C.V - First or Third person?

Associate
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Been to many careers services since school and at uni and I've never come across a CV that is third person. It seems weird to me to write a CV that way. It certainty wont help if a person wants to quickly skim over your CV. Keep it short and to the point, almost in list format. Am I right in saying that writing a CV in third person is more suitable for the arts like english, drama etc? I can't imagine engineering or the sciences writing a CV in third person.
 
Soldato
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Do any of you work in recruitment or a posistion where you personaly call interviewees? Otherwise no disrespect your opinion is worth nothing.

I guess different industrys may prefer different styles~?

What are your opinions... Ive got mine in third person and never had problems with it?

I work in recruitment, hence me indicating that he should definitely use the first person.
 
Associate
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lol 3rd person. Always 1st person:

I was responsible for........
I was involved in ........
I have experience in.....
 

Mat

Mat

Soldato
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Lots of 'I am' statements.

You're trying to sell yourself in a CV in order to get an interview so do it 1st person.
 
Caporegime
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Yeah, it does baffle me when folk on this board advise third person writing on CVs, it looks and sounds ridiculous.

Just seems a recent thing. My gf on advice has rewritten her cv in the last few weeks and used 3rd person or at the very least totaly avoided 1st person expect for her personal statement/covering letter.

She also took the advice to tailor her cv to each job and near the top now it has 3 columns of about 5 bullet points of important skills, acheivements but specifically relating to the job she is applying for listing the main skill/acheivement in bold before giving some detail. The other advice was to dump anything not relevant.

The idea being that interviewers only glance at cv's and they don't want to be bogged down reading years of employment history and trying to spot whether the applicant has the experience and skills needed.

This approach has worked dividends and she has got 3 interviews in the last two weeks including one where the recruitment company initially refused to put her cv forward as it "wasn't what the company was looking for" but after she persuaded him, he rang up sheepishly on Friday and said the company wanted to see her for an interview and quote "it was one of the best cvs they had received".
 
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Associate
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glad it worked out for her :)

All I know is that when I review CV's (not a daily thing, maybe 4 a month) the ones written in the 3rd person seem like they haven't been written by the candidate, they've got someone else to do it for them
 
Associate
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Writing in the third person and not using I are not the same surely.

This ^.

I think some people are confusing the two. Surely by third person the OP does not mean, "He did blah....", because that would be stupid. I believe he just means not writing 'I' at the beginning of every sentence, which I think makes sense. It's much less convoluted.
 

Ev0

Ev0

Soldato
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I feel I need to expand on the third person thing in my instance as people seem to think this means the whole thing says everything in the third person!

I have an intro statement thing which is written in third person, on recommendation from various people and companies (large companies as well).

Then on my work experience sections I have a very brief line on the role, followed by a section with just statements on what the responsibilities are and what my achievements were. These things are not written in any person, they are just statements.

So I don't go writing Ev0 has done this, that, the other, I just list things in statement form.

But was always told to use the third person for the bits I have done, and hasn't done me any harm :) Infact my current role at a large uk employer was a cv based application rather than app form.

As someone mentioned above I also have a number of different tailored cvs depending on the type of role I'm going for.
 
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Caporegime
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This. Most professional cv writing companies nowadays advise you to write in the 3rd person and never use the word "I".

But when you say third person how do you mean? How do you write out a personal statement for example?

Mines kind of second person :p..I talk about myself but not directly...I dunno
 
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Caporegime
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[DOD]Asprilla;19566139 said:
You care what interests they list?

I don't list any interests on my CV.

Exactly, I used to...When I was 16 :p

IT has been my main job interest since I left school, so seems kind of silly to label it as an interest now
 
Caporegime
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This is exactly it, imo.

Don't take it so literally as the third person, you just don't litter it with, 'I DID THIS AND I DID THAT.'

Indeed, for example:

Solid technical and fault finding abilities.
Fully committed to and experienced
in supporting clients and systems. A
confident communicator, comfortable
working both remotely or on-site within
a help desk environment
 
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