The beginning of the year means a lot for young companies. It is the time to target higher objectives, strengthen the weak points of the previous year but also finding the right new people. Unfortunately, trying to spot the right personality with the perfect competences can be very challenging, especially when facing an intangible rectangle full of more or less subjective information.
Therefore, I’m going to give you today, 3 characteristics you should take into consideration when observing a CV, and how to interpret the hidden meaning of it.
Diversity of experiences
A CV is usually composed of two main perspectives: Educational and professional. It is a way for the applicant to showcase what he learned and the way he applied his knowledge. However, beyond the reputation of the schools, universities and companies the candidate has faced, one characteristic, though not very obvious, can be used to guess more about the applicant than the name of a school or a company: Diversity. Diversity of experiences translates a sense of curiosity but also openness to the world and activities. Mathias Vivier is a master student at Rennes School of Business, currently looking for a second internship in Marketing to complete his gap year. Let’s take him as an example.
As we can see on his CV, Mathias has plenty of different experiences, in sectors and industries that varies a lot. From international hostel business, to SEO and Brand content, we can guess his will to find his path, step by step, by discovering new domains and jobs with no hesitation to get out of his comfort zone.
These suppositions can be confirmed by his educational path, composed of four different schools and universities, among which two were abroad. In addition to his strong interest for international perspectives (proven by his level of English and Spanish), we assume he’s able to adapt himself easily to new environments.
The meaning of interests
Another element that’s usually discretely mentioned by the side of CVs is interests and passions. Although it might be considered as a secondary information, there are many hidden messages you can find by taking the time to analyze them. Let’s take some examples: passion for sport can reflect different traits: He enjoys effort; maybe he played football or basketball and developed a great team spirit, or the culture of competition and challenge.
In fact, these are common traits to many sporty young adults – Quite easy to guess. What about astronomy then? The particularity of astronomy lies in the fact that it gathers technical knowledge and philosophical paths of reflection. What technologies are used to discover new planets and galaxies? – How do they work? – What does it mean to find so many planets and galaxies around us? These are the most popular questions documentaries or TED Talks try to answer.
Thus, Mathias is probably used to dealing with both objective and subjective topics or kinds of reflections. As a conclusion, we can assume is able to use soft skills like creativity (as mentioned in his qualities) for more concrete purposes like writing, elaborating communication strategies for clients (see past experience at Views) or for market researches.
From the last experience to the new job
In fact, it is also possible to assess the motivations of the candidate by comparing his last experience to the job he is applying for. In the case of Mathias, there are 3 elements that reflects his will to join Ad You Like:
- He’s spent 9 months in an online media, working closely with online advertising, brand content and social media communication.
- The last topics he studied were strongly related to digital innovation.
- He was the co-founder of a company selling SEO and SEA services.
Considering Mathias is applying for a marketing & communication job in a company specialized in native advertising and AI, he appears to be aware of the issues of tomorrow thus very keen on specializing in digital business. Moreover, he seems to have acquired competences in digital marketing he would like to apply in a bigger structure, to add complexity to his missions, discover new tools and face new kinds of challenges.
In the end, it is clear that Mathias is developing an entrepreneurial spirit, that he would like to strengthen in an environment that fits him, that is, within a modern spirit start-up with a strong international focus.
You can find Mathias’CV in the attached documents of his application on the platform Welcome to the Jungle. You will also find links toward his social medias here : Instagram – Linkedin. He will be available for his second internship from the beginning of March.
