Commonly considered to be one of the biggest mistakes you can make when writing your CV, including a photo can end your chances at a new job before you get a chance to really shine. But why is it such a crime and is there any situation that it becomes acceptable to include a photo on your curriculum vitae?

This articles looks at some of the key points so you can make your own mind up.

Let’s face it, unless you are a model or movie star, the chances are that you aren’t remotely good looking
enough that including a picture of yourself on your CV could be considered to be a good thing. Even if you are a Brad Pitt look-a-like, are your looks really what you want to promote as one of your key plus points?

When applying for jobs you shouldn’t be highlighting irrelevant points about yourself. Nobody cares if you can touch your nose with your tongue. There are things your potential employer can live without knowing right away. So how relevant is a photo? Sure, it might make your CV stand out from the others being looked at, but there are times when this isn’t necessarily a good thing!

Remember, recruiters have a sense of humor too – they like to have a laugh just like the rest of us. What do you think is going to happen if you are the only person to submit a CV with a photo on it? Think about it!

Don’t waste prime real estate on your CV!A photo takes up valuable space on your CV, so why waste it with irrelevant information when you could use that space more effectively to promote your key skills (which will ultimately be what lands you the job – not your big grin!). If you go down the route of including a photo then you are doing yourself a disservice – you may as well not include your key skills or work history! Sometimes including a photo with your CV is not only acceptable, but a prerequisite for success. Some key examples;

Modelling or acting jobs.
Possibly other jobs where appearance is important.
Any time your employer asks for a photo with the application.
Extended recruitment processes where the employer may be selecting a group of candidates from a large selection of potentials.

In these cases it’s OK to include a photo with your CV, but you should think carefully about which photo you use. If you work in a profession where it’s common to include a head shot for job applications, then you probably already know about this and most likely use the services of a professional photographer.

For those of us who only rarely are asked for photos, then here are some tips;Your photo should be business professional – i.e. the same image as you would present at an interview.
It should be a head / shoulder shot (not full body). Similar to a passport photo.
Your recruiter doesn’t want to see your holiday snaps, or photos from a night out with your mates!

Best of luck with your applications!

The writer is a HR Consultant. Corporate Staffing Services. www.staff-kenya.com. Email bettercv@staff-kenya.com for your recruitment and CV writing services.

Is two page too short? Are four pages too long?

CVs are subjects of great debate in the career world. What to include, what not to include; serif or sans serif font; what color paper; which jobs to highlight? And, more commonly in today's job market, how long should the CV be? Does it matter?

Many Kenyans feel that a longer CV makes them look more accomplished or important -- not so. Recent
college graduates and those who have only had one to two jobs don't need more than three pages. Avoid excessive spacing to fill up the page as well and instead flesh out your skill sets, even if you think you have none due to little experience.

Someone newer to the work force may have a two-page CV or three page one, with a more seasoned employee having more. Most experienced employees cannot fit their work history onto three pages, and that's fine.

What is critical is that the important information stands out: a very brief summary of whom you are, what you're looking for, your key accomplishments and strengths, which tells the employer why they should hire you. This should be captured at the beginning of your CV in the first page -- then the employer could quickly scan where you worked and when, along with more details listed under each position.

You want your CV to highlight your best attributes, and hiring authorities shouldn't have to search for them on your CV. For this reason, stick to the three page rule at most and carry over to another page only if your experience warrants it. This will force you to choose only the most important information for your CV

While I understand that most candidates want a three-page CV (or longer), I happen to know that employers put the most focus on a candidate's first page. Their attention starts to wane before they even flip the page. Therefore, appropriate and strategic editing is a smart move.

Most job seekers find it difficult to be so objective about their lengthy and accomplishment-based history, so here's a good tip to keep in mind: Job seekers have to think of themselves as a product and their CV their marketing campaign. Any good marketing director knows to focus on their target consumer while creating a marketing campaign, right? Same thing applies here. You aren't writing your CV for yourself, but rather, for your potential employers.

