CV and Resume Myths in Pakistan
Why your resume knowledge is not acceptable as a professional resume!
Before the introduction of personal computers and the internet in Pakistan and the world at large. People used to go to scribes who had typewriters with them and dictate to them what they wanted on their CV or Resumes in Pakistan. This was also the age when people used to send job applications by post or hand it in physically.
In those times it was understood that a person would not be typing in long narrations of his her career or achievements, just a basic outline was required and most of the things were discussed in the interview stage. But with the boom in the PC industry and internet becoming a household thing. A resume or CV became the thing. Although up until early 2000’s there were many companies in Pakistan who still wanted you to send in your hard-copy of the profile, that has radically changed (The Government still wants you to send them hard-copies of your profile by the way, that hasn’t changed and will not change soon enough).
But with the advent of the soft copy of a CV or resume came a few myths as well we will discuss them in brief today. Some of the most repeated myths include: A CV should not be longer than 2 pages. Another issue is that whether it is a resume or a CV and the third one that you are the best judge of yourself hence the resume should be written by yourself and not by a resume writing expert or a CV writing service in Pakistan. Let’s examine each of these three myths.
2 Page restriction – This is not the case at all. We spoke with more than 15 Human Resources and Recruitment heads in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Peshawar, and all of them said that although 2 – 3 pages is desired, yet the content and the relevance of the profile is what matters. At the same time they said that it is also not recommended to have a CV which is longer than 3 – 4 pages. So, this tells us that a CV should be ideally between 2 – 3 pages but it is not a must as majority of the people claim. But with this thing you may need a ">professional CV writing or Resume writing services help. Because it can be a daunting task to fit in all the details by yourself while keeping the range limit in mind. The good news: Currently in Pakistan there are a lot of professional CV and Resume writing companies operating. You can reach out to them
The second myth relating of CV writing on our list is a question which people ask and are still unclear about – Is it a CV or a Resume? – We asked the same question from HR experts and Career profilers in Pakistan. And we got the same answer, that both can be used alternatively, Resume and CV are basically the same thing. A CV and Resume constitute of the same sections mainly: A brief summary, skillsets, work experience and education brief including a short bio data. This rests the case for this debate and debunks the myths of different names. The bad news: It is very hard to ensure that you only put the relevant data in a document which will be of interest to recruiters and employer alike in Pakistan. The good news: Professional help is available in the form of CV writing experts in all the major cities of Pakistan who knows how to properly format a resume, and you can find some really good deals with online CV and Resume writing services as well.
One more major myth – You are the best judge of yourself so you should write your CV by yourself – With special context to Pakistan and the culture which we entail, firstly there is the notion of pride that a person should write his own CV and if he cannot then what good is he? Secondly, we as a people believe in shortcuts, we would rather use a document made by our nerdy friend and copy paste our info into the document or edit the format, then being farsighted in terms of standing out from the competition. This is what an HR head from Karachi has to say about resumes: “Most of the time specially with fresh grads, you see one and the same CV with the same information (apart from the personal) to be the same. Each and everything is so similar it is almost comical”. Although people know inherently what qualities, skill sets and potential they have that doesn’t necessarily means that they can have excellent writing, formatting and editing skills. An accountant can be great with number crunching and accounting analysis, he might even have great English skills, but that does not mean that he can be a good resume writer as well. The bad news: People in Pakistan will keep copy pasting and using their friend’s CV formats (and keep boring the recruiters and HR departments). The good news: You can negotiate exclusive CV and Resume formats with professional CV writers or CV writing companies.
So, in summary, the three major CV related myths in Pakistan are restriction in terms of how many pages a CV or Resume should be of, what is the term? Is it a CV or Resume? And finally, that you have to be able to write and draft your own resume or CV. We hope that we have convincingly debunked all of these myths for you. And as the saying goes, if you want a job well done, outsource it to a professional.