How to write a CV in English and prepare for a job interview

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, welcome to the 3 English Experts. I'm Dave, I'm Rebecca, and I'm Birgit, and welcome to this episode. 3 English Experts is your English podcast to help you speak better English and create a positive and happy mindset for your English learning journey. OK, hi guys and welcome to another episode. Today, we're talking about CVs. In American English, they call it resume, but I may be wrong on that. So maybe somebody can correct me in a second. And it's a really big thing that our colleague Rebecca does in her working life. It's working with interview training and writing CVs and dealing with CVs. So Rebecca, explain to us a little bit what you do in that. And we'll ask you a few Q&A questions today about this topic. All right. Yeah, so, I mean, I've been teaching for about 25 years. But a long time ago, one of my biggest clients was a bank. And I had like loads and loads of clients at this bank, one to ones. And then the bank was taken over and restructured. And basically, lots of them lost their jobs. It was not a very nice time, but they all needed to find a new job. So they all started coming to me and saying, I need a CV in English. I need to practise English interview skills. And some of them hadn't changed their CV for maybe 10 years. And so that's when it all started, really. And so I just kind of jumped in and started doing it. And it worked really well. People were really happy with what I was doing. I found it really useful. Yeah. And it was at that point when I had one client and I was helping with interview questions. And she said to me, you know what? You would be a fantastic coach. Have you ever thought about becoming a coach? And that was actually what brought me to coaching. I then followed up on that topic and I did my qualification. And so I kind of then, because coaching is also really useful for interviews, because interviews is also about confidence and motivation and how you sell yourself in an interview. So that sort of brought me to coaching. And then over the years, I've worked with a lot of HR people. I've worked with a lot of recruiting people. And I've just learned from then, really, you know, what makes a good CV, what makes a good interview. And then a few years ago, I started working with an executive headhunter here in Frankfurt, really great company. And they send me their candidates sometimes. So they might have a candidate for a position and they say, you know, perfect candidate, but his English is not great. Go to Rebecca, do some coaching, sort it out, which is brilliant. And I love it. It's fun. And I followed people through their careers. I have people who I helped maybe 15 years ago, five years later. Yeah, that's really cool. And they come back and go, oh, no, I'm looking again. Or I'm even just changing within the company. And can you help me again? So I followed people's whole careers. And it's just it's really nice. It's fun. And I just somehow I just found out that I was good at it and I keep doing it. And so most people who I work with come from word of mouth. They just they tell somebody, oh, I worked with this person. So I don't really advertise it so much, but it's it is a large part of what I do. Word of mouth. Best, best way to work, isn't it? Word of mouth. Absolutely. And it's the best testimonial when people recommend me to other people or they come back again and want to work with me again. So that's always really nice feedback. Yeah. And that's a difficult issue to write a CV in English. I sometimes do that with clients that I ask them to prepare because this is thinking about what their background is, what they did in their life, starting from after school. That's difficult vocabulary because when you need to introduce yourself, that always comes up. So I ask them to prepare one page and we talk about this. So what but that's only one feature. You can have that online. But what is the difference between a British or an English or an American CV and a German CV? I think actually it's changed a lot. So when I was looking at CVs, German CVs, maybe 10 years ago, there was a fairly big difference between the British CV and the German CV. German CVs then were always very short. Sometimes they were like one page. You know, you have guys who like 20 years experience and they had their Lebenslauf one page. They had the photograph, which we never had in the past. And they were very, a little bit token, I would say a little bit dry, not great selling documents. We would always say a lot more and really kind of talk ourselves up a bit more. But I think meanwhile, especially due to LinkedIn, things like LinkedIn, it seems is also kind of like an online CV. You put your profile there. And I think people have learned this more global style of presenting themselves. So I think these days when I see German CVs, often it depends on the age group and it depends when they last updated their CV. But I think generally there's not such a big difference anymore that they've learned that there is this kind of global style of, you know, you have a profile at the beginning and, you know, you try to put in your successes and not just a list of job duties kind of