Less is always more when it comes to CV today, with three pages preferable, as overworked HR departments need to process information faster and are mostly using electronic solutions to identify candidates to start with anyway. On top of this, the more experience you put on there, the more money signs begin to flash in hiring managers' heads, and they worry about what it's going to cost to acquire such an experienced candidate.

It does matter, but primarily in relation to the quality of the content. Do not try to create a three-page CV if you really only have related experiences that fill up one page. Using bigger font and wider space margins do not help your cause. Similarly, if you have a long, impressive career of related professional achievements, there is no need to try to shrink it all down onto three pages. Having said all of that, do not go longer than four pages. You should be able to be able to present the best of the best in less than four pages.

The length of your CV will vary based on your experience.

No matter how many pages you choose to include, make sure to include all of your pertinent career information on the first page and in the top portion of the document.

Julie Karimi is a HR Officer Corporate Staffing Kenya. Talk to her for Recruitment and CV writing Services. www.staff-kenya.com

Applying for jobs In Kenya. We had handled this issue some times back but we keep getting questions from you the readers when it comes to applying for jobs you are not fully qualified. Here is a repeat of our earlier advice.

One frustrating but common predicament most job seekers in Kenya encounter is deciding whether or not to apply for a job if they don’t meet the specific employer’s requirements. It is a frustrating but common
occurrence many Kenyan job seekers can relate to.

While browsing job postings be it online or through newspapers, you see a job that has the responsibilities and duties that match your interests. The day-to-day role is exactly what you’ve been hoping to find. Then you see the minimal requirements and, although you have some of the necessary skills and plenty of passion, you don’t have the qualifications or the number of years the company demands.

Perhaps you have three years of relevant experience, not five. Or you have a bachelor’s degree, not a master’s. You’ve been in a managerial role but haven’t drawn up a budget before. You know you can do the job very well, but you don’t know if you’ll even be considered without satisfying each of the requirements.

Should you apply for such a job?The decision to apply seems like an obvious choice. On the surface, you have nothing to lose by submitting your CV and everything to gain if you are called in for an interview. Yet, you need to look beyond the immediate outcomes and ask yourself a few questions: 1.How close am I to being qualified?Some Human Resource managers in Kenya won’t consider any applicant who doesn’t meet the minimum job requirements, even if they are a perfect fit save for having one too few years of experience. However, many HR managers will look at all the job candidate has to offer, so the right education, work history and skills can make up for other shortcomings. Give yourself an honest estimate of how close you are to the employer’s ideal applicant. For example, assume i want a CPA Part two with 3 years experience. Those with CPA-K and two years should apply as they come close. 2.Am I wasting the employer’s (and my) time?Wanting the job — even if you’re a quick learner — is significantly different than being qualified and capable. A job seeker with years of experience in another industry might be a skilled worker, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to a good match for this job. Use your cover letter and CV to make a strong case for your ability to do the job, otherwise the HR manager won’t view you as a serious candidate. An example to take the point home. A secretary working for an accounting firm has very different roles from that working for a construction firm. The principles behind being a secretary are the same but each industry demands are different.
Taking the previous two points into consideration, ask yourself what your next step is. If you are one course from completing your degree and being qualified for this job (and others like it), will you return to school next semester? Is working for this specific company a priority?

If so, you don’t want to repeatedly apply for jobs until the HR department has flagged you as a nuisance. Instead, only apply to jobs for which you are a contender. Take some time to gain experience and skills that give you the right qualifications. As frustrating as the long process might be, it can transform you from a long shot to a front runner if this particular industry or company is important to you.
4.Look at the situation from the employer’s perspectiveAccording to my recent survey, only 18 percent of HR managers in Kenya spend more than two minutes looking at a CV and 5 percent spend 15 seconds or less ( i swear this is true, if in doubt just ask your HR manager). You need to make a positive impression quickly if you want to get noticed for any job, but especially for one where your qualifications fall short of the employer’s expectations.

