Resume Writing - Advices Needed
 

Hi all

I am presently running over my resume, and after reading a lot of sites with advices and hints, I still have a few questions – especially oppinions from you who are sitting at the other side of the nice polished desk to hire us pilots. Please note if you find difference between the areas Europe/America/Asia etc.

Employment history:
1. Should one include all the employment history including all small jobs in between relevant jobs.

2. Should one only include history of important and/or relevant jobs, e.g.:
Inlcude: Flying jobs, longer employment in other jobs like administraton/management.
Exclude: Non relevant, short or temporary in between jobs like shop assistant, taxi driving, teaching substitude etc.
3. Should one only include history of flying jobs – even if it is short term.

If choosing 2 og 3 above - Is it OK to leave gabs of periods between jobs (necessary) – even if one had a temporary job in the period if it is irrelevant?

Other qualifications:
What to include or not include? E.g. computer use level, management courses, community work / school board experience, swimming, first aid and much more – or eventually leave out other qualifications?

Personal information:
What to include or not include? Marital status, date of birth, number and eventually age of children, nationality, availability, languages and language levels, hobbies and interests, sport and so on?

All inputs are welcome - eventually please state which side of the desk you are sitting on.

Employment History:

If you've had a multitude of jobs between finishing school or university, and graduating from flying school, keep those that are relevant and those that show you have extra skills that would be beneficial to the airline or AOC operator you are applying to. For example, Teaching Substitute would be beneficial, as it shows leadership, confidence and level-headedness, whereas Taxi-Driver may not portray the same image if only done for a short period of time.

I wouldn't necessarily leave gaps of employment, as certainly in the UK, those businesses operating within the aviation industry like to know that the candidate has a solid five year history, so that he/she may pass security checks without issue.

Other Qualifications:

These. But bullet-point them in to a list, perhaps entitled 'Other Qualifications'.

Personal Information:

If you're single, I'd put that on there, as it 'may' work in your favour - i.e. you're not tied down with a family and kids. Age/DOB may also be relevant to your future employer.

Nationality, Languages could be viewed as important. Also dependent on the employer's culture, whether you have played in a team for sports, or the interests you have - this could be listed in bullet point format too.

This is what I'd do, again, do not take it as gospel.

Good luck!

A few tips I can give is keep your work experience relevant. If you have no aviation experience just list your current job.

Unless you have some serious qualifications like being a checker or trainer, your CV doesn't need to be more than one page long.

Make your total time and PIC time easy to find. The person reading your CV wont waste more than 15 seconds on it if he cant find the information he needs to see.

Only in Europe it seems does anyone care that you passed your theory exams first time or what your average exam mark was. First time passes in flight tests seem only to be a requirement of Ryan Air. This is because there are hundreds of guys to choose from all with exactly the same CV!

If you want to include a picture it won't hurt but make sure you are dressed properly and have shaved/done your hair or whatever else you do to look your best. No pilot bars!!!!

There's plenty of advice out there, using google or the search function on this site will give you plenty of good advice, and even templates.

The absolute key is that it is NO MORE than one side of A4, and that it is concise and eye catching. I used a nice header which then contained my Name and contact details (I then used the exact same header on a covering letter).

Put hours and relevant information at the top, if you know a company has a minimum requirement that you know you exceed, make it clear by stating the hours, possibly even in bold. Often the first filter through a pile of CVs will be a secretary who knows absolutely nothing about flying. They will be working from a checklist saying 250 hours total time, or whatever, so if it's not clear you exceed this then it could be binned before anyone relevant gets to see it. I know this happened to a few friends, as they found out, the minimum requirement was a CPL & 200 hours total time, they hadn't made clear they had 200 hours so got canned, when most would realise they must have 200 hours to have the CPL.

The rest, keep it brief and relevant to keep the length down.

Put a couple of bullet points of "other interests" at the bottom, just to show you're well rounded.

The only purpose of the CV is to grab someone's attention, let them know you meet the bare minimum and get an interview. It's at the interview that you can waffle on about the time you cycled across Europe, wrote a paper on the differing speed at which humming birds can hover, or whatever other crazy interests you wish to boast about.