thing. Dave, would you agree with that or have you seen many CVs over the years? Yes, I think I would agree with that. Definitely. And I think the online presence and as you said, LinkedIn, all these things are having an effect on CV writing and interviews as well. I think it's what kind of mistakes do you think people are still making though? I mean, are there things where you would say, come on guys, you know, 2024, these are the, or maybe it's not got to do with the year, but maybe it's also the cultural thing. So what kind of mistakes say are still being made? One of the funny ones that I see often is that people say, oh, I'm going to send you my CV and they send it. And it says at the top of it, CV in big letters or curriculum vitae, you know. And I think you don't need to put a title on it. I know what it is. And it's like, you know, immediately when you look at it as a document, you can see it's a CV. It's not a burger menu. It's pretty obvious what it is. Or you just put your name in big letters at the top and then it's clear. Okay. This is Dave's. But a lot of people still do that. Did you do that in the past, Birgit? Did people write Lebenslauf? Definitely. It needed to be on there. Oh, did it? Yes, it had to be. It had to be on there. Yeah, definitely. And that's how we learned it. It's very fascinating to reflect on that again, because this issue, what you said about selling yourself and being so dry. Yeah, that's what we learned. Just be very factual. Yeah, I agree. That is much nicer to read some personality out or put the skills first, the resume. Yeah. Sorry, just one question before I forget that. Because you said about the photo, we never did. Is that now common that you would send a photo? No, I don't think it's common on the actual CV. But these days, everybody's got an online profile on somewhere like LinkedIn. So recruiters will find your photo somewhere, I think. But there was this whole equality about CVs that you don't have to put a photo because it could influence your application. But in Germany in the past, there was always these professional photos. I was like, wow, you know. But, you know, I was just saying, you're not applying to Disney. You know, you don't have to be a character, you know, work at Disneyland. Yeah. So I think these days, I don't think British CVs would have a photo, but they would have it on their online profile. So it's kind of, it's there anyway. It's clear. Okay. Yeah. I mean, going back to the, you know, selling yourself. And I think a lot of Germans feel very uncomfortable with this selling themselves. They feel like it's too much and it's blah, blah, blah. And, you know, and my advice is always don't be the case of bought. So we kind of discussed, we kind of discussed this last time when we talked about food, you know, that the Germans are not very good at selling food. It's just schnitzel of bombers because everybody knows what schnitzel is. And we would say, you know, like we said, we would say it's tender, crispy, fried, locally fed, organic chicken. And it's just chicken. Wonderful comparison. Yeah. And the same is with the Käsebrot, you know, for years, I never ordered Käsebrot because it's just cheese bread in Germany. Although I love cheese and I never ordered it because I thought that sounds so boring. You get a gherkin on it. You get all kinds of things on that. And I finally ordered it once and I was overwhelmed. I was like, wow, this... What have I been missing all these years? That's how we surprise people, you know. Really? And I was like, wow, there's like three types of local cheese. There's a bit of salad. There's a gherkin. And there was even a schnapps on it. There was a little schnapps. And I was like, what have I been missing? And that was all just because it was advertised, in my opinion, wrongly, you know, Käsebrot. That's a very good comment, yeah. You don't have to be over the top. You don't have to lie. You don't have to be, you know, a superhero. But don't be the Käsebrot. Tell me if you've got three types of cheese and you're offering me salad and a schnapps. Tell me about it because I might be more likely to choose you than the other Käsebrot, you know. So it's a balance. You know what I'm saying? Definitely. Definitely. It's this balance between not being too over the top, not being the ultra super duper crispy chicken, but you've got three types of cheese. So tell me about that. So, you know, I say to my clients, don't just tell me what you've done. Show me, you know, so, you know, say, oh, I'm an accountant. And then they list the tasks of an accountant. And I think, well, that's just a job description. That's not you as a person. Maybe you introduced a new system. Maybe you learned a new software. Maybe you were involved in some special project which had a certain result. And don't just tell, show, show why you are different from every other accountant who's applying for this job. So I think that's the point is, you know, giving examples, showing your successes of what you've learned. And then people say, oh, but I'm not in sales. I can't describe how many products I sold. It can be other successes. It can be learnings. It can be, yeah, projects that you've been involved in or introducing new systems. There's a lot of things you