JOB NEWS from PERFECT CVs
	Political Correctness comes to the CV

With gender, age, ethnicity etc etc discrimination laws in place, recruiters have to be careful in the wording of their ads – is PC now being extended to the CV itself?

Recruiters word their adverts for job vacancies in line with the various, gender, age, ethnicity, religious etc discrimination laws and some go as far as to avoid any reference to behaviour such as energetic, motivated etc but we learned this week that this trend might be extending to that trusted aid of the Job Seeker; to the CV itself.

After being in the CV Writing and Job Seeker Support business for 11 years we thought we thought we knew the business inside out, but this week we were flummoxed. A recruitment agency of some note had asked an experienced office manager to re write her CV, taking out “statements that could be interpreted as discriminatory” before they referred her to their client. Not knowing quite what to do she asked us.

The CV was very well constructed, we would have been proud of it had we written it, but it turned out that the potentially offending words were “power verbs and statements” and “behavioural statements”. Terms such as “Drove”, “Led”, “Devised”,” Negotiated”, “Budgeted”, “Vigorous”, “Demanding” and quite a few more had been highlighted with a thick red marker. These are words that every CV contains (or should contain if relevant!) to paint an accurate picture of the candidate. Given that a CV is written as an argument describing why you should be hired rather than anyone else, these words need to be used, don’t they?

Well apparently not. It is not that the employer doesn’t want someone that is driven and vigorous and demanding, they just don’t want to be seen as possibly making a judgement on such grounds for fear of discrimination against someone without these qualities.

Undaunted we soldiered on and ended up with the most compelling and concise CV ever written, and I have printed it below:

Mary XXXXXX
Tel: (mobile) 01234 567890  E Mail: mary.XXXX@XXXX.co.uk

• Member of the Human Race

Apparently this is OK as Aliens are not entitled to discrimination protection in UK, not yet anyway!

Mary decided the employer in question was not for her and submitted her new “CV” with an appropriate cover letter. We are waiting for the reply.