Robin Blandford [ ByteSurgery.com ]

01/02/08 CV For Tech: Interests & Achievements

SINGAPORE - Part V (see all parts). In my eyes, the single most important part of your CV after ‘Professional Experience’. This defines you- anyone can have good results, a good education, impressive sounding job titles but not everybody can have passion.

Fast-moving tech companies are employ you for your passion. They believe that if you are a passionate person, that’s all they need - they can focus your passion anywhere… including onto their products.

This section used to be huge, I reduced it and changed the name from ‘Other Achievements’ which sounds a bit like… “ahh read it if you want to” to ‘Interests & Achievements’ which is more direct sounding.

Take out everything that isn’t actually an achievement. Stuff that does not separate you from the crowd…

OLD

# Holder of a clean, full drivers license.
# Member of the winning team at the Reuters Graduate Academy, 2006.
# Voted onto the DCU Rock Climbing Club committee for 3 consecutive years.

Leave in the bits that are good talking points for your interview. Use them as lead-ins.

NEW

INTERESTS & ACHIEVEMENTS

• Selected as Cliff Rescue Climber & Boat Crew for the Irish Coast Guard, Howth Search & Rescue Team.
• Awarded ‘Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician (W-EMT)’ specialising in pre-hospital situations of wilderness, backcountry, and prolonged transportation contexts.
• Appointed ‘Scout Leader in Charge’ of the largest Scout Troop in Ireland. Awarded the Medal of Merit for ‘Outstanding Leadership Services to Scouting’.
• Organised and led an Irish youth expedition to the French & Swiss Alps, training and instructing on alpine techniques. Further initiated, planned & executed as expedition leader a 10 day trip for 44 Irish youths to Hungary.
• Co-founder of ‘Push The Pea’, a 6 month fundraising drive to collect €17,000 for charity.
• Volunteered for 3 months at the World Scout Centre in Switzerland leading rock-climbing workshops and glacier expeditions.

Use your ‘Interests’ to be ‘interesting’. That’s what they’re there for. When asked “Do you have an example of when you held responsibility?”, don’t ever say “in a group project at college I…” or “Have you ever shown leadership?” don’t revert back to “I was football team captain at age 16″. Use imaginative stories that make them remember your interview apart from the others.

Overall - display passion.

That’s it, all five parts of my CV. I hope it’s been useful to some of you, and that you’ve taken some parts for your own. It’s a bit like a scrapbook, take bits that suit your personality, don’t take it all and force it on yourself. You should feel proud of your CV, and comfortable displaying it.

I have now posted my complete CV on my Curriculum Vitae page, with links to all of these posts. I’d be glad to see other people’s CVs, so drop a link to yours below.

-Robin-

(Image Credit: ‘Laobin Bulanfu’, as the Chinese nicknamed me, standing in Merkeda Sq, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. By Author. )

Tags: curriculum vitae, cv, cv for tech, interests & achievements, passion, resume

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