CV, or not CV? How Originality is Discriminated Against

NEW EMPLOYMENT legislation means that from today it is unlawful to discriminate against someone just because they’re a bit wrinkly and can remember the last time Newcastle Utd won anything. Meanwhile, there are already laws to stop employers choosing only white, female, able-bodied lingerie models to work as their secretaries. But there still isn’t any legislation to stop discrimination against people who happen to have a bit more initiative, charisma and originality than the average jobseeker. These people are discriminated against every time they turn to the jobs pages or log on to recruitment websites and find loads of adverts featuring this chilling line: CVs will not be considered.
To me, that is every bit as offensive as Black People Need Not Apply. The humble curriculum vitae is one of the last remaining bastions of individual expression in a world suffocating under the weight of bureaucracy and conformity. And it’s being snuffed out by the relentless proliferation of Human Resources Departments and imbeciles like Dr. Craig Thomson, Principal of the Adam Smith College in Scotland, and Douglas Haines, Director of The English Consortium of Spain, neither of whom is capable of dealing with the cut and thrust of informed debate or opening email attachments. But more of them later.
I’m quite proud of my CV. It gets me an interview nine times out of 10. And it cunningly disguises my lack of academic achievements. So it’s always a bit of surprise – not to mention a jolt to my ego – when a prospective employer refuses to read it, preferring to respond to my beautifully-crafted personal mission statement with Please download an application form from our website instead of The job’s yours. To me, this is a bit like asking Ronaldinho to express himself with a stapler instead of a football.
As you may have gathered, I’m currently unemployed and spend a lot of time reading job adverts. But even those of you with nice, comfortable jobs paying decent wages and providing countless opportunities for sexually-charged encounters with attractive colleagues should be concerned. If workplace mandarins are trying to eradicate CVs today, it might be your ergonomically-designed roller mouse or car parking space tomorrow.

BOLLOCKS

Application forms are supposedly designed to help employers “screen” or “filter” applicants in an accurate and efficient way. Bollocks. Application forms are designed to save time and money. Human Resources staff aren’t bright enough to distinguish the subtle nuances and personality traits contained in a finely-honed CV. To them, originality is not wearing a tie on Fridays. Some of the fuckers can’t even spell CV. So while they’re busy quoting catchphrases from Little Britain at each other all day long, it’s left to specialised filtering software to reject all the application forms that don’t contain certain key words. These key words often include university, gap-year and Freemasons. CVs like mine, that contain words such as shark diving, bull running, nightclub bouncer and stand-up comic don’t stand a chance. University graduates who spent their gap-year travelling through Asia with daddy’s credit card are already nearer to an interview than a sad loser like me who dropped out of sixth-form college and narrowly missed out on a career as a bullfighter by being a bit scared.
And it’s quite disconcerting to discover how employers use exactly the same application form – i.e. with exactly the same questions - for jobs at different ends of the employment spectrum. Here are some real-life examples, plucked from the recruitment section of last Friday’s Scotsman.

• Dundee University is currently advertising for a horticulturist, a payroll manager, a clinical lecturer in general medicine and a part-time nude model for its art classes. Job applicants for all these posts must complete the on-line application form, which is exactly the same for all the jobs. In other words, if you’re applying to flash your bollocks at a classroom of art students, your “academic achievements” are somehow considered just as relevant as if you are applying for the post of clinical lecturer in general medicine.
• Aberdeenshire Council has vacancies for a coffee bar assistant(three hours a week at £5.67 an hour), a roadworker(£291 a week) and communications officer(£29,000 a year). Filling in the council’s application form is compulsory. And guess what? It’s the same form for all the jobs. Somehow, “membership of any professional bodies” is deemed as significant for part-time coffee shop assistants as it is for communications officers.

