Musings from Captain CV

10000 Up!

2011-09-04T01:15:00.000-07:00

Thanks to your continued support, we recently passed the 10000th visitor milestone. Given that we are obsessed with finding out more about you here are some facts about our loyal customers..

- 33% of you use a Mac. 62% use a PC. 5% of you use a tablet or phone to access our site.
- You spend an average of 7 minutes on our site and view 4 pages.
- You come from 83 different countries. The top 5 countries of origin are UK, US, Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong.
- In the last 3 months we had first time visitors from Colombia, Panama, Slovenia, Macau and the Turks/Caicos Islands. We hope to grow these regions in 2012!
- 30% of your visits originate from Facebook. 24% of your visits originate from a Google search on terms such as CV writing, CV expert and CV service.

Can you guess where our 10000th visitor came from? A free CV check for the first person to answer correctly....!

Excellent Infographic on Creating your CV

2011-07-11T21:07:00.000-07:00

http://mashable.com/2011/07/10/digital-resume/

Writing a resume is such a nebulous activity these days. You have to figure out which type of online resumeformat is best for you, whether to include a cover letter, how to incorporate social media into your resume, if avideo resume is a good idea and what you should include on your LinkedIn profile. Above all that, to get the job, you need to beat out all the other creative digital peeps who are producing dynamic digital resumes. Phew — that’s a lot of work!We’re always finding new resources to help you on your journey to perfecting your digital resume, and we happened across this nifty infographic by the team at Colorado Technical University, which includes tips on creating a digital resume, as well as tips for sprucing up your traditional resume, for potential employers who still like the smell of top-linen paper.

Infographic: http://mashable.com/2011/07/10/digital-resume/

You can do it too!

2011-06-05T23:25:00.000-07:00

Many of you have asked how we got started and how we continue to grow. The presentation above shows you how we use cost-effective measures to grow our user base and keep prices low for you. Please share your start-up stories and any learnings that you get!

A new take on the CV

2011-05-31T10:28:00.000-07:00

SCALE SCALE SCALE...!

2011-05-30T07:49:00.000-07:00

Dear Users - hope your jobhunting goes well. As we move into summer, maybe you are thinking about your internship plans or making the next big move?

We at Captain CV are also thinking about the next big move. We have invested significant time and energy in expanding our operations this year to help more great people in more great countries to find more great jobs.

We have managed to get more CV experts on board to help you write the perfect CV, draft the perfect cover letter and be ready to deliver effective interviews. Many of our CV coaches are current or former MBA students and have enjoyed career success. They are our biggest asset and are passionate about helping you achieve your career goals and help you design a route to success.

As ever, we are really keen to hear your opinions about our service. Is there a service you wish we offered? Is there a particular jobs search skill that you need help with? Contact us via our website to meet us today!

Where our customers come from...

2011-04-28T10:39:00.001-07:00

Ranked by Google Analytics data - page views: Jan09 - May11

Our Pricing reflects your Career Journey

2011-03-28T22:18:00.000-07:00

Today we made some pricing changes based on your feedback about our service. Many of you suggested that your career journey follows a pretty regular pattern...

1. You find a role you like and need to put together a CV
2. You decide to apply and need to write a cover letter and get some interview practice.
3. You decide to ensure that your online profile is ready to be viewed by recruiters and there are no embarrassing weekend photos left on your profile.

After flying in your new role for a few years you decide to turbocharge your career. You know that you need to invest in development to really excel....

4. You decide to apply for a postgraduate or masters course and need help to review your application essays.
5. You decide to find a mentor to bounce ideas off and form a success plan.

To reflect this career journey, we have simplified our pricing system. We have also added a career counselling service that is open to anyone from a recent graduate through to a senior executive. A good career counsellor needs to be able to listen and offer objective advice to specific problems. We have been developing this ability over the last few years and are now ready to share this service with you!

Website Revamp based on your Feedback!

2011-02-14T06:54:00.000-08:00

After collecting feedback from our users over the last 3 months, we recently undertook our biggest website revamp since we started operations. We wanted to share a short summary of the changes below.
Thanks for your honest feedback and please keep it coming - we want our website and service to help you great people get great jobs!

Key Changes

1. Provision of website and information in more languages
- French, Spanish and Portuguese added.
- Arabic, German, Hebrew and Russian to follow.
- Horizontal navigation bar added to allow quick transition between language content.

2. Cleaner user interface
- Extra content cleared from vertical sidebar menu
- All website material appears "above the fold"
- Quicker page loading times
- Increased consistency across page design and layout

3. Addition of new services
- "Managing your profile online" - ensure that your Facebook/LinkedIn/MySpace pages help to attract recruiters rather than scare them away!

