About my experience in drafting CV

Making a CV was an enriching experience for me, as I needed to look into myself and write my skills and abilities creatively in order to grab the attention of prospective employers.  To reflect on this experience, I will use Gibb’s reflective cycle model to structure my reflections in a way that will define the change of my approach as per my learnings and learn from my experiences (Adeani, Ikin Syamsudin, et al. 139). This model will help me develop an accurate idea of my learnings and determine my skills as well as abilities. 

Descriptions: As taking my work to the public is my aspiration, I was excited to take a relevant job to produce my work. For this purpose, I decided to draft my CV and started to look for appropriate formats. At first I submitted a CV to a number of companies with a single resume, but I didn’t get an interview. So I decided to search the internet to find out exactly what information I needed to provide in my CV and what format I needed to create a CV that would help me stand out and get a job offer.  For instance, according to the National Career Service,“Think about how your skills and experience match what the employer is looking for and gather the information you’ll need. You should tailor your CV to suit the job description and the company.” I was very inspired by this. I need  refining my key skills as per the job details, and writing in a form that can represent my perception, and also job details is important.

Feelings: When I saw that my CV had not been selected on the company’s website, I was very depressed. All my friends around me had already received their internship offers. I was very happy for them, but I was also very anxious. I then started to read through the job descriptions of each company I had applied to and revised my CV to suit the different positions. I recognise that I should highlight the exclusiveness to match the job details by thinking beyond the basic skills and information because the degree of match between skills and job responsibilities is significant to get an interview and job offer. For example, when I was assigned to the operation position of Bytedance game short video, the job description of the company mentioned that they needed to study the quality game content of short video platform, be familiar with the tonality of short video operation and game content, have the ability of creative editing, and put forward suggestions for modification and optimization of the finished film. Therefore, In my resume, I mentioned that I love playing games, the length of playing games, the duration of playing games, and the achievements I have made. In addition, my major is broadcast production, and I have my own unique views on video editing.  In all, I was excited, and nervous too, and, after finally drafting it, I was happy with the outcome too.

Evaluation: Drafting a CV was a learning experience as it made me clear about myself, and I get to know that there are many skills I am lacking which is exclusively needed for the job. But it was a good experience since I am still in my learning phase and can develop these skills to increase my employability in the broadcast production field. Here I got to know that relevance of the information and style is the key to drafting a good CV (National Careers Service). This process was a nice learning experience since I got to learn about the visual appeal of CVs too apart from their relevance, but I was very anxious, which can affect my creativity. But, I learned from previous experiences and started to revise my CV as per the job role which helped me to get an offer from Bytedance.

Analysis: In this process, I get to understand that putting precise, and relevant information in a visually pleasing manner is important to make a CV. Earlier, I decided to put my educational background in brief and highlighted more on my work experiences in detail as I believe that it will help employers to know my professional experience at a glance. A CV should have a proper inclusion of skill set, and personal attributes (Queen’s University Belfast). However, I think that this was a wrong decision because highlighting some skills with the help of extracurricular activities can increase my employability prospects and also make the CV look good. Reflecting on these experiences, this was a rich learning experience that would help me prepare an enhanced CV in the future.

Conclusion: In a nutshell, I can conclude this experience was a rich learning experience and did help me to draft a proper CV as per the job descriptions. However, it shed light on my lacking skills and abilities that are particularly needed to grow in my future career. I am sure that I would have drafted a better CV if I was not nervous or gotten tense initially in the process. However, I understood my lacking skills for a career in production, which is good, because now I can develop my skills, and can make a better CV in the future.

Action Plan: As I get to know my weaknesses, which are a lack of critical thinking and problem-solving approaches, I believe that developing these skills would enhance my employability. I have also learned the impact of anxiety on work behavior which is why I would actively participate in stress management with the help of meditation and reading inspirational books. 

In this context, according to Work-Based Learning this module and my research. I am sure that now I can write a creative as well as relevant CV. Therefore, to conclude this blog, I would like to say that CV making process helped me to learn a lot about practical professional skills. As a producer, I need to work under the pressure of TRPs always, and this experience helped me develop a sense of the need to manage stress well. Here, this learning experience was creatively inspiring and helped to improve my employability skills as well.

References:

Adeani, Ikin Syamsudin, et al. “USING GIBBS’ REFLECTIVE CYCLE in MAKING REFLECTIONS of LITERARY ANALYSIS.” Indonesian EFL Journal, vol. 6, no. 2, 2020:139. www.researchgate.net/publication/343599316_Using_GIBBS’_reflective_cycle_in_making_reflections_of_literary_analysis, 10.25134/ieflj.v6i2.3382. Accessed 18 Nov. 2022.

 Queen’s University Belfast. ‌“CV Checklist.” https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/graduate-support/FileStore/Filetoupload,971829,en.pdf. Accessed 22 Nov. 2022

National Careers Service. “How to write a CV.” 2022. https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/careers-advice/cv-sections . Accessed 18 Nov. 2022.