CV writing: Main employment is prestigious but no name recognition outside of sector

Question

This is a super useful forum, thank you to everyone posting and answering the questions.

I finished my undergrad 12 months ago and immediately joined an independent think tank. It is the the #1 think tank for the sector in an industry sitting between public and private and hugely well respected with endorsements from people including someone who used to run one of McKinsey's main practices. However, if you are not involved in the sector you are unlikely to have heard of it as it is not as big as Demos / Policy Exchange / CSJ etc.

How should I go about introducing this on my CV? A short paragraph before my bullet outlining what we do / one of the Big Four support us and a major UK Bank too? Or should I just say the name of the think tank and then put (think tank) afterwards to indicate what it is? Any and all guidance would be appreciated!

Answer 1

Hello!

I believe you should do a blend of the two. At the end, what you want is that the person who is reading the CV has the best understanding possible.

Hence, leverage a sentence outlining what you do (e.g., one of the Big Four support a, UK Bank, etc. and for sure the name of the think tank and then put (think tank) afterwards to indicate what it is.

At the end, what is most important is the bullet points with the specific description of you actions and achievements what is going to matter most. Ensure that you quantify impacts correctly, describe the actions that you precisely did, etc. The classics is CV writting.

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

Answer 2

Hello, this is a very common issue and it is very obviouse that your interviewers don;t need to know every companies. Very often such issue occure on the level of HR who does not know the name of the company therefore, you mind be rejected from the early stage of CV screening. The best option I see is probably this one presented in your proposition. In my case I have put next to the company name a short note about the company per example :

BNP Paribas - HQ (Top #1 European bank by total assets)
Company X - (Top #10 growing Fintech by Financial Times) ect..

I hope it will be usefull. If you would like to receive an example let me know.

Answer 3

Hi Anonymous,

In any case you need to make sure that the recipient of your documents correctly assesses your position - and he needs to understand that also as an industry-outside (which this person most likely will be).

I'd go for option 2 which is adding additional information in brackets afterwards. It still keeps your overall structure in place and doesn't 'waste' too much space on the document which you can fill with more important aspects.

Hope that helps - if so, please be so kind to give it a thumbs-up with the green upvote button below!

Robert

Answer 4

Hi Anonymous!

I would add a one-liner below the company name, outlining what it is. Not a hole paragraph, but just a statement like the one below. This should clear the context without wasting too much real estate.

NAME

(Leading think tank providing research papers and organizing conferences for all leading players in the XXX industry)

Answer 5

Hi there,

I agree with Oscar. There's a concise/elegant way to include the fact that it is #1...you need to just clarify that next to the name of the company.

That said, be careful not to do a full summary of the company. I'm really not a fan of resumes where 2-3 lines are spent describing each company - that's wasted space!

Answer 6

Hi there,

Option 2 is the best. I would state the name of the company and then use one line to describe the biggest achievements reached. Oscar provided a good example.

Best,
Francesco

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