The CV
The first step to getting a great job is either to ask your powerful papa or prepare a kick-ass Curriculum Vitae (CV). Now if you had a resourceful parent, you would be busy riding his or her coat-tails instead of reading this book. So let’s get to the more practical aspect of preparing CVs.
A CV summarises your supposed skills and accomplishments and is designed to hoodwink prospective employers. You can include your photograph, marital status and vital statistics and call it a biodata; or give it an elegant Westernized touch by adding some accent marks and calling it a résumé. Irrespective, this brag sheet is nothing but your to-do list from the past—things that you should have accomplished in previous jobs but didn’t. But the future always holds hope so go ahead and inflate your achievements, using the helpful hints on this page, and pray that you get the interview call.
| YOUR NAME |
| Contact details including a professional email ID; cutedimples1981@something.com is not advisable Objective: Explain why you want to waste the next few years working in the hopeless company that you have applied to. Education: Schools and colleges you have attended • List your degrees. Chances are that no one might’ve heard of the academic institutions you attended. So, tour the Harvard campus at some point in your life and position it as an executive MBA on your CV. • Rephrase bad grades—‘Consistently ranked in the top four quartiles’ sounds much better than ‘came last in class’. Experience: Your Jobs • List all the jobs you have held and a few bullets on your responsibilities and supposed achievements in each role. Start each bullet with an action verb: { Led some people in doing something { Founded some society to support something { Spearheaded some initiative to achieve something • Imply that the company’s success was thanks to your awesome contributions. { My expertise in geology helped me collect, analyze and overlay the ideal combination of rock and construction materials across a variety of multilane infrastructural projects in the Greater Mumbai catchment area. (I drove bulldozers) • Pad long gaps in your CV with fictitious internships and projects done for friends and family. Skills: • Anything that you can do can count as a special skill. • Know how to answer the phone? Great oral communication. • Able to read this sentence and partly understand what I am saying? Excellent comprehension. • Own a watch? Extremely punctual. • Use Microsoft Office? Expert in a range of productivity-enhancing software. • Addicted to Snapchat? Extremely reliable and discreet professional. Other Interests: • List anything that can spark off a conversation. Mention your hobby of collecting navel fluff and be prepared to talk about it at length. References: AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST • Give names of some close friends and family members. Brief them on what they need to say if they are called and do a few dry runs. • Feel free to list me as a reference; I have no doubt whatsoever that after reading this book, you will do the corporate world proud. |
The Interview
An interview is essentially an opportunity for potential employers to evaluate whether you can lie as effectively in person as you do on paper. Don’t let them down.
You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. People take less than a minute to form their views and simply spend the rest of the time validating their initial instinct. So don’t mess it up. A firm handshake is critical and start extending your right hand as you walk in, lifting it a few degrees with each stride. Pace yourself such that it is perpendicular to your torso by the time you reach the interviewer. Grasp his hand, which is hopefully outstretched as well, and shake it firmly. In case he’s oblivious to your friendly intentions, don’t look silly with your extended palm and quickly raise it to brush imaginary gook off your hair, as if that was your original intent.
During the interrogation, you need to offer hope that you can accomplish whatever you have listed on your CV and they should be grinning with delight at your claims. Give yourself a point for each ‘Ooooh’ or ‘Aaaah’ that you can elicit from your interviewer and deduct a point for every eye roll. End with a positive score.
Many interviewers will judge you through behavioural questions that probe your past experiences to determine future reactions. Share an example of an important goal that you set and achieved or provide an example of the biggest risk you have taken—that sort of pretentious hooey. To prepare, you only need to be ready with about six stories, preferably true but in your case probably fictional.
Excerpted with permission from “Job Be Damned: Work Less. Career Success.” by Rishi Piparaiya, published by HarperCollins India.