)—Can oil futures sustain an admittedly volatile rebound that has left crude prices up around 14% from six-year lows in six sessions? It might all depend on how traders react to storage incentives.
In other words, it won’t be nearby futures contracts that tell the story. The clue will come from how oil futures for delivery months or years into the future perform, strategists say.
First, though, it’s important to note that the oil market is in a condition known as “contango” (see chart below). This means that the spot price for oil is lower than the price for future delivery (when the nearby price is higher than the future price, that is known as “backwardation.”) As the chart shows, the contango has been deepening, as is often the case in bearish episodes.
For example, Nymex West Texas Intermediate crude for March delivery CLH5, +1.88% settled Thursday at $50.48 a barrel, while oil for delivery a year later in March 2016 CLH6, +0.86% finished at $60.96.
In the Brent market, March 2015 futures LCOH5, +1.04% settled at $56.57 a barrel versus $66.12 for the March 2016 LCOH6, +1.18% contract, a smaller but still significant premium for the year-ahead contract.
This sort of disparity can provide a trading opportunity. Here’s how it works:
If the premium is wide enough to cover storage costs, it provides an incentive for physical traders to store crude. That’s contributed to the recent run-up in crude supplies, with U.S. inventories now the largest in eight decades.
In fact, the differential between nearby and longer-dated futures is wide enough that deep-pocketed commodity-trading firms have started to buy more expensive floating storage, i.e. oil tankers, in an effort to take advantage of the contango. One large trading firm even booked a three-million-barrel-capacity tanker, one of the world’s largest, to store oil, Reuters reported last month.
Here’s an example of how it works from Vikas Dwivedi, global oil and gas strategist at Macquarie in Houston:
Buy the physical crude, say, for example, dated Brent for $55.10 per barrel
Obtain a VLCC (very large crude carrier). Capacity: two million barrels Cost: $1.15 per barrel per month.
Add monthly financing cost: $55.10 x 10% = $5.51 per year or $0.45 per barrel per month
Full monthly cost per barrel to store oil is $1.15 + $0.45 = $1.60 per barrel.
Sell second month Brent futures at $57.78 to deliver the oil against from the VLCC
Total economics = $57.78 sale price – $55.10 purchase price – $1.60 cost of carry = $1.08 per barrel of risk free profit
Analysts say that large storage increases by themselves aren’t necessarily bearish. Indeed, the notion that traders are buying crude oil and locking it away in storage is getting some credit for the rebound in oil futures.
But the market might be facing a moment of truth.
“If the back end of the curve fails to benefit from the recent price increase, we would see a high chance for the front end to reverse the latest gains,” wrote strategists at JBC Energy in Vienna on Wednesday.
In other words, if the contango doesn’t steepen, the incentive to store will fade away, making more crude readily available and weighing down the market. The need for a steeper contango will be amplified as storage tightens, driving costs higher.
Macquarie’s Dwivedi is skeptical that oil has bottomed.
“There is a chance the oil markets were already discounting the large oversupplies we are expecting when the recent lows were reached but we doubt i t— commodity markets are rarely that efficient and if they were, the back of the Brent curve would already be trading in the low $80s instead of the mid-$60 range,” he wrote.
Why take an AR Analyst role with this company?
• Exposure to many areas of AR and Treasury
• Key part of the AR team
• Opportunity to work for one of the best employers in Houston
• Ability to with a diverse group of clients both domestic and international
What the AR Analyst will do…
• Checking bank account for wires and allocate payments
• Process payments from lockbox
• Reconcile GL Accounts and research credit balances and problems
• Perform the above functions on an engagement by engagement basis
What the company needs in an AR Analyst:
• H.S. Diploma or some college
• 2 years of electronic lock box experience
• 5 years of AR experience
• Ability to work independently and as a team
Perks of the AR Analyst role:
• Annual bonus
• Strong medical benefit package
• 401-K with match
• 37.5 hour work week
There have been a lot of changes at CFS and the local market this year. First things first: CFS has changed its legal structure and is now an ESOP, as such please update my new email address to dlemaire@cfstaffing.com.