Managing your Online Profile

2011-02-07T07:31:00.000-08:00

At a recent conference, I heard a number of HR and recruiting professionals mention the importance of managing your online profile. It is now very commonplace for recruiters to look at your LinkedIn/Facebook/Twitter/Blogger profile before you have even stepped into the building for your first interview.

The consequence of this is twofold....

1. It is vital to proactively manage your online profile or brand. Be sure to keep your social network profile pictures respectable when you are interviewing for jobs and make sure your prospective new employer would not be offended by anything you have written on Twitter or on a personal blog.

2. Make your online profile work favours for you. If you keep a blog or linkedin profile, use it to show your enthusiasm for your chosen career path or for the products that your prospective employer creates.

Today we launched a new service called "Managing your online profile". The aim of the service is to simulate the online profile checks that a recruiter will take when you are called to interview. In our tests we helped clients to increase the privacy settings on their social network profiles and to use their online presence effectively. Feel free to contact us today if you are currently applying for jobs and feel you could benefit from our advice!

5000 Up!

2011-02-01T07:08:00.000-08:00

Hello All - we had our 5000th viewer today and are delighted to see continued growth in the number of visitors to our site. We wanted to share some stats with you about who is using the site....

- We have had visitors from 67 countries. Our 3 biggest markets are currently the UK, US and Japan. We have also had <5 visitors from each of Costa Rica, Maldives, Slovenia, Syria, Indonesia, Kuwait, Egypt and Serbia to name a few.
- 35% of our visitors used Google Chrome vs 29% who used Internet Explorer and 28% who used Firefox.
- 71% of our visitors used PCs and 24% used Macs. 4% used a mobie device or a tablet.
- Users spend an average of around 4 minutes on the site.

Thanks for your continued support - we appreciate your loyalty!

Recruiter.com: School leavers need to be better prepared

2010-12-19T15:59:00.000-08:00

http://www.recruiter.co.uk/school-leavers-need-to-be-better-prepared/1007871.article

More needs to be done to help school leavers gain the skills and confidence to land a new job, according to Chris Melvin, chief executive of Reed in Partnership

Melvin’s comments follow the trialling of a new model developed by Reed in Partnership at the West London Academy, which has shown that by engaging with schools employers and training providers can improve skills among sixth formers. Reed in Partnership says the basic interview training and CV workshops helped to boost confidence and improve understanding of what prospective employers expect.

Melvin says: “With the rate of jobless graduates hitting an all time high it is clear that in many cases experience, not education, is the main barrier to employment. Our experience of working with young people shows that more needs to be done to help school pupils develop the skills and confidence needed to secure a job. By rolling this model out across the UK, businesses and third sector partners can play an important role in helping the hardest to reach determine their own futures. This isn’t about additional funding from government but about using existing resources in a way that can better achieve real results for young people.”

Make 2011 the year you find your perfect job!

2010-11-22T17:57:00.001-08:00

Thank you for your support over 2010 - it has been a great year. From our small UK launch in February, we have now had 32000 website visitors from over 61 countries. We would never have guessed that we had a captive audience in Algeria, Panama, Kuwait, Hong Kong or Azerbaijan!

We hope that you have been delighted if you have used our service. We would be grateful if you could take 2 minutes to encourage your friends to "like" our fanpage and to check out our site at www.captain-cv.com

As a sign of our gratitude for your ongoing support, we want to offer you a 10% referral fee for any business that you send our way before the end of 2010. You could get £25 if you refer a friend who has a full CV and cover letter revamp. That is your grandmas christmas present paid for!

Encourage your friends to kick off their winter blues and put their energy into improving their CV and securing their dream job in 2011!

BBC Article: Graduate unemployment 'at a 17-year high'

2010-11-01T11:40:00.000-07:00

Graduate unemployment has risen to its highest level for 17 years, research suggests.
A study of the graduate class of 2009 found that 8.9% were out of work in January 2010, the Higher Education Careers Services Unit said.
The last time graduate unemployment hit this level was in 1993, it added.
The National Union of Students said the bleak prospects for graduates underlined how "unfair and illogical" the plans to raise tuition fees were.

Full story: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11652845

BBC Article: Graduates going to great lengths to get ahead

2010-09-05T09:06:00.000-07:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11091042

"How far would you go to improve your CV and your employment prospects in today's tough jobs market?

With 69 applications for every graduate job, there's rarely been a tougher time for young people to be looking for work.
Increasingly, the name of the game is making yourselves stand out from the crowd"

The tipping point?

