[Vnbiz] Are CVs and cover letters still effective to selectfor the positions?

Sun Dec 3 22:39:37 PST 2006

Dear chi Huong and all,

I cannot agree with chi Huong more. Chi Huong, we are on the same board of
thoughts. I do agree that screening CVs is just one step of recruitment
process. It acts simply as a filter since we have limited sources to put on
recruitment activities. 

If the recruiter sees a poor CV (unqualified in term of education back
ground, experience, foreign languages, or even the lay out of CV they
presented), it is quite clear about the conclusion. What's about a nice CV
with some deceitful signals? It brings us some information too:

1)       The applicant knows clearly about the importance of his/her CV to
recruiters.

2)       The applicant is unable/ not confident enough/ doesn't want to
prepare the CV by him/herself.

3)       The applicant is able to call for help (networking ability) for the
matter.

4)       The applicant doesn't think carefully about what the recruiter
thinks on making up points in his/her CV or estimate wrongly about
recruiter's judgment ability etc.

And, of course, lots of other things can be implied from their CVs. Thus,
screening CV is quite interesting work that needs experience and sense of
judgment.

Have a great day, chi Huong and all.

Lam.

  _____  

From: vnbiz-bounces at mail.saigon.com [mailto:vnbiz-bounces at mail.saigon.com]
On Behalf Of Thu Huong
Sent: Monday, December 04, 2006 8:38 AM
To: vnbiz at vietlinks.net
Subject: Re: [Vnbiz] Are CVs and cover letters still effective to selectfor
the positions?

Dear CACC and anh Nhon,

You have a very interesting post there with the recruitment method :) ! When
we sit down and talk face to face to the prospective employees, certainly we
are able to share experiences and stories in a much more relaxed manner
which of course will facilitate mutual understanding and fit for the job.
However, I do not think that resumes and cover letters are, as you
mentioned, boring and not creative and not useful. 

Firstly, spending time talking face-to-face in a relaxed environment with
each and every applicant is costly especially in terms of time. For
companies with hundreds of applications for a position, it is virtually
impossible. For positions with considerably less applicants and the company
can afford the time, certainly your method would be applied. One worry then
is that is it possible to gauge the professional standards of the candidates
while throwing them ino a relaxed environment that's all friendly and
approachable? The recruiter then must be very apt at making judgements and
deducing the professional standards of the candidates through this simple
process.

Secondly, resumes and cover letters can be really interesting! The way these
documents are written reflects how serious the applicant is at the job
opening. They also show, in an organized manner, the experiences in the past
(that would be indicative of future performance) They serve as a benchmark
for conversations. Candidates and recruiters will always have a common
benchmark to refer to. And it is easy to check for lying if the candidate is
not even sure what he is writing in there (or forget about it). For cases
whereby candidates copy wholesale from resume books and the like, it would
be even easier to screen and pass their applications. Those are the ones who
are not so serious, so we give them up. 

Thirdly, about decorating a picture and writing an inspiring story, I always
think that resumes and cover letters are skeletons on which inspiring
stories about one's life and past experiences will be based. No doubt,
everyone has to market himself in the competitive corporate world out there.
Decorating a picture would be what candidates try to do as well. However,
resumes and cover letters are not all what companies do to recruit people.
Big companies have many more rounds than that (interviews and more
interviews, assessment centres, test-taking and all). Hence, how realistic
and truthful the picture is will then be assessed through the next rounds. I
am sure there are hiring mistakes and mistakes are certainly detrimental to
the company. Reports have shown that normally, interviewers are more willing
to fail a potential candidate than to pass a lousy one. No doubt, any
recruitment method is not fool-proof. If utilizing your method of talking
face to face to gauge fit for the job, sometimes people are also able to put
up an exceptional facade but fake and therefore judging them would be hard
also.