Now, let’s get into the crazy drop in oil price and my personal opinion on what may happen this year. I still think Houston is going to experience steady growth. I just don’t think it will be at the rate it was in 2014. There are certain industries that will benefit from the price of oil. The flipside to that is that there are also industries that will not do so well and will experience some layoffs. At this point though, I think everyone is enjoying the cheap gas prices. The reduction in cost gives the consumer more money to spend on goods. If it were a perfect world, oil would settle around 60 dollars a barrel in my mind. That would make the Oil & Gas companies happy (not ecstatic) and the consumers would be satisfied as well.
It will be interesting to see what happens with the US production continuing to increase over the years to come. Will 50 dollars a barrel be the new norm? Either way, business always finds a way to make money. Some will be able to make a profit at the current price and some simply will not. I think the bottom line is that there will be an impact on Houston, but we are in a much better place economically to take the hit.
I love this quote from Patrick Jankowski Senior VP of Research at the GHP: “When oil prices are low, Houston’s economy grows and When oil prices are high, Houston’s economy booms!”
Houston has landed the No. 1 spot on Forbes’ latest annual list of America’s Fastest-Growing Cities.
“Thanks in large part to the boom in horizontal drilling and fracking, which has helped the Houston metro area add a whopping 667,800 new jobs since 2005, the energy city is an economic powerhouse: Its 4.5 percent year-over-year job growth rate is the nation’s fastest,” the Forbes report notes. “Jobs at major corporations like ConocoPhillips and Halliburton help boost the median annual pay for college-educated workers to $71,900, fourth among America’s 100 largest metro areas. Add to that an economy that grew at a 3.52-percent clip last year alone.”
The Houston metro area is expected to create 63,000 jobs in 2015, Forbes reports from stats offered by the Greater Houston Partnership. As well, some 1,500 corporate relocations or expansions have come to Houston since 2009, leased 20,000 or more square feet of office space or invested $1 million or more in capital improvements.
“When oil prices are low, Houston’s economy grows. When oil prices are high, Houston’s economy booms.”
“In the past four years, greater Houston grew by half a million people — half from moves, half from births,” the Forbes study notes. “Population growth means housing demand, and realtors sold more than 425,000 homes in the last five years, amounting to a home-closing rate of one every six minutes, according to the Greater Houston Partnership.
“What’s more, jobs boost construction, which is why last year Houston topped our list of “Building Boom Towns”: Metro areas with the most new construction.”
Forbes attributes exports as the driving force, beside oil, behind the boom, noting between 2009 and 2013 the value of Houston’s exports grew 74.5 percent, making the metro area the nation’s top exporter. Even though the falling price of oil is expected to slow Houston’s growth, the city’s economy should “chug along” with the rest of the country, the report says.
“When oil prices are low, Houston’s economy grows,” Patrick Jankowski, senior vice president of research at the Greater Houston Partnership, tells Forbes. “When oil prices are high, Houston’s economy booms.”
Houston is joined by four other Texas cities to give the Lone Star State half the moving-and-shaking cities in the Top 10.
Austin is ranked No. 2 on the list, followed by Dallas at No. 3, Fort Worth at No. 8 and San Antonio at No. 10. Strong population growth and unemployment levels under 5 percent are propelling the cities’ expansions, the report notes.
After Texas, the Golden State has the next greatest number of metro areas on the list with three: San Francisco at No. 7, San Diego at No. 16 and San Jose, No. 17.
The methodology behind the study began with taking the country’s 100 most populous cities and their surrounding suburbs and ranking the areas on six metrics. Estimated population growth for 2014 and 2015, year-over-year job growth for 2014, 2014 gross economic growth rate, federal unemployment data and median annual pay for college-educated workers determined the final results for the 20 fasting-growing metro areas in terms of population and economy.
