I25UE in retrospect

First and foremost, I want to congratulate all the students involved with getting I25UE going. It’s an impressive feat to have organised such an event in just 12 weeks and get a healthy turnout. Questions from the audience to the panel were being asked thick and fast which was great to see, well done to all.

Secondly, I’m by no means an industry “professional”, having graduated just two years ago from Huddersfield University, I’ve still got lots to learn. That said, I found it a bit disappointing that some of the questions were being avoided by the panel, particularly surrounding CV’s.

The poster And Creative produced for the event

Certain members of the panel were saying that CV’s played absolutely no role when recruiting new members and went on to say that personality and enthusiasm were what they looked for. And I agree. Personality and enthusiasm certainly are what they’d want to look for in a potential candidate – when it gets to the meet up/interview stage. The question that was avoided was how they got to that stage. I highly doubt that agencies meet every single person that applies. And I don’t believe that they only meet up with people that just walk through the door without sending any sort of paperwork beforehand.

This is where CV’s come in. Informing employers of individuals’ backgrounds and links to portfolio’s. Orchard use CV’s – it’s how they filter out potential candidates which is understandable with their recruitment role. I can’t help but feel that some of the panel were being naive by saying they don’t use them. Yes they do. They may not use CV’s personally, but someone will, whether that be Orchard or somebody internally. It will get looked at at some point in the proceedings. CV’s still play an important role in the recruitment process. Certainly, as the saying goes “you don’t judge a book by it’s cover”, but you still look at said cover.

One of the downsides when using recruitment agencies with regards to CV’s, is that they tend to re-structure the CV’s to their own template – so employers never actually see that nicely designed CV that you spent many sleepless nights perfecting. Don’t get me wrong, recruitment agencies do a hell of a lot of legwork for you – I’ve personally used Orchard in the past and they found me my current position, but if your CV showcases your creativity and you as an individual, and acts as your “ice-breaker”, approaching agencies direct is the way to go.

Don’t ever just rely on your CV to get you places however. The best way to sell yourself is actually using yourself. Nothing beats getting out there and meeting people which was one of the key things being repeated by the panelists. Go to events. Meet new people. Manchester especially is a great place to meet like-minded creatives. Being a digital creative myself, events such as Northern Digitals and BLAB are invaluable. They’re great for raising your profile and getting inspired. Go to these events with your CV – in most cases this’ll be a link to your portfolio which contains a copy of your CV. It will get looked at.

There are numerous other ways to approach employers, but I just wanted to cover the hot topic from the night’s debate.