My take is that it should be a combination of many things, resumes and CVs,
one-to-one inerviews or even assessment centre to see how the candidate
functions in a team setting. Certainly recruitment methods depend a lot on
the company's resources. Ultimately, it's up to the hiring manager to decide
which is best for the company.

Have a nice day! :)

Huong

Pham Thanh Nhon <nhonpt at gmail.com> wrote:

[ Vietnam Business Forum ]

Dear all my best friends,

Today I am going to share with you my opinions about job taking by submit
CVs and cover letters. As far as you know, the glossaries of CV, resume, and
cover letter are relative with the personal minds and presses nowadays. When
you would like to apply for a job, the prospective companies would ask you
submit your CV/resume and cover letter for short-list. Otherwise, if you are
employers, you also like to do this way. 

However, have you ever asked yourself or your friends why did you or they do
it? I guess that you did not serious making this question because you just
simple thought that it was needed for job taking. Everybody made it
therefore you did too. I saw something was wrong here. 

I don't refuse that CVs and cover letters help employers easier to making
short-list to choose suitable candidate as fast as possible. But on the
effective selection is not going straightforward. First, the employees have
to make their application kit being impressive and attractive that is like
they "decorate" a picture than write an inspired story. They have to finish
a bored task to get the position of the company than they would like to be a
part of it. Second are the problems of cover letters. Employers are like a
model letter that you can find on career guide articles than a letter is
free to write by heart and passion. Summary, a rigid formula of job taking
is: An attractive CV + a practical cover letter = chance for next round
(also boring and rigid). 

Now let's turn into interviews that I really feel stress on it. I make a
conversation for example:

Employer: "Why did you leave your last job?"

Candidate: "I left my last job because I wanted to find the more challenges
in my career" 

Employer: "Why do you want to join our company?"

Candidate: "I apply for ABC because I think I have opportunities to gain
experiences of for my careerI feel ABC giving me the assurance of career" 

I am sure that you are too familiar with above conversation. I really don't
understand why employers like this kind of questions. Do they look for
honest? A master of lie answer is easy to pass it. Moreover, an interview is
something like candidates must come in a place with a formal dress, sit
down, and try to answer the questions from interviewers or make the
questions if needs. It's really too boring and uncreative. 

I honestly say that I hate this way of recruitment. I now turn in difference
way that I call direct for manager and ask him spending his time for me in
coffee shop. With a coffee cup, we can free to talk about the company, the
position, his or my biographies to making mutual understand. Certainly, this
way is taking more time than to get and you are able face with the problems
of his tight schedule or even his poor opinions in this way. However, I
myself find this is more interest and reality than CVs & cover letters. 

You might agree or not with me, but I am glad to share with you my opinion.
I will look forward to hear from you. You might hold a useful recruitment
method that other can learn from it. I hope my topic is the chance for us
sharing the stories of job taking from employers as well as employees. 

-- 
Best regards,
Pham Thanh Nhon
PR Freelance. If you like to do sth for our country, take me up:
Phone: (+84) - 987 728 911 
YIM: companion7_18
MSN: nhon.pt at hotmail.com
Skype: nhonpt _______________________________________________
To subscribe/unsubscribe, please contact admins at
vnbizadmin at vietlinks.net
Info at http://mail.saigon.com/mailman/listinfo/vnbiz
Archive at http://mail.saigon.com/pipermail/vnbiz
Or www.tin.le.org/archive
Or http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vnbiz

  <http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys/m.gif> **
<http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys/3.gif>  

  _____  

Any questions? Get answers on any topic at Yahoo!
<http://answers.yahoo.com/;_ylc=X3oDMTFvbGNhMGE3BF9TAzM5NjU0NTEwOARfcwMzOTY1
NDUxMDMEc2VjA21haWxfdGFnbGluZQRzbGsDbWFpbF90YWcx>  Answers. Try it now.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.saigon.com/pipermail/vnbiz/attachments/20061204/2647851f/attachment.html 