Forbes’ 20 fastest-growing cities in the 2015 report are as follows:
Perform annual cost standard updating process for all inventoried items. Gather and organize new information, contracts, and pricing. Compile and analyze historical cost data.
Assist in financial period/year-end closing activities and external audit review.
Provide guidance to the operations group through financial & cost analysis and data that impacts decision-making.
Cost new variations of current product lines as needed by the sales department for presentation to prospective buyers.
Prepare cost estimates for new products
What the company needs in a Senior Cost Accountant:
BS or BA degree required with a concentration in Accounting or Finance is required.
Must have 5 years of applicable work experience; prior experience in Consumer Packaged Goods is highly desirable.
Excellent computer skills including Microsoft Office tools as well as ERP systems.
Company: Investments include holdings in private equity, hedge funds and real estate.
Description: Highly motivated individual to take over the day to day accounting of owner’s personal, partnerships and trusts. Individual should be an independent and fast learner.
Responsibilities:
Maintaining and monitoring the investor reporting schedules
Creating monthly financials, including balance sheet, income statement and sources and uses, for the family members, trusts, and foundations
General Ledger maintenance
Tracking Capital calls and distributions
Maintaining family loan schedules and calculating interest
Cash Management
Monthly and Bank reconciliations
Bill Pay for various accounts
Any Special one-time projects that often occur
Assisting in implementation of the electronic filing system
Assistance with accumulation of tax data/documentation
The Human Resources Administrator will provide daily oversight and management of all company benefits and human resource activities within the (Company) with the primary objectives of on boarding new employees, administering all employee benefit programs and ensuring compliance with all Federal, state and local laws.
Responsibilities:
Employee Customer Service – Unparalleled customer service to each employee of the company is the HR Administrator’s number one priority.
Hiring Process
Performance Management
Benefits Administration
General HR Administration
Qualifications:
2 to 4 years’ progressive experience and or leadership as a Human Resources professional.
General knowledge of the federal and state employment law sufficient to identify issues.
General knowledge of the principles and practices of human resources management.
Familiarity with HR support for multiple locations desired.
Do you live on the north side of Houston? Are you looking for a new challenge? Are you a go-getter? Would you like to help shape an HR department? Then email me immediately! dcd@fittsroberts.com
Human Resources Manager Job Responsibilities:
Recruitment:
• Maintains the work structure by updating job requirements and job descriptions for all positions.
• Maintains human resource staff by recruiting, selecting, orienting, and training employees.
• Maintains organization staff by establishing a recruiting, testing, and interviewing program; counseling managers on candidate selection; conducting and analyzing exit interviews; recommending changes.
Benefits Administration:
• Maintains employee benefits programs and informs employees of benefits by studying and assessing benefit needs and trends; recommending benefit programs to management; directing the processing of benefit claims; obtaining and evaluating benefit contract bids; awarding benefit contracts; designing and conducting educational programs on benefit programs.
Legal Compliance:
• Ensures legal compliance by monitoring and implementing applicable human resource federal and state requirements; conducting investigations; maintaining records; representing the organization at hearings.
• Maintains management guidelines by preparing, updating, and recommending human resource policies and procedures.
• Maintains historical human resource records by designing a filing and retrieval system; keeping past and current records.
• Maintains professional and technical knowledge by attending educational workshops; reviewing professional publications; establishing personal networks; participating in professional societies.
After several years of extraordinary growth, Houston’s economy will grow at a slower pace in 2015, the Greater Houston Partnership estimates.
GHP’s annual Houston Employment Forecast, released Dec. 11, estimates the metropolitan area will add 62,900 jobs in 2015, and the year should finish with more than 3 million total nonfarm payroll jobs.
That figure seems significantly less than the current pace of growth, in which Houston added 120,000 jobs between October 2013 and October 2014, but GHP calls the current pace unsustainable.
