Perfecting Your CV
Did you know that hiring managers spend an average of 6 seconds reading a resume and that only about 2% of sent resumes result in an interview? This means your CV absolutely has to stand out in order to make an impression and ensure that your CV gets noticed and you get a call for an interview. Your CV is the first impression you make to potential employers so make sure it is a favourable one. You never get a second chance to make a first impression.
The Monaco Boat Show, which is currently happening, typically signals the end of the Mediterranean summer season for the yachting industry. Time has certainly flown by this year! Soon, yachts will be preparing to chase the sun and get ready for crossings to warmer climates. This means there will be a flurry of activity on the recruitment front. Crew will be looking for new opportunities and the crew agents will be busy with finding the right crew to place on various yachts. There will be a surge in the number of available open positions and a flurry of CV’s being passed around between candidates, crew agents and employers.
So how do you ensure that your CV gets noticed and does not get pushed to the bottom of the pile?
Let’s look at some things to avoid:
1. Poor grammar and spelling. I have lost count of the number of CV’s I have read that tell me the person has an eye for detail or is conscientious about what they do, but in the same sentence they have spelling or grammar errors.
59% of recruiters will reject a candidate because of poor grammar or a spelling error.
2. Cliches: Be careful using cliches to describe yourself. It shows no original thought. If you want to show how versatile you are, use examples. Quantify statements to explain more about your past experiences and what you have to offer. For example, don’t just write you are a team player. Explain what you have done in past positions where you have worked as part of a successful team.
Over 50% of recruiters will reject a candidate if their resume is full of cliches.
3. Poorly laid out CV’s and poor photographs. Blurry unprofessional photographs and CV’s that don’t follow a structure will ensure your CV doesn’t get a second look. Format your CV correctly – have a proper order of sections, choose clear, legible fonts and be consistent with your CV layout.
1 in 5 recruiters will reject a candidate before they’ve even finished reading their resume.
4. Inappropriate email addresses and incorrect contact details. Your email address ilovevodka@xxx may have been funny when you were at university but will not be well received when looking for a job. Remember that this is a professional industry and recruiters will be looking for crew who are able to work in a professional environment. Check your contact details on your CV too. Have your most up to date telephone number listed and keep your phone on, ready for calls if you are handing out your CV while dock walking. If you don’t answer your phone, the chief officer / chief stew / chief engineer will just move on to the next CV if they are looking for day workers.
So what can you do to ensure your CV stands out?
We reached out to Linda at Viking Recruitment to ask her for what stands out for her when looking at CV’s of candidates she would like to put forward to employers. Here is what she had to say:
“A CV that is clearly set out where personal details, employment dates, references and profile photo are crisp and easy to read will get you noticed. Using key words that highlight your skillset is also very important. For instance, you may not think your hobby would be relevant to your job search but if you happen to love to ride and/or fix motorcycles there are yachts that would hire you over someone who does not express that as an interest. Similarly, if you enjoy sewing you may win an interview over a candidate that has not mentioned that on their CV. Your CV is your best marketing tool so try to keep it to the point but relevant to who you are and why you are well suited to a prospective position.”
Keep all these points in mind when putting together your CV:
1. Use a programme like Canva to design a well laid-out, eye catching CV. They have various free templates you can chose from and it is super simple to use – even for people who are not tech savy!
2. Ensure you have a good head and shoulders photograph of yourself. Try to make it as professional looking as possible and don’t use a selfie obviously taken in a bathroom. Feeling self-conscious taking a picture of yourself is quite normal. I promise! But rather spend a few minutes feeling self conscious than miss out on a job because of a poor photograph. This industry places a high value on image and so your photo matters.
3. Check, check and re-check your CV for spelling and grammar mistakes. Use software to assist you and ask a friend to read over your CV to give feedback too. Make sure your fonts are all the same and the sizing is correct and consistent throughout
4. List your expiry dates for all relevant information such as visas and medical certificates. Employers don’t want to be worrying about sorting out crew issues as soon as they have hired someone so this is important to them
5. State if you have visible tattoos. Although things are changing, tattoos are still a no-no for many yachts and employers don’t want to go through the hiring process for someone only to find out that they have visible tattoos.
Our friend, Louise, an agent at YPI in Antibes has the following tips too:
A skill’s section!
It’s really important to have a ‘Skills’ section on your CV, more so for the interior than other departments, as we don’t always have licenses and qualifications for our talents and skills. Due to the pace of recruitment for the interior and the quantity of applicants for positions, many chief stews and agents will scan the selection of skills that you have first and, if this matches what is required for the position, then will we go on to read your experience to see how and where in more detail you have learned and used these skills before. I would include this on the first page of your CV, above your work experience and in a bullet point form list so that it’s easy to process for potential employers. Also, include a nice mix of your hard skills as well as your soft skills! Being a proven team player is equally as important able to perform service skills for a good crew dynamic. A skills section is super important too if you have an extra qualification, like Spa and Massage Therapy, or personal training. It can be easy to think that just your qualification alone will explain what you can provide but, with so many different qualifications globally, it’s impossible to know what is included in each course. That’s why it’s important to list your treatments and extra skills.
Using ‘key words’
Its good to have an understanding of what key words to have on your CV for Chief Stews and agents to look for. Key words are the names of the skills that our eyes will be looking for as we scan over your CV. Mentioning different styles of Service ie ‘Silver Service’ ‘Plated Service’ or ‘Mixology’ are super important, as well as for example defining the ability to do both Crew and Guest laundry -which are quite different things. With the increase of AI (artificial intelligence) included in many recruitment packages now, it’s more important than ever to include these details. To explain this in more detail, this is when a search is performed to find a candidate with specific skills, the AI technology will scan your CV to pick out these words. If for example you are an expert mixologist, and you have maybe just written ‘making drinks’ you may not stand out when potential employers are scanning for these skills, either by eye or on a system. It’s good to look at job adverts and see what key words are appearing and get them onto your CV. It’s also worth taking note that many of these new packages cannot pick up text from dark boxes, so try to keep any colours very light with a dark font.
The ‘one page’ CV Myth
The ideal CV should be less than 2 pages long but there is no reason for it to be ‘just one page’. The problem with the one-page CV is that in order to squash all your experience into this you will end up needing to cut out really important information from your CV. For example, I have seen CVs with no skills section, no work experience details and no hobbies and interests which are the key things that will attract a potential employer to interview with you for a position. Without these, not only will you potentially not appear in searches, but your CV can lose its sparkle and not stand out amongst the crowd – the CV is ‘boring’ without any personality. The other issue I have seen is that many stews spending time trying to get everything to fit on one page, only to get another job, and have nowhere to add this to an already over packed CV - causing frustrating errors in formatting, shrinking texts to unreadable font sizes, and other problems that can take a lot of time and money to then correct. Chief Stews and agents would much rather read about all of your experience, talents and skills, so use two pages to really show case yourself!
We hope you have found all these tips helpful as you put together your CV for the yachting industry. Remember to update your CV with all your yachting experiences, even if it is daywork.
If you would like to get in touch with Linda or Louise here are their contact details:
Linda LEATHART lindal@vikingcrew.com
Louise OVEREND Louise@ypicrew.com
Best of luck with your job hunting !