Resume essentials to get you noticed in finance roles

Garreth Handley:
This is INTHEBLACK, a leadership, strategy, and business podcast brought to you by CPA Australia.

Jacqueline Blondell:
Welcome to CPA Australia's INTHEBLACK podcast. I'm Jacqueline Blondell, and today, in this episode of Career Hacks, we're talking CVs, or resumes. Leonardo da Vinci is credited with compiling the first resume, or CV, in a letter to a would-be patron, written in the 1400s. The art of resume writing has moved on since then, and things have changed, especially in the age of AI.

Today we are looking at how long the modern resume should be, and are cover letters still a thing? Should you include your first job, whether it be working at McDonald's or on the Coles checkout, and should you have AI write it for you? Helping us answer these questions is Jasmine Ee, who specialises in recruiting qualified and senior accountants at Hays. Welcome to Career Hacks, Jasmine.

Jasmine Ee:
Thank you for having me.

Jacqueline Blondell:
I imagine you've seen hundreds of resumes in your career. How long should a resume be? Does a two-page rule still stand?

Jasmine Ee:
I don't think the two-page rule is very relevant. I think a CV should be as long as you need it to be to clearly articulate your experience. I think if it's longer than two pages, say four or five, if you're a little bit later in your career, that's fine. Where it should stop at the two pages is maybe if you're in the earlier part of your career, and it's clear beyond two pages, you're just rambling now.

Jacqueline Blondell:
What about when you're really junior? Should you include those jobs that you had when you were at school, say, on the Coles checkout, or at McDonald's?

Jasmine Ee:
Yeah, I would say including your non-professional jobs would be important. I'd say it shows that you started working at an earlier age, you're exposed to the work environment. You know how to work hard. Obviously, you don't need to list everything you did. Maybe just the job title, the location, or the company, and the dates, and that's fine.

Jacqueline Blondell:
What about when you're much more senior? Say you're in your forties or even early fifties and you're applying for a job. Should you go way back into your early career, or is there a point where you should start?

Jasmine Ee:
I think it depends on the role that you're applying for. So if you're going for a highly specialist or a very technical niche role, I think if 20 years ago you did that exact job, sure, list that one in particular, but I don't think that you need to go back 30 years and list every single job. Maybe after 10 years you might only need to list, say, the company name, the job title, and the years that you worked there.

Jacqueline Blondell:
What about AI? Do you recommend using it to fashion your resume?

Jasmine Ee:
That's a hot topic, isn't it? I think AI is great to help polish your CV and add the finishing touches. I think to correct any grammatical or spelling errors, that's absolutely fine, but I don't think AI should be used to form the base of your CV. It's very clear when AI has written something for you.

Jacqueline Blondell:
How can you tell? What are the hints that when you see CVs that have been written by AI?

Jasmine Ee:
You can tell that they are just crafted sometimes a little bit too formally and without any human input. It really does sound like a robot has written something. It's got no context, it's not personal, and there are little grammatical things that AI will use. I'm sure everyone's seen those em dashes that's going around at the moment. You know that's been written by AI.

Jacqueline Blondell:
And what about cover letters? Are they still a thing in this day of automated recruiting where you are loading CVs into a system? Do you still include a cover letter?

Jasmine Ee:
I think cover letters in general are a bit of a dying concept. I do think for some sectors, like the public sector for government, where selection criteria is very important, yeah, absolutely. Cover letters are very relevant. I think if it's more of a generic job, say, a financial accountant, you probably don't need one. If it's a more technical or specific role, like a systems accountant, sure, you might like to include a cover letter. 50/50 chance if it's going to be read, but no need to include one unless it's been specifically asked for.

Jacqueline Blondell:
And what about specific roles that require certain things? Should your CV be totally refashioned and tailored to that type of job, or should you handle it some other way?

Jasmine Ee:
Absolutely. I think if you are going for a role that's maybe a little bit left of field of what you're doing now, or a role that plays into previous experience that you've had, I do think you should be tailoring your CV. If you're applying for roles that are very, very similar to what you're currently doing, no need, but certainly, if it's more specialised or niche.

