9. All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy (Part 1)

During my undergraduate studies, I only joined few societies during my first year. Starting second year, lessons getting tough and tougher and I spent most of my time studying in library. Little did I know how important joining sports/students club or societies was until I started writing my CV in my third year. I struggled a lot as I did not have any interesting story to describe my initiative, leadership and teamwork skills and even worst, my interest in finance.

Let me show you what my CV looked like back then.

Yes ! I heard you, it's horrible ! Even the present-I would not hire the past-me based on the CV for the following reasons:

1. The font-size for his name is bloody small, I definite won't remember his name if I have to glance through lots of CV.
2. Look at the white spaces between his details and his Career Objective, this guy definitely did not know how utilize resource fully - very inefficient.
3. Career objective ? What is that ? and what the hell did he write there? Junior Analyst ? That is a rank in a hierarchy ! I think this guy had no idea what he wanted to do.
4. Look at his education details. BSc. Mathematics and Economics.. major in Mathematics and Economics, thanks for the info Captain Obvious !
5. What is that SIM PEARLS ? The name is fancy.. Hm.. so what if you have completed that programme ? Does that mean you have excellent communication skill ? Leadership skill ? I don't think so...
6. "An active member of SIM - YEN bla bla as project manager and marketing executive bla bla" So what did he do ? Did he contribute something to the project?
7. Typing 63 words per minute ? He said he wanted to be junior analyst something and then he wanted to be a typist..
8. Of course we use powerpoint for presentation and word for document creation, thanks again Captain Obvious !

I can still come up with lots of insults toward the past-me's CV but I think you should get my point. 

The funny thing is that, after I came back from London and looked at my friends (also UOL graduates)' CV, they still have the same format and lousiness. Now, I understand why that is the case. The reason is that we did not have decent training in job search. Most CV examples that you find on internet are crappy. The CV writing seminar that we attended was crappy too. Everyone has a lousy CV and hence we do not know what a good one looks like. This is not really a surprise because writing a good CV is quite difficult.

The moral of this story is that I do not want you guys to repeat the same mistake that I did. Start planning your "story" so that you can land on your dream job easily after you graduate. Start writing your CV as soon as possible, do not wait until year 3 because you will need it to apply for internship during year 1 and 2. If you are UOL student and studying under an institution, chances are that your institution does not have good career service which is understandable because, honestly, only top schools that invest a lot in their careers service since that's what most students are after aside from schools' reputation. Anyway, do not worry, I will share you what I have learned so far from LSE Careers Service.

Let's get back to post "Regret Always Come Late". That job vacancy that I posted was one of many vacancies that I often found on the LSE careers service website. Those requirements are common and expected from fresh graduates who want to work for any decent company.

Since you have studying very hard and smart and also have taken my study tips seriously, let's assume that you are going to graduate with First Class Honours (aren't you ?). So, we can tick out point one and let's move on to point two. 

Imagine you are a recruitment manager and you have 2 CVs in front of you. One candidate claims that he has excellent initiative, leadership, and teamwork skills and another one shows those qualities through her extracurricular activities, which one do you believe? Clearly actions speak louder than words.

I used to think that student clubs and societies were waste of time. Students should spend most of their time studying in the library rather than organising stupid events and competitions. Well, what can I say ? I was young and naive back then.

If you are working and studying part time then do not worry because your prospective employer will not ask you about this "silly" stuff. However, if you are studying full time with an institution, then it is important that you join some student clubs or societies because you need those extra curricular activities to fill in your CV later on (in fact you will need this too when you are applying for scholarships that require you to be all-round). Don't be an anti-social student who go home straight away after lectures.

So, how can you demonstrate those so-called desired qualities through your extra curricular activities ? We will find that out next week !

Now, you should know that blogging is not easy. I do hope that my blog benefits lots of people. There are about 50 visits to this blog everyday and I want to make sure it's 50 people not just 2 freak visiting my blog 25 times a day. This is what I am going to do. I have a friend who is an LSE undergraduate and she got a summer internship with Goldman Sachs. It was very difficult for me to ask for her CV but then I got it in the end. In fact, I promised her that I will not share her CV with ANYONE! Now, I will probably break that promise (she is not going to find out anyway since GS is screwing her 20 hours everyday). In the end of "All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy" series, I will post her CV as model for all of you to follow PROVIDED that I get 50 comments from 50 different people on this blog post, saying "Hell yeah! Please share her CV with us !"

Do not cheat by posting more than 1 comment, because I can see your IP address ! See you next week (hopefully) !