Can’t bear writing your CV?

I did a search on Google for some stats on the percentage of people who can’t bear writing their CV, but couldn’t find anything much, though as a Recruiter of 15+ years can confidently say 99.9% of people do not enjoy or have some level of aversion towards writing or updating their CV. Yes, we may have to do this for jobhunting purposes but if we didn’t need to, most of us would opt not to do so.

How come?

CVs effectively display one's entire life and its movement on paper which 99.9% of people

a. don't consciously realise and also b. don't want to see either, hence why there is always such resistance in writing a CV, or we avoid having to do one and get someone else to write it so we don’t have to.

But don’t have to what exactly?

Be responsible, yes. Though be responsible for what?

Writing a CV is for most of us is confronting, because everything is seen, all the moves, choices, potential, lost potential, successes, even attitudes, commitment levels, work ethic, self-worth, value and so on. They make us see the past … but they also reveal a future which is unfolding right now so it’s really our present moment. CVs require continual adjustments since life and our learning in it continually adjusts too which makes sense.

CVs either confirm where you're at, it is current, up to date, a reflection of where you’re at in full and -

1. You like this; it is a true measure. In my recruiting experience, this is not the case for 99.9% of us. OR -

2. You don't like it, because -

A. Either it's not a true marker of where you are currently i.e. you’ve been making definite strides, shining, and effectively are “ahead” yet the CV is “behind” in lag mode. Typically the CV has been written years ago and back in the energy of the time of writing and so it’s not reflecting the fact you’ve moved on from an energy sense or perspective.

To re-write a CV is typically a liked or wanted process as it’s confirming the greatness of what we can feel there inside us and are ready to convey all this on paper. However! There can also be times though when re-writing the CV is not liked, even avoided because amidst that greatness there may be some attached nostalgia, grievance, regret, bad experience or job loss for example. Yet equally there can also be a level of resistance to claiming, owning and appreciating the greatness of where you’re truly at.

That we have an issue with accepting our true greatness at work is worth a reflective pause.

B. It’s showing exactly where you’re at conveying you haven’t moved on OR that you have moved on in part though perhaps are still in some level of delay or holding pattern. The CV is often an effort or hard to write because we don’t really want to see, feel or accept this occurring aspect. Though beginning to be honest about this through starting the process of re-writing your CV can offer the biggest learning, evolution and healing. Because it can help knock out for example any poor habits, attitudes, beliefs, work ethic or commitment issues that keep you stuck or not clear in your (career) focus.

Mostly, people sit in this (b) section, there is much work to be done. Though I find many are in varying levels of both sections (a) and (b).

Whichever way we look at this and wherever we might sit in the above, CVs show the great “issue” of confirming ourselves, for example -

• Confirming where we’re at - either from a good or not so good place too, a sobering time of realising/realisation, or a time of appreciating

• Confirming where we’re no longer at and have moved on from, a joyous time

• Confirming where we’re not at and can feel our own lag, lost or unused potential, there may be a loss of confidence, set back, poor job choice, where re-writing or updating the CV prompts us to get a move on, to ignite things, start making different and new choices that work for us personally, a self-marking time of confrontation yet equally great learning

• Confirming where we’re not at and never were, as per the case of CV inflation though and where re-writing can be the most deconstructing, levelling, accepting and humbling process well worth it.

CVs detail our evolving in life inescapably showing and reflecting the quality of how we’ve personally been living, working and relating in life. And so writing one can be a sobering yet equally an enriching even therapeutic process.

Why I love and enjoy working with CVs is because aside as being a necessary jobhunting tool or for recruiters like myself to utilise to get someone a new job, career, promotion, CVs ultimately allow for the mechanics of sight, deeper understanding and the possibility for us to know our own future direction in work, our whole-life, and the specific part and path we are to now take given this.

This all means what is reflected in the CV is but a mirror of us, and all of us - for there is never a time whenever I might co-write another person’s CV that it speaks to a part of myself at work that’s worth look at too.