can put there without it being figures or numbers. Yeah, I think that's that's a big problem. And I think what I'm hearing here is already interview coaching, CV coaching rather than telling people what are the actual facts, how do you write the date correctly, what to write as an address. So that's what you focus on. It's a combination. Obviously, there is the language aspect, you know, checking that it's written properly in English. It's much more than that. It's about using the right language. And it's funny because some people, once they say, oh, I just need a translation of my German CV and I just need to practise interviews in English. And then they end up changing their German CV based on what we've worked on because they like their English CV more. And that's the point. I don't just translate or proofread what they've done. I look at the content as well, which is really important. And that's, you know, that's really helpful for a lot of people. Yeah. Another one is, on the one hand, they're the key support. They don't tell you, they don't sell themselves enough. But sometimes they tell you too much irrelevant information. Place of birth, Hintertopfing, I don't know where. That's that was one. I know, I know. Yeah, needed to be on there. Again, not relevant. I would only put place of birth if I was an international person. Maybe I was born in, I don't know, Singapore and now I'm living here just to show my sort of, you know, background maybe. But if you're applying to a company here in Germany and you were born in Kassel, I don't think it really matters that anybody cares where you were born, really. It's pretty interesting. If you were born in Munich and then you now lived in Berlin, that shows you're sort of kind of able to move. You're able to move. You're interculturally wise. Yeah, it's just too much. And, you know, also education. People go too far back in their education. They do the Grundschule. And I think you've got a master's and you're telling me that you went to junior school. I'm pretty sure that I could imagine that you did go to junior school if you've done a master's, you know, again. So keep it relevant. I would never go back more than my. You can still put your Abitur, I think, your A-levels on there. But even then, some people don't even do that. They just start with their degree. But Abitur, I think, is the starting point. Don't go further back unless there's something really relevant that needs to be there. But, yeah. I think we could all do with some CV and interview training, Rebecca, here. Definitely. Where do we get this useful information from? Yeah, it's just learning by doing, I think. I think people, you know, there's all these templates online that you can find. So people follow these templates, but they don't always think about is this really relevant to me, you know. And also, if you're 21, you've got less to put on your CV. So then you would maybe put more on about your education. But if you're 45, I don't care what junior school you went to. Really. Nobody does. We believe you. You went. Very, very true. Pretty sure. Have you got a kind of list you send out or on request? Do you sell a little light faden for somebody who wouldn't take a coaching but would be interested now? Yeah, I do have a checklist that people can download from my website, but I don't charge for it. It's just a short checklist. But normally, often when people have read the checklist, they often come back and book appointments with me because they want to know more. And I do have a basic kind of checklist that people can if you go to my website, you can have a look at that. And yeah, it all really depends. It's very individual what people need. Some people have nothing, you know, they've got no CV at all. Some have got one that's 20 years old. Some have already got an English version. They just want me to have a look through. So I can't say, oh, you need six lessons to do this. It really depends on where you are, what your targets are. And I also do coaching. So I get people who are like, oh, I really need to look for a new job, but I don't have the confidence right now. And so I do this coaching confidence as well, which is where the coaching comes in. Motivation, trying to figure out what do I want to do now? I get people who are kind of stuck in their career and want to just have a conversation about where my options, what could I do and talk it through with somebody. So I don't tie anyone into a packet. You don't have to book a certain number of appointments. It's really flexible, let's say. Yeah. Being the AI guy. Here we go. Here we go. Rebecca. Here we go. I mean, how do you see AI development and that with CVs? And can you tell a difference, for example, between an AI ChatGPT written CV and a personal one, if you for want of a better word? Obviously, it is ChatGPT. It's a big topic because it's easy. It's hard to write a CV. It's not always an easy thing to do and it takes time and effort. And so, of course, people say, well, let's just put all the information into ChatGPT and it will it will create a CV for you, no question. But I can see when it's being written by ChatGPT and if I can see it, then I'm pretty sure that most HR recruiting people who see them every single day can also see