Imagine yourself sitting on the other side of the desk and look at your CV and cover letter from the boss’ perspective. If you were choosing from the pool of 100 job applicants, would you pick your application out of the pile or would it go in the waste bin? Consider some of the ways you could boost your chances of landing an interview and eventually the job:

Don’t send a cover letter or CV that apologizes for your shortcomings. Instead, give examples of how your experience is relevant to the position. Rather than make broad statements about what you could do for the company, cite specific statistics or accomplishments. 6·Satisfy as many requirements as possibleAlthough you don’t meet every qualification listed on the job posting, you should meet some of them. Just because you don’t have managerial experience doesn’t mean you’re exempt from meeting the application deadline and submitting the requested documents. Do not allow the HR manager to discount you for a preventable technicality.

And finally, always remember you can only win if you try!

For many Kenyans having a job defines who we are. A job will determine where you live, eat and even the people you associate with. If its a well paying job, chances are that you will have a quality life-whatever that means! If you are poorly paid and overworked then you know what follows.

But have you thought of a scenario where you didn’t have a job? where you work up in the morning and crafted the direction you choose for yourself. For many of us the mere thought of being jobless makes us stressful.

However, there is a minority of Kenyans making it in the world of self employment. That’s why i would like you to visit this link and learn on how to survive without a job.

Click here and learn more on reasons you should never get a job.

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By James Kimani.

Early in my career, I had the opportunity to listen to a talk by a leading HR Manager on “managing your manager”. I don’t recall much about the talk, but one item that stuck with me was his advice, “Never argue with your boss, because even if you ‘win’, you lose.”

At the time, I was young and cocksure and tended towards confrontation in my interactions with co-workers. If I disagreed with somebody, we each threw down our best technical arguments, wrangled over the problem, and may the biggest geek win. Being “right” was the most important thing. So the HR manager advice seemed outright wrong to me at the time. Of course one should argue with their boss! If they were “wrong”, then let’s mix it up and get to the “correct” solution.

Flash forward a few years later and I was working as a Senior Systems Admin. We were trying to roll out a new architecture for supporting our developer workstations, and I was clashing with my boss over the direction we should go in. Worse still, the rest of the technical team was in favor of the architecture that I was championing.

True to form, I insisted on going for the no-holds-barred public discussion. This, of course, transformed the situation from a simple technical disagreement into my completely undercutting my boss’ authority and basically engineering a mutiny in his group.

Matters came to a head at our weekly IT all-hands meeting. Because of the problems our group was having, both my boss and his boss were in attendance. Discussion of our new architecture got pretty heated, but I had an answer for every single one of my boss’ objections to my plan. In short, on a technical level at least, I utterly crushed him. In fact, in the middle of the meeting he announced, “I don’t need this s—”, and walked out of the meeting. I had “won”, and boy was I feeling good about it.

Then I looked around the table at the rest of my co-workers, all of whom were staring at me with looks of open-mouthed horror. I don’t think they could have been more shocked if I had bludgeoned my boss to death with a laptop. And frankly I couldn’t blame them. If I was willing to engineer a scene like had just transpired in our all-hands meeting, how could they trust me as a member of their team? I might turn on them next. Suddenly I didn’t feel so great.

I went home that night and did a great deal of soul-searching. The HR manager words came back to me, and I realized that he’d been right. Admittedly, my case was an extreme situation, but if I had followed the manager’s advice from the beginning, things need never have escalated to the pitch that they finally reached.

The next morning, I went in and apologized to my boss and agreed to toe the line in the future, though it certainly felt like a case of too little too late. I also started looking for a new job, because I realized nobody there really wanted to work with me after that. I was gone a month later, and my boss lasted several more years.

My situation in this case was preventable. As I look back on it now, I realize that my boss and I could have probably worked out some face-saving compromise behind closed doors before having any sort of public discussions. Of course, sometimes you find yourself in an impossible situation: whether because of incompetence, malice, or venality on the part of your management.

In these cases you can sit there and take it (hoping that things will get better), fight the good fight, or “vote with your feet” and seek alternate employment. The problem is that fighting the good fight often ends with you seeking alternate employment anyway, so be sure to start putting out feelers for a new job before entering the ring. Sitting there and taking it should be avoided if at all possible– I’ve seen too many of my friends’ self-esteem totally crippled by psycho managers.

Bottom line is that one of the most important aspects of any job is making your boss look good whenever possible.