And about those on-line application forms - here’s Mark Robinson, an employment expert from the Institute of Work Psychology at the University of Sheffield: “There is evidence to suggest that the internet attracts a higher proportion of unsuitable applicants than conventional methods.”
Which brings us on to Dr. Thomson and Mr. Haines. You see, in the interests of balanced journalism and me being desperate for a job, I thought I should put my case to some of the employers who discriminate against us CVers. Maybe they’d be able to persuade me of the merits of application forms. Or not.
First, I applied for the post of Part Time Tourism Lecturer at the Adam Smith College in Fife. I matched all the qualities described in the advert apart from the bit that said “Experience in the travel industry, preferably as an airline cabin attendant, desired.” Hmmm. From serving passengers duty-free perfume to lecturing students on how to get jobs in Scotland’s growing tourism industry – interesting. Anyway, I sent off my CV – which includes photograph, copies of letter of reference and CELTA teaching certificate, plus contact details for referees – with a brief, covering email which, in a crafty attempt to lure the Human Resources Dept into actually opening my CV, contained a few bullet point teasers about my professional achievements, such as:

• Teacher of English as a Foreign Language(with students aged from 8 to 18 in classrooms in England, Spain, Austria and Russia)
• Journalist(Features Editor of the Daily Record, news producer with Granada TV)
• Educational tour director(taking groups of US students around the cultural landmarks of Europe)
• Adventure tour guide(taking groups of backpackers across deserts, down rivers and up mountains in the Middle East)
• TV presenter(assorted late night Five shows)
• Cook(with a Scottish walking holidays company)
• Nightclub bouncer and stand-up comedian in Glasgow(the latter was more scary than the former).

Come on, you’d open my CV after that, wouldn’t you? Well, the Adam Smith College chose not to, sending me “an application pack” instead. So I emailed Principal Dr. Craig Thomson, explaining my aversion to application forms thus:
"They are an insult to my creativity as a writer and communicator. They reduce my skills and traits to a predictable formula of age, gender, 'educational institutions attended' and 'clubs you are a member of'. Filling in an application form, for me, is like trying to squeeze my stellar-shaped achievements into square-shaped holes. Or something like that. I'm actually so intelligent, I can give you all the information you want - and more - in a concise and direct way without needing the help of questions, boxes and instructions such as 'please continue onto a separate sheet of paper if necessary. '
"Somewhere amongst all the corporate propaganda included in the 25-page application pack [you sent] me there is a paragraph about the Adam Smith College "working for and with the business community to provide revolutionary integrated information, communication and skills development solutions." So that apparently includes discarding well-qualified, highly-motivated candidates because they have dared use the obviously highly un-revolutionary solution of sending a well-written, always informative and occasionally entertaining curriculum vitae, does it?
"I wish you well in your recruitment process, but would suggest that, as the Principal of the College, you should ask yourself whether you really are doing everything you can to make sure the students of Fife are getting the best service from you."
Here’s the reply Dr. Thomson emailed me:
Thanks for your email.
The College is committed to fairness and transparency in the appointment of staff and this requires us to follow rather restrictive procedures. Also in our support for learners, we accept that clear, consistent systems must underpin our work.
I firmly believe that observing systems such as these is the key to fulfilling our duty to make most effective use of public funds. Thus we responsibly make space for creativity and professional freedom in the core areas of our work.
Quite frankly, if you can’t fill in an application form, this is not the place for you.
Craig Thomson
That last sentence really stung. It's actually the only sentence I could understand. But I can take consolation in the fact that Craig Thomson, to use his own kind of language, is obviously a membraneous internal linkage between uterus and vulva. Or, in plain English, a cunt.