2010-06-14T07:13:00.000-07:00

The last week has been exciting. Customer acquisition has been growing since day 1 at a manageable rate. The last 2 weeks have shown a step change in the number of people interested in working with Captain CV.
On a month-on-month basis, customer acquistion has grown 55% in the period between May and June. I have listed some possible reasons why but please feel free to add your own ideas!

1. Seasonality - People are graduating or loooking to their new pursuit as Spetember approaches. New direction = new branding = revamped CV.
2. Viral - Satisified customers tell their friends about our service. They then tell their friends. The power of the network delivers customers.
3. Great ambassadors - We have put more effort into using people we trust to promote our services in expat networks, professional gorups and university campuses.

For our Chinese Viewers: Captain-CV.com: 专业的简历帮助

2010-05-18T17:08:00.001-07:00

简历样本很多，但是如果只是抄袭其他简历，有多少能吸引雇主注意？最有效的简历必须按照不同应聘工作而修改。在竞争激烈的应聘环境中，拥有影响力的简历是找工作最重要的第一步。

Captain CV拥有经验丰富的人员，并且与英国各业界的人事部均有广泛的合作网络。因此我们能够有效地截取您的优势并呈现在您的简历当中。关于如何准备简历的任何疑问，请联系我们。

For our Japanese Viewers: エキスパートがあなたのCV作りをお手伝いします！！

2010-05-16T15:32:00.001-07:00

多くのCVのサンプルはありますが、ただコピーするだけで、本当に採用者の目を引くCVが作れるのでしょうか。

募集している職業によって、一番効果的なCVは変わってきます。競争率の高い職探しには、インパクトのあるCVを作る事が、仕事への大事な第一歩です。

経験豊富で、イギリスの各業界の人事部に幅広いネットワークもつCaptain CVのスタッフが、あなたの良さをCVに余すことなく、効果的に反映させるお手伝いします。

CV作りでお困りの方は、お気軽にお問い合わせください。
Facebookのページにも是非お立ち寄りください。

Economic gloom is failing to dampen the career ambitions of the UK’s graduate population

2010-05-16T02:59:00.000-07:00

http://www.agr.org.uk/content/Economic-gloom-is-failing-to-dampen-the-career-ambitions-of-the-UKs-graduate-population

According to new research from The Student Room, the UK’s leading student social networking site, graduates’ and current university students’ sense of determination is reflected in the fact that eight out of 10 (83 per cent) are convinced that they will eventually work in their preferred career, and are prepared to take several steps to get there.

And they are unwavering in their resolve, with a majority (56 per cent) of those in work proactively choosing their current job because it offers a boost that will pave their way to their preferred career.

Ambitious graduates are committed to getting the most out of staging post jobs to hone their skills (40 per cent), gain the experience they need for their chosen career (32 per cent) or to get their foot in the door (21 per cent) to their ideal job.

Obsessed with getting to know you

2010-04-05T16:11:00.000-07:00

Here at Captain-CV.com, we are obsessed with data and listening to the needs of you and the others like you who use our service. Some stats about our website and the people who use it:

- 3200 page views in 12 weeks
- Visitors from 43 countries (from as far a field as Peru, Vietnam, Jordan and Morocco!)
- The average user spends 2 mins and 46 seconds browsing the site before arranging a meeting
- 8% of all visits have come from Smartphones
- A large proportion of visitors used the keyword "cv writing" on a search engine to get to the page

Do get in touch if you have suggestions as to how we can better serve you!

Mission Statement?

2010-03-28T15:47:00.000-07:00

A friend asked if we have a mission statement. I told him that we did not.

We want to find out about you, your story, your interests and the picture you want to paint of yourself to prospective employers. We do this by giving you our undivided attention and by helping you present your story and your talents in the most effective way.

Instead of a convoluted mission statement, we maintain a very simple mantra:
"Help great people to find great jobs"

8 Weeks In

2010-03-28T14:52:00.000-07:00

Hello All,
When we first came up with the idea of a CV service for graduates, we were driven by our own experiences of graduate job-hunting. A few things stuck out:

1. No-one actually ever teaches you how to write a CV
2. No-one helps you understand how important a good CV is

We believe that university careers services do a great job in helping you become aware of opportunities. They do however struggle to find the resources required to sit down with individuals and help them put their impressive stories into a format that will make an impact with prospective employees.

In the last 8 weeks, we have spoken to many of you about what the ideal CV service should offer. Thanks for your input so far and please continue to help us provide the services that talented job-seekers require!

Happy Easter,
Captain CV