CV Clinic with Give A Grad A Go

Harriet and Penelope from Give A Grad A Go joined OxWIB at Jesus College to run a CV clinic. Give A Grad A Go are a recruitment firm who match up graduates with jobs that are right for them. A graduate candidate’s journey with Give A Grad A Go is very straightforward: you register

with them and send in your CV (they receive over 15,000 per month!), and then one of their resourcers will look at your profile and then get in contact to find out more about you and the kind of role and firm you are looking for. They are then able to successfully pair up candidates with employers to get the right role for graduates and the right graduates for the role, and help you prepare for interviews.

Their informative presentation broke the application process down and made it all sound so simple with some really informative tips. They had some great advice on how to structure your CV, different styles of CV you can opt for which work well in different ways, breaking down job descriptions, and writing a good cover letter. They also encouraged us to look up companies we might want to work for on LinkedIn to find out the kind of person who works there, how they got where they are, and who might be interviewing us. At the end of the session, Harriet and Penelope spoke with everyone individually and took a look at our CVs, so we could know what to improve, which was really helpful.

The big message of the session was that it’s all about personality. Give A Grad A Go know their clients very well, and so they focus a lot on the personality and interests of a candidate, to ensure that they would fit in to the culture of the organisation they are applying for. This is great news for both the business and the employee. Harriet and Penelope discussed the usefulness of personal branding, which is easy to enhance if you make effective use of sites like Twitter and LinkedIn. Above all else, you should sell what you have, and so allowing your personality to come through in your cover letter and interview is a great thing.

Check out Give A Grad A Go online https://www.giveagradago.com/graduate-jobs to discover the latest graduate jobs they are advertising and to sign up. You can also email Penelope at penelope@giveagradago.com.