HORMONE-CRAZED

Next, I saw an advert for a job as an English Language teacher with a company called The English Consortium of Spain at its summer camp near Cadiz. There were more than 100 positions up for grabs. The advert directed you to the company’s website and on-line application form, but I got their email address and fired off my CV(including photo, CELTA teaching certificate, a letter of reference, etc, etc) with a covering note. This was instantly rejected and I was directed to the application form. Out of curiosity, I checked it out. Teaching English to loads of sugar and hormone-crazed foreign kids at a summer camp is an intense and demanding experience. Maybe this application form – and the associated screening process – would reflect this with the types of questions it asked. Maybe it would be some revolutionary new format that would convert me once and for ever to the joys of application forms. But it wasn’t and it didn’t. So, more out of hope than expectation, I sent this email:
"I'm just curious - imagine I was the greatest TEFL teacher in the world - you have my CV, photo, certificate and letter of reference, but insist I have to fill in an application form. What's that all about? :-) "
I got this reply from the “Camp Director”, Douglas Haines:
In regards to the reasons for asking applicants to fill out an application form, this is threefold:
1.) We recruit 130 people and received around 500 filled out applications, plus at least another 500 people sending in c.vs. With this number of applicants it is clearly necessary to filter out applicants through a standard format where applications can easily and quickly be compared.
2.) Summer camp, if you do not already know, is nothing like normal academy teaching and requires skills, and perhaps more importantly, certain personality attributes and attitudes that can usually not be ascertained from the normal c.v..
3.) Because we receive so much interest in our positions, requiring applicants to fill out an application form, and hence "work" to get a position, is a naturally useful filter system for us. Also although you may be "the greatest teacher in the world", from our experience of the type of summer camp work we offer, this is not as important as having the right attitude for the rigors and extreme work load that summer camp throws up (this is what our application procedure aims to detect), as TEFL teaching is not the only part of the job we offer. Therefore we wish to make applicants "work" to get a position with us, hence proving they are not only a very good teacher (or will be this with proper training) but also someone who will maintain a positive attitude to help contribute to positive team sprit and high staff morale which are in many ways the most needed elements of a summer camp team.
If you do not agree with our system of application, I wish you luck in finding other work for the summer.
Yours sincerely, Douglas.
Trying to disguise my hurt at Douglas’s patronising tone(particularly in point 2), I sent this reply:
"Hi Douglas, thanks for your comprehensive reply.
"I understand completely your points about the number of applications you receive each year, but I'm always disappointed that the world is becoming such an homogenised, regimented place that there appears to be no room for individuality any more(especially, and ironically, when "individuality" appears to be one of the key ingredients you are looking for in your summer camp employees).
"My CV is the pinnacle of informative and entertaining writing. As well as giving you all the dry, boring stuff about my academic and professional achievements, it also gives you a true flavour of my personality and non-teaching attributes. I would bet it's an even more accurate gauge of my "human skills" than even the most advanced filtering system would be. I say this because it has successfully opened doors for me not only with summer schools and other teaching jobs, but also in the demanding environments of tabloid newspaper journalism and national TV shows, and the competitive worlds of adventure tourism and catering.
"In the same way some people are anti-Tory or anti-Man Utd, I'm anti-application forms. In my humble opinion, they suck out the essence of a person, and the only reason employers resort to them is because of the avalanche of dull, grey, lifeless CVs that have previously landed on their desks. And because staff are now called "human resources".
"My CV is not dull, grey nor lifeless. I guarantee that even if you still didn't want to offer me a job after reading it, it will have been the most interesting/entertaining thing you read that day."
I never heard from Douglas again. Obviously, he hadn’t felt I had “worked” hard enough to get a position with his company, my finely-crafted CV being interpreted as the whimsical folly of some dangerous eccentric compared with the noble, Herculean effort involved in filling out his on-line application form. He’d clearly sussed me out as someone who would be incapable of maintaining “a positive attitude to help contribute to positive team spirit and high staff morale.” And in view of his attitude towards my CV, he was probably right.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, this is the CV neither he nor Dr. Thomson ever read. I sent it to four other summer schools, and they all subsequently offered me jobs. Now that surely counts as a moral victory over the World of Crap……
WORLD OF CRAP EXTRA! Read about the night British TV Comedy was brutally murdered here!
(C)Jack Havana 2006. Reproduction in part or whole strictly prohibited without Jack's permission.
This week, Jack Havana recommends:
MUSIC:The Great Western, by James Dean Bradfield. The Manics lead singer starts his solo tour this week. Listen to album here.
FILM: My nearest cinema is a 44-mile round-trip, so nothing this week, though a mate of mine's mother thinks Children of Men might be quite good.
BOOK: Bad Cat, by Jim Edgar. Pictures of cats with daft captions. Not for dog-lovers.
CIGAR: Montecristo No. 2. The king of torpedoes.