Do you remember the story of Alex Kearns*? The (then) 23-year old graduate was having a hard time finding a job after finishing his degree in French and Italian earlier that year. Being rejected so many times, he thought of another way to get his CV out there: He unfurled a giant CV on Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth.

Although Alex’s story has the happy ending he had hoped for – that is getting invited for a job interview and landing a job as a sales executive – this scenario might not always work the same way for the rest of us. Despite the very original presentation of a CV, we decided to dive deeper into the content of it.

Alex, a British national, who studied Italian and French, is apparently a native English speaker (surprise!), fluent in French and Italian (even bigger surprise!), and has an interest in languages (no one saw this one coming…) and – to separate himself from anybody else – he likes to play football. What we are trying to say is that, given the unique yet a very short format of his CV, the content of Alex’s CV is extremely repetitive.

If you choose to follow a more conventional way of applying for jobs, receiving good job hunting advice is of paramount importance. It means that even if you have the opportunity to meet with employers, attend job fairs, connect via the internet with loads of companies, make sure you have something relevant and well-polished that you can ‘sell’ to them. For universities, it means not only providing channels where students can meet employers, but also supplying students with the right tools** (i.e. CV writing skills, presenting yourself to an employer, writing formal emails, etc.).
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Employer Engagement + Good Career Advice = Ensuring Graduate Employability

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And even if you do opt for a more unique and original way, – who knows there might be more Alex Kearnses in the near future, – go the extra mile, and make sure your CV has informative content as well. Good luck!

Selene Siregar
ELM team

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*Read the complete article here.
**CareerProfessor.works is a tool developed by ELM that uses gamification to increasing student & graduate employability.

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