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CV Review?

CVreview
New answer on Apr 30, 2021
4 Answers
1.1 k Views
Anonymous A asked on Oct 24, 2020

Hi everybody.
I would love to get some opinions on my CV if anybody would be so kind. Here are some of the elements that I feel need some review:

1. Wordiness: I think there's too much text and it does read so easily.

2. Impact: I am not extremely sure I have chosen the right combination of publications, inititatives, and awards. I have more of each and have decided to limit it to the ones I've put. Perhaps less publications and more extracurriculars? Maybe no awards to fit in more initiatives ?

3. Relevance: I come from an engineering background and have little experience but don't think it's enough to get me through as an experienced hire. Not sure that what I'm currently presenting shows how serious I am about the "sudden" career change.

Would love to hear any opinions. Here's the CV:

(edited)

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Ken
Expert
updated an answer on Oct 25, 2020
Ex-McKinsey final round interviewer | Executive Coach

Some comments based on your requested review:

1. I would shorten certain sections (e.g., publication, award) but I don't think your CV is wordy. On the contrary, I would suggest working on building out your work experience and initiative section. Its too concise! I would definitely move your professional skills to the bottom.

2. Impact is often more clear from the actions you took than the awards you got. A few thoughts:
+ Some simple numbers and specificities around your work and leadership experience (e.g., who were your clients, approximate $ scale of the oil field, how many Society members, how much funds raised, etc.)
+ Details on the HOW is missing or lacks detail in many of your bullets where you have tendency to rely on verbs and overly concise descriptions (e.g., pilot design, large databases, sensitivy analyses, etc.) as opposed to including details. One additional thing to keep in mind is that your work experience feels very quant heavy where it could be more effective to include your experience in other types of skills
+ Your awards are very impressive and you might want to include a little more of the HOW to be more (e.g., what did you do to receive the presidential award, how many people did the NYT consider for '8 young professionals in the world most like to lead the energy industry', etc.). For publications, although its not typical for a masters student to be an author of journal articles, I might include in your Education section

3. Most likely entry level although it will depend on the firm. You are right that your profile more naturally fits with an Oil & Gas/Energy or Operations consulting track which some of the large consultancies will have (e.g., Energy Insights at McKinsey)

Hopefully helpful where here's a very honest interpretation of how I have read your CV:

+ Strong academic achievements from specialised schools in US and France (if you are applying in Paris then I guess there's always the bias of not attending French prep school and grande ecole). Surprised to see you have published journal articles as a Master student - I wonder if he/she was the author or just a contributor?
+ Early career engineering consultant (is it a well known consultancy?) who seems to work with major corporations (which ones?) but with a strong focus on quantitative modelling and simulations (is he/she the Excel monkey or do they have client exposure/non-quantiative workstreams?)
+ Ok... some "standard" student society leadership experience, where I'm struggling to get a sense of impact... and wow, a pretty long section for awards... I wonder how selective these are... and boom - President Obama!? Presidential Volunteer Service Award!? How has this candidate made me wait this long for such a big achievement... but then wait, I have no idea what he/she did to receive it...

(edited)

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Anonymous A on Oct 25, 2020

Thanks Ken for the pretty extensive feedback. You've given me loads to think about and review. I sincerely appreciate it!!

Anonymous replied on Oct 26, 2020

Hello, some pointers based on my experience of screening and selecting candidates for the interview rounds:

1) At the moment the recruiter/ HR Manager/ Engagement Manager/ Partner has to read through the top half of your resume to get a feel for your experience and achievements. That's too long. People generally screen a resume within 30 seconds and they subconsciously start assessing if this resume should be read in further detail. My strong recommendation is to add a two-line summary of your value proposition right below your name.

2) It's not clear if your Masters is full-time or part-time. If it's part time, I understand you'll have c.3 years' full-time experience which is pretty decent. Suggest to clarify that. The strategy firms love aptitude tests. Did you take any for your Masters? Suggest to add if so.

3) If your company is not a global brand name like Shell, BP etc, I suggest to add a one-liner that provides a brief explanation of your company and its scale. There’s not enough details on your experience. General rule of thumb is that it’s ok to have a bullet point that extends to two sentences and three at MAX. You need to change these to achievements or impacts. If it’s not a quantifiable achievement in terms of cost savings, production improvements etc, there must be some impact that you can when a dataset is improved? (2nd bullet point on company 1)

4) Use your space more effectively and have multiple resumes for your target companies. So if you’re applying to MBB strategy firms or even the Tier 2 consulting firms, you can optimize that Awards section to 2 bullet points and pick the most important ones. From a consulting recruitment standpoint, winning the Petrobowl competition will not have much of an impact unless you are applying to Schlumberger consulting for instance.

5) Same for publications. That’s quite technical. You can summarize that and talk about the impact these publications have had.

In summary, my suggestion is to significantly expand on your experience and reduce the space utilized on professional skills, awards and publications. Focus on impact and achievements.

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Clara
Expert
Content Creator
replied on Oct 26, 2020
McKinsey | Awarded professor at Master in Management @ IE | MBA at MIT |+180 students coached | Integrated FIT Guide aut

Hello!

One clarifying question before: to which company and position is it directed?

Clara

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Anonymous A on Oct 26, 2020

Hi Clara. Thank you. I haven't decided on a specific company. Most likely all MBB and tier 2. As to the position I think it'll be the most junior generalist consulting role due to lack of experience. Do you agree? Thanks again

(edited)

Raj
Expert
Content Creator
replied on Apr 30, 2021
FREE 15MIN CONSULTATION | #1 Strategy& / OW coach | >70 5* reviews |90% offers ⇨ prep-success.super.site | MENA, DE, UK

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Ken gave the best answer

Ken

Ex-McKinsey final round interviewer | Executive Coach
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