that. And it's interesting. I was anticipating your question, Dave. OK. Yes, I know you love your ChatGPT. So I read online that 53% of recruiters today are very sceptical about CVs that have been produced by AI, but they immediately feel slightly negative. It's quite interesting. And they said because basically they felt there was no effort, that the person hadn't taken enough time, effort to put their personal CV together, you know, and so that actually already gave a bit of a negative vibe. So that's the one point. They also said they felt there was no human voice in there, that it was all very slick and there was lots of nice vocabulary, but there was no personal touch, which I would agree with. So when I sit with people and we do the CV, we do it together. You know, we put it together, they create it and then we sort of tune it together. The problem is, OK, the CV, maybe you get an interview, but in the interview, you can't use AI. In the interview, you've got to present yourself. And if you don't really know your CV very well, you don't, you know, you didn't write it actually. It's quite hard to then reproduce that when you're in an interview. So you could have this super duper, I don't know, CV that's not quite you. And then you go to the interview and they go, well, that doesn't really match. And I think, yeah, maybe it's good to have AI and to have this as a help and user support. But in this special case, if you're looking for a job, you should, I think maybe that's the summary of it. It's better to put the effort in, like, yeah, and because you've got to sell yourself and work for that position. I think that's a good idea. I mean, some of them said that, you know, obviously to use it as a help, for example, to like maybe run it through once you've done a draft or something like that. It's not the end of the world, but don't let it just create something for you because that's not you and you're the one who's going to sit in the interview. I think one thing I've heard a lot, you know, from recruiters, there's two big questions when they meet a candidate. Question one is, are you suitable? So do you have the right skills or do you have the right potential? And are you suitable for our company culture? That's another big point. And the other question number two is always, do you really want the job? And I've actually had clients who were rejected from a job. And when they asked, why didn't I get the job? They said, we just felt you didn't really want it. And so, you know, approaching with an application written by ChatGPT that's obviously written by ChatGPT kind of shows a little lack of, I really want this job and I've really spent time writing this application. So I would just say, careful, basically, careful how you do it. And as a non-native, if you're not native, it's difficult to judge maybe does this sound like ChatGPT or not? You know, if you're not a native, it's difficult. I think if it was in German, maybe I wouldn't notice as much. I don't know. So that's the other point. Wonderful. Sounds great. Nowadays, do you think they ask tricky questions to trick people up? I mean, or was this more of an, or maybe I'm even wrong in that. I don't know. But sometimes you get the impression in the past, often they try to trip candidates up with really tricky questions. Is that something that people should be aware of nowadays? Unfortunately, yeah, it still happens. I think it really depends on the company. I think normally if you do, again, if you do your homework and you look online, it depends on the company. If it's a small company, it's very difficult to find out what kind of questions they're going to ask. But, you know, I've coached people at a very, very big, famous electronics provider and they have like books and books of questions. They have like whole catalogues and they're really tough questions. And they go through like six or seven interviews through these questions. And it really depends. And then other places, it's a one interview and it's pretty straightforward questions that you would kind of expect. So you have to kind of be prepared a little bit for everything. There are the bizarre questions. And if you go online, you know, Google also chat GPT would probably tell you some of these slightly weird questions and potential ways to answer them. So again, you need to do your homework. So I have a massive list of questions that. So when I'm coaching people, we go through all kinds of questions and so that we're really kind of prepared for every scenario. But a lot of the answers we prepare fit for probably five or six different questions. That's the point. It's not like you need 200 answers. They all you do. A lot of them are interchangeable. So yeah. When was the last time you were in a job interview looking for a job? That's interesting because people ask me that because I do all of this. And then they think, well, when did I last do an interview? I mean, in German, maybe. Yeah, in German, actually, because my interviews basically are my sales pitchers. So when a client, if a company contacts me and say, we would like to work with you or we have a tender for English training and then I go and I do a sales pitch. And to me, that is an interview because it's the same thing. I'm selling