Unemployed with a first class degree

You're doing it wrong to be honest. There's not much more to it than that. If you've managed to get through to the odd interview and performed well enough to get offers after making only cursory edits to a standard form covering letter on the basis of cursory research then I'm happy for you, but you would have had a much higher interview rate and used your time much more effectively overall if you'd picked a smaller number of places that really appealed to you and taken a proper amount of time to explain why you were right for each other.

I didn't make cursory edits, I would write a paragraph explaining why I was correct for the firm, which took me sub 30 minutes every time (and no longer than an hour).

Do you have a job/offers? I think you are just bitter that you wasted your time.

I had a very high interview rate for the most competitive roles in the country.

I was laughing at "There isn't that much you can do to tailor your CV.."

In reality there is not. If people think that by changing their ECs or communication skills or something like that it gives them a lead, it doesn't.

A graduate CV cannot be tailored much because unlike a professional CV where one might have worked in numerous relevant jobs with a bunch of different responsibilities and has acquired professional qualifications, a graduate will not have done all that.

A typical graduate might have an internship and a couple of other semi-relevant or irrelevant jobs on their back. Are you saying that any of those can be omitted from a CV? The education part of course cannot be omitted either. And then it comes to the ECs and soft skills in which case the only thing that can be done is for someone that is a member of 10 societies or voluntary activities to choose the most relevant ones for the position they are applying.

That's the only kind of tailoring that can be done to a graduate CV, with the exception being the minority of students that have done like 3 internships and another 3 or more relevant work experiences, so they will have the luxury to be selective in their CV and probably won't need to worry about their success rate as well.

In contrast, a Cover Letter can be tailored, regarding the position and the company.

There you go Post 92 students, you know what's wrong with you. You just don't try hard enough!



You're right that selectivity of uni is a proxy for quality of candidate. But a clever student going to a less selective uni is running the risk of being overlooked by being compared to the (less clever) classmate who gets a 2.1 rather than the equally clever colleague who went to the higher ranked uni and got the 2.1.

But you're wrong on degree type. That makes a big difference. There is nothing the arts graduate can do to get the job in science, medicine, engineering etc except get a new degree.

For what it's worth - the best CV I've ever seen was a skills based CV, but instead of just putting a list of stuff they'd done under each skill (that they'd identified were important for the role) they had a selection of quotes from former colleagues and clients (from Linked-in so all verifiable) praising the applicant's abilities in those skills.

Combined with a brief employment history and a statement from the candidate about who they were and what sort of role they were looking for it was extremely powerful and convincing. The applicant was able to boast about their abilities but because it was in the words of a number of third parties it came across as a glowing list of recommendations instead of just an ego trip.

Also, even if it doesn't specify on the advert, is a skills-based CV better for graduates?

Personally I'd say yes - if you've done your research a skills based CV will make that very clear and it makes life a lot easier for the person shortlisting.

It allows you to draw on both academic, extra curricular and employment experiences to demonstrate that you have the skills and competencies that they're looking for. A chronological CV makes that a lot more difficult...plus tends to be more listy rather than pulling out particular examples of times that you've demonstrated a specific skill. Just plopping in that you got a good grade in your degree and expecting an employer to infer from that that you have good time management or self motivation etc etc is lazy and risks getting overlooked.

I've been having a nose around different careers sites since this discussion started and I think https://targetjobs.co.uk/careers-advice/career-planning/273051-the-top-10-skills-thatll-get-you-a-job-when-you-graduate is particularly good advice. That first one - about commercial awareness (and the second one about communication) putting a CV in someone's hands that lists the skills they're looking for with examples/evidence of those skills demonstrates both of those attributes. You're understanding your audience and catering to their needs.

Graduate chronological CVs are very bland....they're a pain to read through and they all contain the same dry information.

Surely this depends on what field you want to go into? A skills based CV won't do much good for finance, consulting, corporate law jobs etc, where the volume of applications is so high that a one-page chronological CV will suffice. Recruiters extract any examples of skills via competency based interviews.

I agree that a skills based CV can work, but in practice for the most competitive grad jobs it's not the best way to go.

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Is it abnormal that my CV is a mix of both? 1st page of chronological education + work experience and the 2nd page skills-based like, with Teamwork, Comms, Societies etc.

Personally I'd say yes - if you've done your research a skills based CV will make that very clear and it makes life a lot easier for the person shortlisting.

It allows you to draw on both academic, extra curricular and employment experiences to demonstrate that you have the skills and competencies that they're looking for. A chronological CV makes that a lot more difficult...plus tends to be more listy rather than pulling out particular examples of times that you've demonstrated a specific skill. Just plopping in that you got a good grade in your degree and expecting an employer to infer from that that you have good time management or self motivation etc etc is lazy and risks getting overlooked.

I've been having a nose around different careers sites since this discussion started and I think https://targetjobs.co.uk/careers-advice/career-planning/273051-the-top-10-skills-thatll-get-you-a-job-when-you-graduate is particularly good advice. That first one - about commercial awareness (and the second one about communication) putting a CV in someone's hands that lists the skills they're looking for with examples/evidence of those skills demonstrates both of those attributes. You're understanding your audience and catering to their needs.

Graduate chronological CVs are very bland....they're a pain to read through and they all contain the same dry information.

By skills based CV did you mean something like this?
http://www.kent.ac.uk/careers/cv/maturecv.htm

Yes. Although for most none mature grads it'd fit in 1 page because the chron section is v short.

*edit*

Forget university guys. Nepotism is king.

- brb university drop out.
- brb no experience or qualifications in programming.
- brb software engineer in civil service.
- brb wealthy parents.

I am so sorry to hear this and what i'm going to tell you may sound very odd, however this is what I know first hand. My economics teacher is an ex investment banker who also had a leading role in HR for many top investment banks before the recession. Basically he said there was always a trend that employers would always choose/favour applicants with a 2.1 in a rigorous degree over those with a 1st in a rigorous degree due to the often negative stigma attached to students achieving firsts in very academic degrees, that they would have poor social skills and not integrate well within a work place. Seeing as you have a physics degree which is probably one of the hardest degrees you can do I would say the fact that you have a first is making you seem overqualified...just my opinion. I'm probably grasping at straws lol