The art of getting noticed
Years ago someone told me about a CV he had seen printed on a handkerchief. He said that it was great because it was so different, and stood out from the pile of A4 paper.
Of course it was also a nightmare to file, so the approach isn’t perfect, but we all want to get ourselves to the top of the stack. Especially in a creative industry. As a journalist, there are a couple of rules I try to follow when applying for jobs. I don’t like starting a covering letter with “I…” as it seems too selfcentred. And a former editor once pointed out that a writer should be able to make their covering letter engaging. If they can’t, how can they be expected to make their journalism exciting, informative, readable, and so on?
I have hired people because of little bits of flair in their CVs. “I’ll make coffee! Just give me a job,” pleaded one. At the time my colleagues and I put it to one side and joked about it sounding desperate. Especially from someone without much experience. Then we gradually realised that although the woman who had sent that had less experience and fewer qualifications than others on our list, hers was the only résumé we had passed around. So we called her up. And she was as funny and engaging and keen as her CV had sounded, and was the right fit for the magazine I was running at the time. So we hired her and she quickly proved her journalism was just as able to make readers chuckle and come back as her CV was.
She had addressed the problem all of us have had to face at some point: how to impress someone you’ve not met with experience you don’t have.
On page 12 of this, our Youth and Graduate Issue, Mirna Tamimi, a fresh recruit at Dubai Properties, shares her advice on getting a grad job. Her first rule is: “Have a well- designed CV”. So at least one person agrees with me.
So did the marketing student I met two years ago at Dubai Lynx. She was hanging around the smoking area with her experience and skills printed on match boxes. “Every ECD smokes,” she said to me. “So when they need a light they get my details.”
And I was just as impressed when a CV of a young art director appeared on our receptionist’s desk last week. It was in the shape of one of those fortune-tellers school kids use to tell you “love is round the corner” or “you smell of wee”. My colleagues and I stopped and played with it. And discussed it. And told people about it.
We’ve put it in The Spin, on page 34. Because if someone can make you spend time with their CV, that’s got to be a good indication they have the ingenuity to engage with your audience.
Like a CV on a hankie, that’s not to be sneezed at.