For comparison, Houston created an average of 48,600 jobs per year from 1994 to 2013. Even removing the three best years and three worst years, the average is 58,400 jobs per year.
GHP attributes much of the recent economic momentum to the boom in energy and exports, as well as Houston’s population growth. Over the past four years, the city added 500,000 residents, half of which were births and the other half relocations.
Falling oil prices and slower global growth will have a negative impact on Houston’s energy and export sectors next year, but the city will still add another 125,000 residents.
Construction on ethane crackers, chemical plants and liquefied natural gas terminals planned for the region; the opening of William P. Hobby Airport’s new international terminal; and U.S. gross domestic product growth in general will also help Houston’s economy next year.
Here’s where jobs will be added or lost in Houston in 2015:
•Energy: GHP anticipates a significant drop in oil field services (7,900 jobs) and a minor drop in oil and gas exploration (1,300 jobs).
•Construction: Growth expected to slow marginally, with the sector adding 8,200 jobs.
•Manufacturing: Expected to lose 3,300 jobs, as the decline in oilfield equipment and fabricated metals manufacturing will outweigh the increase in demand for chemicals, plastics and other nondurables.
•Wholesale trade: Expected to add 3,500 jobs, though some sectors will struggle
•Retail: Expected to add 6,600 jobs, a slight dip from recent hiring.
•Transportation, warehousing and utilities: Expected to add 2,600 jobs, though the wide variety of subsectors will be affected differently.
•Information: This sector, which includes news media, movies, software and other subsectors, is expected to create only 100 jobs.
•Financial: Expected to slow somewhat, adding 1,900 jobs.
•Professional, scientific and technical services: Growth will slow, with 9,300 jobs added.
•Administrative, support, waste management and remediation services: Expected to add 8,400 jobs, though outsourcing is expected to continue.
•Educational services: Expected to add 1,200 jobs.
•Health care: Expected to add 9,200 jobs.
•Arts, entertainment and recreation: Expected to add 700 jobs.
•Accommodation: Expected to add 1,000 jobs.
•Food services: Expected to add 8,300 jobs, though growth will be tempered compared to recent years.
•Other services: Slower growth expected, with slightly more than 2,200 jobs added.
•Government: Expected to add 1,200 jobs.
Even during periods of prolonged low oil prices, Houston added jobs, GHP’s report concludes. During the 1990s, oil prices averaged about $20, and Houston still added 500,000 jobs, though no individual sector dominated.
“For the third time in three decades, Houston is about to enter an era of relatively low oil prices,” GHP’s report states. “Yet by all measures, Houston is better off now than it was in the ’80s, ’90s or even the past decade. In the short term, growth may slow, but it always rebounds.”
1. Assist Controller with month end close, including reconciliation of various general ledger accounts and preparation of various monthly journal entries.
2. Review GL for posting errors and make corrections as needed.
3. Reconcile inventory accounts at month end and review manufacturing variances.
4. Review journal entries prepared by other members of the accounting team.
5. Track fixed assets by project number and review for accuracy. Enter assets in FAS and reconcile to GL. Calculate depreciation and book in GL.
6. Variance analysis of general ledger accounts
7. Assist Controller with audit schedule preparation.
8. Prepare various spreadsheets for management.
9. Keep track of all corporate assets and enter them in system and reconcile with general ledger.
10. Review balance sheet reconciliations prepared by other members of the accounting team.
11. Assist Controller with maintaining budgets.
12. Perform any needed tasks requested by Controller and CFO.
Skills and Experience:
Accounting or Finance Degree
3-5 years of experience in industry or public accounting
Experience with accounting software
Computer literate including Microsoft Excel and Word
Multi-tasker, self-starter
Supervision Experience
Team Player
Get it right and the likelihood is that you’ll get an interview. Get it wrong and that’s the last you’ll hear from them. You won’t get the chance to meet them face to face.
Houston's F&A Recruiter and Talent Connector 