Re: bit of a strange request here

Leo Fellmann wrote:
> 
> In this case we have a month writing a re****t on wooden house 
> construction at some (presumably) prestigious engineering school with a 
> very long name. I was thinking that should be ***ed up a bit.
> Also a month's training in a pottery 6 years ago. I'm not sure this 
> needs as much emphasis.

Put (substantial) uni projects in with the jobs, I reckon. Looks a lot 
better on the CV.

> < Obviously details of education. Any possibly
>> relevant or interesting extra-curricular activities, especially if it 
>> includes places on committees, captain****ps etc (could include reading 
>> Prouste depending on the type of job). Keep it down to 2 pages, some 
>> of the people having to read it are busy people and will not read a 
>> long CV. Well, 3 pages as a maximum.
> 
> It's one page at the moment :)
> Problem is the extra-curricular activities, as they're mainly along the 
> lines of "enjoy looking at Picassos". I'll see if we can get some better

> stuff in.

The only way this matters is if your interviewer shares interests with 
you. Put Sci-Fi in! - You;d hire you just for that, yeah? :0)

> Is the "Languages" section something that can be played on? She's 
> apparently not that bad at Spanish in addition to English.

Definitely

> Do you have any advice for motivational letters? In Switzerland you tend

> to write about how much you're interested in the job and in France you 
> tell people how wonderfully suited you are for the job. I'm fairly sure 
> the latter wouldn't go down well anywhere but France, but I'm also 
> unsure anyone anywhere reads them in the first place.

I'd go with a mix of those two. What a British company will want, more 
than anything, is for you to demonstrate the correct attitude to work- 
they'd rather have someone unskilled who'll work endlessly than a genius 
polymath who skives.