Jacqueline Blondell:
And what about when you have your list of skills that used to be a thing a few years back where you would have at the top the list of skills and personal attributes? Should that still be included? Is that something that's still in the formulation of a resume?

Jasmine Ee:
I do think it should still be in there. It gives recruiters and hiring managers a very quick and high-level overview of what you might be able to bring from a valuable skill set. I don't think it needs to be as long as perhaps it once was. Maybe if it's just, say, eight to 10 dot points set in one of those three-column invisible tables.

So it's just very, it only takes up a small amount of real estate on your CV, but whether it's across different systems, whether it's across different leadership skills, interpersonal communication skills, I think it's important to have a mix of both soft and hard skills.

Jacqueline Blondell:
And that would be courses specifically that you may have done or digital badges you've acquired for doing specific micro-credentials? Would that come into play there?

Jasmine Ee:
Maybe not in the skills section, I would probably put that in the education section, or even if it's not a formal education, say like university or your CPA accreditation, I might put it at the bottom of my CV in a other section or in a further accreditations sort of section.

Jacqueline Blondell:
This is targeted more at the junior end of the market, where you've got less experience. How do you sell yourself without embellishing your experience? Say you think that you have the ability to do the job, but you haven't done it yet. How do you put that sort of ambition into your resume?

Jasmine Ee:
It's definitely hard to put in words the way you feel about a certain thing, and at the end of the day, you only have maybe two or three minutes to impress the recruiter or the hiring manager through a piece of paper. So I think it's important to highlight the things that you're proud of. That might be your university or your high school grades, your ATAR, or whatever it is.

You're studying and working full-time, that shows your work ethic, which shows that you're capable of managing a full workload. If you were involved in competitive sports during your younger years or your current years, I think that shows a lot as well.

Jacqueline Blondell:
Say you're learning new systems, but you haven't actually had the chance to use them in a practical work environment. Should you emphasise them in the hope that a recruiter might think, oh, you might have the basic skills, we might take a punt on you?

Jasmine Ee:
Yeah, I think if you've done a course, say in Power BI or advanced Excel, whatever it is, I think it shows that you take a lot of initiative and that you're solutions-focused in this way of working that we currently have post-COVID through a tougher economic time. I think what people are looking for, especially in their younger employees, is having a solutions-focused mindset rather than coming to your manager with problems and how do I solve the problem rather than, I've got this problem, here's how I'm going to try and solve it. I'll let you know how I go.

Jacqueline Blondell:
So what's the best way to get your resume in front of a hiring manager when so many people apply for the job and there are so many ways of filtering out CVs?

Jasmine Ee:
I think this is where it comes down to keywords. So, some applicant tracking systems, or an ATS, they are pre-programmed to filter out or catch certain words or phrases. So if you are applying for a management accountant role that has a strong emphasis on advanced Excel skills in budgeting and forecasting, you want to make sure that those three keywords are on your CV.

The best way to find out what might be a filter or what might be programmed is to really pay attention to the job ad or the position description if you have one, and make sure that your CV, I don't want to say is a copy and paste of the job ad because that would almost be lying, but it is very reflective of it.

Jacqueline Blondell:
So it embodies certain keywords that appear in the job ad. You also put those into the resume.

Jasmine Ee:
Correct. For example, if they're saying they want you to have experience with TM1, and you have that experience, make sure it's on your CV. There are so many people who don't put small details on their CV because they think it's not relevant. A lot of the time, it's the smaller details that can be easily filtered through or programmed on an ATS.

Jacqueline Blondell:
Hays has been around for a long time as a recruiter, you've had a few years experience as a recruiter of senior staff. How have you seen CVs change over time, the format and what they contain?

Jasmine Ee:
I've opened up CVs that haven't been updated on our database from 15 years ago. If I compare it to a CV from today, they are very, very different. I know a CV is maybe a little bit older by the font. It might be Times New Roman. We don't use that anymore.

