Peacock Your CV

Posted on 02. Oct, 2008 by DeanHunt in Business Advice

So the time has arrived for you to start sending CVs to potential employers, for many, this is a difficult and confusing time, but don’t worry, there is one trick that can rocket your chances of landing your dream job.

To fully understand this trick you need to put yourself in the shoes of the guy who has the job of reading all the cvs that are sent to a company. Imagine for a moment the process he may go through: Cvs arrive, quick glance of the covering letter, quick skim of the first page, and maybe, just maybe, he will read a little further.

This is actually quite optimistic, in many cases your CV will not actually get opened, and if it does, at best you may get a quick skim of 5-10 seconds.

So there are clearly two factors at work that we need to be awesome at:

1) Ensure that our CV gets opened

2) Ensure that our CV gets read

How do we do this?

Simple, we make it unlike all the other CVs he has ever read.

I like to call this process “peacocking”, you see, when a Peacock is looking for a mate, it knows that it must stand out and get noticed above all the other Peacocks, so it spreads out it’s feathers and shows off amazing colours.

You will need to learn from nature, and use this same technique with your CV.

So how can you Peacock your CV?

The first thing you can do is use a coloured envelope, or even better, use a coloured, padded envelope. Anything that can make it stand out.

Another insider trick is to create what is known as chunky-mail, this means putting an object into the envelope, thus making the person want to open it.

For instance, you may include a dice that you have stuck to your covering letter.

You then need to use this object to link into your message, so you could start your covering letter with:

“Dear sir/madam,

I am aware that finding the right employee can be a gamble, and so I am writing to let you know that I have stacked the odds in your favour. I have studied hard and am well on the way to mastering xxxxxxxx and I posess the attitude to ensure success.

In fact, if you roll the dice that I attached, you will notice that it rolls a 6 every time, like I said, I like to stack the odds in my favour, and I feel you should do the same by considering me for the position of xxxxxxxxx”

How cool is that?

Do you not think that this would get you noticed above the others?

Of course it would, I bet they would even go around the office showing everyone your CV. You would be famous before they even met you.

Another tip is to ensure that your CV stands out from the crowd as well. Plain old CVs are so boring, so below are some example CV designs that can spice up your CV:

Peacock Your CV