myself and I'm talking about my career and I'm selling my services. So probably the last one. I don't know. It's a few months ago. No, probably last year. I think I did a pitch. OK. It's just all experience that I've gained over the years from different places. And obviously an interest you take to say, yeah, you like it, you enjoy it. And you thought, oh, that's a need. I want to help the people. And David, when was the last time you were in an interview? Maybe German? Can you remember that? I don't really know to be honest. I mean, I would agree with Rebecca in the sense of if I'm talking to a possible new client, kind of pitching myself, then you could see that as an interview as well. It is, yeah. A real job interview. I don't really remember. Years ago, many years ago. And so I think if Rebecca was to look at my CV as well, she'd probably think. Are you worried now? Oh, yeah. I think you might get an email from me later on today, Rebecca. Can you just have a look over my CV and possibly. No problem, send it over. Suggest a few recommendations. Give me some recommendations. Yeah. Send it over. I do them in German as well. Sometimes people send me their German CV. And I also not proofread them from a language point of view, because obviously. Yeah. But I do proofread from a content point of view, you know, like and just even formatting. People still get formatting wrong. They choose really complicated formatting and funny fonts and things. And again, nice to have templates, but make it easy to read. It's just a basic, you know, real back to basics. Yeah. I suppose when you say how long does it take to get prepared? I guess there's no one size fits all. I would say don't underestimate how long. People, you know, they ring me up and they go, I've got an interview on Monday. And it's Friday, you know, and I go, wow. And they go, I'm not very, I just, you know, I'm not really prepared. And I think, wow, OK, that's a bit of a problem. I think, you know, even if you're not actively looking for a job right now. Yeah. It's never bad to keep your CV up to date. And like I said, you can also use it for your LinkedIn profile and other things. So it's not it's never a bad thing to work on. And you never know when an opportunity comes up where you just need it quickly and then you're not ready and then everyone gets to a complete panic zone. So be prepared, I would say, is the best advice. Yes. And I agree strongly with that, especially with people who learn English or try to get better. Just test yourself. Are you able to talk about what you did in the past, about your CV, steps in career without a problem? And if not, yeah. Yeah. Write it down. I think that's to have it there. It's always good. Always good practise. Always good practise. Yeah. And, you know, some people say, oh, well, my plan is to only work for German companies for the rest of my life. I'm not planning to go abroad. What they don't think about is that maybe your company gets taken over by a global company. Could be French, could be American, could be any nationality. And suddenly all the HR stuff is done in English. I've seen that so many times. So even if you're going internally for a new position, they want an English version of your CV to give to the head of HR in Paris or something. Never underestimate when you might, even if you don't want to do it, you might actually need it. And I think that's another good point that people don't always think about that. I think also the more people are coming from out of Germany to Germany to work in companies as well, that the languages are also changing in the companies, aren't they? More and more shifting to English based as well. Yeah, absolutely. So if anybody's interested, you can reach me at my website, RebeccaDeakin.com or I'm on LinkedIn. You can find me on LinkedIn or you can find me through this podcast. Also, I have some spaces at the moment. So if it's on your to-do list, then just, you know, I always give my clients a 15, 20 minute free conversation, consultation in German or in English, I don't mind. And then we can figure out a plan for you. Take it from there. Not to be a Käsebrot, I'll take that out. Yeah, don't be the Käsebrot. Be the three cheese with the salad and the schnapps. It's much more attractive. That's the word for the day. Don't be a cheese bread. Don't be a cheese bread, yeah, don't be the cheese bread. It's a good wrap up, yeah. So this was very interesting today. And next time we're going to look at something we already talked about in one of our earlier episodes, typical mistakes that maybe learners of English make, maybe German learners. And we will have a second part of that because there's so many of them. So there will come some grammar will come into it. And also maybe false friends, something that's rather typical. We all know this. Dave lived a long time in Germany. Sorry, Rebecca has been living here for a long time. I'm sure there will be lots of input for you. Hopefully you will listen to us again. So bye for now. Thanks for listening. Bye. Bye. Thank you so much for pressing play today. If you have any comments, questions, or perhaps suggestions for future episodes, feel free to contact us at our website 3englishexperts.com. Have a great day and see you next time.