Jacqueline Blondell:
Oh, that's a vintage.

Jasmine Ee:
It's Arial or Calibri, it might have a picture, and it tends to have maybe just different formatting.

Jacqueline Blondell:
So, is using a photograph on your CV, does that date you if you do that?

Jasmine Ee:
I don't like to use the word date, but I would say it's not common practise anymore. I also don't want to say it's a red flag, but it does maybe deter me a little bit.

Jacqueline Blondell:
Right. Is that because LinkedIn's there with everyone's photograph on it already, or is it just not a thing anymore that you need to see the person's face when you're looking at their work experience?

Jasmine Ee:
I don't really think what you look like is relevant to how capable you are to do the job. And you're right. If I really wanted to know what you looked like to get a better sense of who you might be as a person, I'm just going to go to LinkedIn.

Jacqueline Blondell:
Let's talk actually now about red flags. I imagine spelling is at the top of the list.

Jasmine Ee:
Yep, very top of my list. I think it's very clear if you have spelling mistakes on your CV, I don't trust you to be a detail-oriented person or have a high attention to detail, which a lot of these roles in the accounting and finance space, that's the minimum expectation. If you have an American education and you spell specialised organisation with a Z, that's fine. Fair enough. But we have autocorrect, so let's make the most of it.

Jacqueline Blondell:
And what about gaps, mysterious gaps in CVs? Does that come up, and is that a red flag?

Jasmine Ee:
Yeah, definitely. I have a lot of clients who ask me, why is there a three-month gap on a CV, and I didn't even notice it. I think if you do have gaps in your CV, that's honestly so fine. We're post-COVID now, where there is such a big emphasis on work-life balance and well-being and mental health, that if you do take three, six, however many months off or years off work, no one's going to question you why.

They just want to know what happened, if you were taking a break from work. I think sometimes a lot of people are still stuck in the mindset of, oh, they were only there for three months, and they took three months off. They must've been fired and couldn't find a new job. Just be clear about if the job was a permanent or a contract role. If you took time off, just say personal leave, you were travelling, caring for a sick family member, whatever it is, just maybe a brief explanation on your CV, and that will clear up any questions from the beginning.

Jacqueline Blondell:
What about people who move around a lot? Is that sort of red flag-ish, or is it just in today's world, people do tend to, there's more churn?

Jasmine Ee:
I do think that, especially maybe in the younger generation, Gen Z, that they're sort of, or the older side of Gen Z, they've been in the workforce for about five years now, so it's no question that they do move around a little bit more. I do also think that post-COVID, it's a little bit more normal to move around every 18 months to 24 months. I would say if you are doing three-month or six-month stints at companies and moving around, I probably would question why that is.

Maybe you just got unlucky a few times in a row, or maybe you're contracting, but I think context matters. If you are contracting for the last seven years and now you're looking for a permanent position, you might be questioned whether you might stay for the long term.

Jacqueline Blondell:
Lastly, let's talk about referees. They used to be a staple of the CV. Are they still a thing in resume land?

Jasmine Ee:
I would say it's not necessary to put your two references on a CV. I would say you should make it clear that references will be available on request. Obviously, it's a good look if you do list them, but of course, in this world of privacy, we want to respect our referees' privacy. You don't need to list their names or their contact details, but maybe if you can say, oh, I can provide a reference from this company and I can provide another reference from this company, that might be just good enough.

Jacqueline Blondell:
Thanks so much, Jasmine, for joining us today and helping us out with the tricky topic of resumes, aka CVs.

Jasmine Ee:
Thanks for having me.

Jacqueline Blondell:
For our listeners eager to learn more, please check out the show notes and additional resources from CPA Australia and Hays, and don't forget to subscribe to INTHEBLACK Podcast and share this episode with your colleagues and friends in the business community. Until next time, thanks for listening.

Garreth Handley:
To find out more about our other podcasts, check out the show notes for this episode, and we hope you can join us again next time for another episode of INTHEBLACK.