This doesn’t mean you can’t disagree with your boss. Just make sure that you don’t have those disagreements publicly and make it clear at all times that you’re not attempting to pre-empt your manager’s authority. “Managing up” is a delicate skill that needs to be honed with experience, but as a first step at least try to avoid direct, public disagreements with those above you in the management chain.

James Kimani is an IT Consultant based in Nairobi.  If you have a job or career related experience to share forward details to careerpointkenya at gmail dot com. Website: www.careerpointkenya.com

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So you’re handing in your resignation? Well assuming they don’t escort you off the premises straight away, they will probably ask you to hand in your resignation letter. Clearly you can’t say, “I hated my boss, I was offered more money elsewhere” when writing a letter of resignation! Well, you could, but you would end up burning some bridges.

I know of this chap who worked for a well performing Kenyan parastatal who was nasty in his resignation and the company ended confiscating his car cars, mortgage, and medical cover.

This article will cover how to write a resignation letter so you don’t end up killing your career a few years down the line!

An example of why you need to write a good resignation letter

A hypothetical situation.

You are in a job you hate probably toiling as a cashier when you have a CPA-K and the branch manager wont let you try finance department. Your boss is a tyrant and the pay sucks- you still live in an SQ somewhere in South B despite being 30 years. So you start looking for another job and after a while of ducking out for interviews, you are made an offer.Screw the boss. You walk out without a word – you don’t leave a resignation letter.

You wait a day like today and when the last salary is in your account you disappear into the thin air.

That’s fine at the time, but a few years down the line, your new employer has expanded and you have been promoted. You are going for a new contract for the firm which will mean big money. You head out to meet your new potential client and who are you faced with? Your old boss, now in charge of a new department / company / whatever.

Many careers these days are built and broken on personal relationships, so by writing a letter of resignation when you leave a job can help protect possible future relationships.In the short term, writing a letter of resignation can ensure you receive a decent reference from your ex-employer.

How to write a resignation letter
Writing a letter of resignation can be tough. You are handing in your resignation for a reason – either you don’t like your job or you have be offered a better one.

So it’s going to be tough to try and write an amicable letter that won’t anger your boss. A lot of employers do take a personal interest in their staff and can take it as a personal failure if a valued member of staff leaves. Remember, they also have to report to their boss and explain why their team / department / office is a member of staff down.
Your aim when writing a letter of resignation should be to create a document which your boss can hold in his / her hand and feel absolved of any blame or fault over your departure.
It doesn’t matter that they were wrong! You need to put your personal feelings behind you – now isn’t the time to say what you “really” feel!

Some areas you should cover when you write your letter of resignation:

* Thank your employer for your time there.
* Explain briefly why you are leaving.
* If your reasons for leaving are going to cause more ill-feeling then make something up!
* If you can’t think of anything then just use the catch-all excuse of being offered a better package elsewhere!

REMEMBER! “Always forgive your enemies….nothing annoys them so much.” – Oscar Wilde. As much as you want to shout and scream at that boss who you hated, thanking them, even apologizing for your behavior can be the sweetest revenge! And it doesn’t hurt your career!

Example of a resignation letter

It’s hard to come up with an example of a resignation letter, because like covering letters and CV or resumes, they are fairly personal documents. But there are some general points you can remember.

* Personal opening. You know your bosses name, so use it. Open your letter with Dear Mr Kamau, Mutiso, chebet, etc.
* Get to the point. Your opening sentence (and subject line) should be brief and to the point. Subject: Letter of Resignation
* Briefly state your reasons. Note the points in the previous section about this.
* Make sure you have tied up loose ends. If you have work that someone will need to take over, create a separate document to attach to your resignation later which lists important stuff like urgent work or passwords, etc.
* Offer to stay a reasonable amount of time. More often than not, it won’t be taken up on, but it is a good parting gesture to make. Offering time to train up a replacement (or hire one) is a good way for your employer to remember you (ie, as oppose to just walking out).
* End professionally. Thank your employer for your time with the company, stating how much you appreciate it.

Your resignation is a fragile period of time. Writing a resignation letter isn’t easy – you need to handle it professionally or it could have a serious impact on your career in the future.

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