August 2004 - What to put in and what to leave out of CVs

Somewhere on my computer I have a curriculum vitae. I do not look at it very often. If it were the piece of paper it used to be, it would be creased and dusty by now, tucked away at the bottom of a drawer.

But because it is filed on my PC, it still looks as fresh as the day it was revised by a young colleague about four years ago: she was a graduate trainee who took one look at my CV and decided that it was not up to scratch.

She reversed the chronology so recent stuff appeared first and changed the contents from a sparse list of roles and dates to something that read like an adventure story.

The reality, as with most other careers, is something nearer to that described by Dr Seuss in Oh, the Places You'll Go! - except that what Dr Seuss called those "bang-ups and hang-ups" interrupting the best-made plans, are barely visible.

That is the whole point of the CV. It's the documentary equivalent of a smart suit and shiny shoes presenting your very best profile. But is it simply a sales document or should it attempt to give a rounded picture of the real you?

Apparently not, if you are a career-focused mother with a 16-month-old baby. Diane Winship, a former accountant, told an industrial tribunal last week that she had been advised by a jobcentre to remove mention of her baby girl from her CV.

Ms Winship, who is alleging unfair dismissal and sex discrimination in an ongoing case against her former employers said she was shocked by the advice she received from the jobcentre when she was seeking a new position.

In theory it should not matter who you are when applying for a job. Selection should be based purely on your ability to do the work. In reality, few employers can resist the temptation to apply subjective judgments when reading a job application.

Jeff Grout, a recruitment specialist who looked at thousands of CVs during his early career as a professional recruiter, says: "We like to think that people will be willing to be flexible but we need to be aware that some might view having a young child in a negative way. Whether you want to work for such an employer is another question. The real question is whether the details you include on the CV are relevant."

"A CV is an advertisement or marketing document. It is not a list of things you have done in your entire life," he says.

"I can understand someone saying 'Don't include your 16-month-old baby'. This detail doesn't need to be there. I have seen lots of proud dads listing the achievements of their children on their CVs but recruiters are not interested in this. Ultimately the CV is about the person whose name appears on the top of it."

Most people, even the most senior of executives, he says, can be guilty of including irrelevancies on their CVs.

"Some people like to make an opening statement about themselves such as 'dynamic, profits-driven senior executive'. Others put down their personal career objective. Recruiters are not looking for this but for evidence of where a candidate can add value," says Mr Grout. "The most important information is about your most recent job."

The presence of legislation against certain types of discrimination can lull us into the belief that such discrimination is disappearing. In reality, discriminatory judgments are exercised all the time in private conversations, often between clients and their agencies.

Just occasionally, we hear some forthright comment about such issues. Godfrey Bloom, MEP for the UK Independence Party, argued recently that employing women of child-bearing age constituted a serious risk to the small-business owner. My point here is not to debate the rights or wrongs of Mr Bloom's views but to acknowledge that these views are not uncommon among small employers.

If we react against such views, it is because we belong to a society that is seeking to break down discriminatory barriers, particularly on the grounds of gender, race, disability and age.

Dianah Worman, diversity and equal opportunities specialist at the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development, notes, however, that subtle discrimination is happening all the time in the recruitment market. "Decisions can be made on the basis of your postcode, which university you attended or any career gaps on your CV. Your prospects may depend to the extent an organisation is prepared to stretch its thinking about the kind of workforce it wants."

Age discrimination - still one of the most pernicious areas of prejudice in recruitment - operates at both ends of a working life. At the start of your career you are likely to face concerns about your lack of experience. Yet this very same experience seems to count for very little when you reach a certain age and the company wants to lever you out.

The experience/qualification equation is never an easy balance. I found myself at a recent seminar arguing for the merits of experience against a much younger manager who held that experience counted for nothing. Ability backed by qualifications, he suggested, should be the sole criterion for selection. It was difficult to escape the conclusion that our judgments were being shaded by our respective ages.

Academic discrimination is another area we hear too little about. I rarely hear recruiters questioning the obsession in recruitment for graduates, yet surely this is a potentially unfair source of discrimination. The only reason we do not see it as such is that we have been conditioned to value a university education.

This is not to advocate laws against all kinds of discrimination. We need to acknowledge that the wider we extend the net of unfair discrimination, the more likely it is that everyone has something that could count against them.

The more recruiters are perceived to react to personal details on a CV, the more CVs are going to become clinical documents, outlining nothing more about a candidate than their employment achievements. Some may believe that is as it should be.

But people are not machines. They do have families and interests outside work. That should be a cause for celebration not fear. Women should not have to feel they are on their guard and they should not have to lie by omission to get a job.

At the same time we must remain aware that recruiters will exercise their choices, fair or otherwise, and we may question whether there is a stage at which employment protection can prove counter-productive. Mr Bloom's comment suggests that stage has been reached among some small employers when considering maternity rights.

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