How to be CV Savvy - from Agenda Resource Management

Getting a CV up to scratch is an important part of job hunting. Not only is it the first hurdle of the process, it is also the key factor in attracting an employer’s attention. So, what should it contain?

Despite what many career websites say, there is no ’perfect’ template. Different sectors may require a different emphasis on a different aspect of the content. It is all dependent on the particular role you’re applying for. For example, a practical role would require an emphasis on career history but a candidate applying for an academic role would highlight their gained qualifications.
However, experts suggest all candidates should follow these basic rules when creating a CV:

1.       Type it up

Employers will expect you to word process your CV. This is a much neater way of presenting your work and generally looks a lot more professional.

2.       Keep it short

Preferably no more than two sides of A4. Your CV should be clear and concise, stressing both achievements and strengths.

3.        The basic format for a CV includes:

·         ­ Personal details: including name, address, phone number, and email address. If you have a relevant online blog, don’t forget to add the URL. You no longer need to include your date of birth, owing to age discrimination rules.

·         ­ Career history: record your most recent job first. Include dates and temporary or voluntary jobs if and where appropriate.

·         ­ A personal profile which sells you and your qualities, tailored towards the job you are applying for. You should also include a covering letter.

·         ­ Achievements from previous jobs that are relevant and which highlight your strengths.

·         ­ Qualifications and training from previous jobs, with the most recent first.

·         ­ Interests if they are relevant and especially if the skills or teamwork concerned are relevant for the job.

·         ­ Any extra information, such as reasons for a career change or reasons for gaps in career history, such as caring duties or long term travels.

·         References: ideally two or more and including a recent employer.

Make sure that you keep font and formatting basic. Fancy font and tables can hinder your CV by taking the attention away from your achievements and qualifications.

4.         How do you avoid making mistakes on your CV?

Most employers will agree that poor spelling is one of the quickest and sure-fire ways of getting rejected from a role. It may seem unfair, particularly if you are a bad speller, but these costly mistakes can be avoided.

Why not ask a friend or relative who is a competent speller, to check over your work for you? This way, you can be sure that you haven’t made any mistakes and you will feel a little more confident once you’ve hit ‘send’. At Agenda, we offer a free CV review service, so why not ask an expert to cast an eye over your CV. Check out our website for a free CV review: http://www.agendalifesciences.com/cv-review

5.        How do you adjust your CV to suit  that particular role?

According to career buffs, you should search the internet for inspiration. Find adverts for similar roles and work your CV around them. This doesn’t mean that you should do a ‘copy and paste job’ because the likelihood is; the employers have seen this kind of thing before and binned CVs because of it. Just doing your research is always going to stand you in good stead - be it for your CV, your interview and your general knowledge.

For advice about roles within life sciences and animal research, contact Agenda Resource Management on 08456 44 55 45, or email us at jobs@agenda-rm.co.uk.

Our two Norwegian student bloggers give their perspective on their course - BSc (Hons) Animal Science!

Last time we discussed which student events to attend, now we will tell you a bit about what we are doing on a daily basis. As we have mentioned earlier we study Animal Science. There are many doors that are open in the animal industry after getting a degree in Animal Science and we both have different aspirations on what we will use our degree for.

Gerbil in the Titchmarsh Centre

In the first year of the course a lot of practical work is done, which will come handy later on in life, especially if you are looking at a career where you will do a lot of hands-on work, like working in a zoo or as a vet. This was one of the reasons we chose to study at Writtle College.






The most exciting module of the first year was Mammalian Anatomy and Physiology and the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology.



When we had lab sessions we had so much fun, we had dissections on every lab practical, which we personally think is when you learn the most. We both thought that we would be disgusted by the dissections as you get to look at some quite nasty stuff, but it is way more exciting than disgusting and makes up for it. If you want to work as a scientist later on in life the lab sessions are very important and would come in handy, also in the veterinarian profession as we study reproductive system, nervous system, digestive system and so on.  

Dissections are fun!



We are both very happy that we chose Writtle College because the academic experience at Writtle is very good! Not to mention our lecturers, they are very knowledgeable and that is something we admire. We think they are easy to talk to and you can have a laugh with them occasionally, which makes the university experience so much better.

 

 

As we study Animal Science and not Animal Management, as you expect we have modules which are science related such as Biochemistry in the first year and Animal Health Science and Reproduction and Genetics in the second year. They can be a bit challenging but they are also a lot of fun and very interesting. Take Reproduction and Genetics as an example, we learn about Mendel and the pea plant which is recap for a lot of people who have done biology before, but when we take that to the next level and start to look at several traits that are inheritable, it becomes very interesting and fun to do. 

We are both looking forward to next year, our last and final year of our degree. It is exciting and scary at the same time, especially thinking about our dissertation. Luckily, we both have found something we want to write about and hopefully we will get our data collected over the summer so that the next year might be a bit easier. 

Thank you for reading and I hope you liked what we had to say!

Bye for now, from Anne-Marthe & Serine

More information on our BSc (Hons) Animal Science and Animal Management courses

 

Social events not to miss when you study at Writtle College!

In their second blog, our Norwegian students, Serine and Anne-Marthe, tell you the best social events to go to on campus! You can read their first blog here!

Now that you all know a bit about us and our journey towards being students at Writtle College, we will introduce you to the events during the year worth joining.

The Baa Nights

Students on campus

This is our student bar on campus which always has an event every Monday. These are usually themed nights with a huge variation from Army Night, Come as your Course, ABC anything but clothes (cheeky), Halloween Night, Karaoke Night and Movember. This varies from year to year depending on the Students' Union (SU) and the Social Officers who are elected every year.

At The Baa

 



At The Baa

Moulshams 11

Anne-Marthe and Serine

This is the major RAG (raise and give) event of the year. It is a bar crawl with 11 bars included. All the money raised goes to a charity. We start at The Baa and end the whole route with Evoke, where you should wear your dancing shoes because this is one of the largest dancing floors in Chelmsford. The club is only open for Writtle students as this event usually is held on a Monday; many previous students also join in because this is a big event of the year.

Evoke nightclub

Evoke nightclub

 







The three main Balls:

Photo Booth at the Freshers' Ball



Photo booth fun

Anne-Marthe and Serine at the Freshers' Ball

Freshers' Ball is the first one of the year; you could say this is the most influential one. This is where you are new, everything is new and you have the greatest night with friends you have just met. As you all might know this is the end of Freshers' Week where you have had many other different events, so of course the week should end with a big bang! A lot of effort is put into these big events and therefore they are a bit more special than the others. They offer a photo booth and this year the theme of the ball was silver.

Snow Ball

The next big event is the Christmas Ball. As of now you are more than just acquaintances with your friends, you have had a semester together and know each other hopefully very well. This is usually not a themed night. Different from the Fresher`s Ball it usually has a guest DJ who is quite famous. This year we had Radio 1 star Matt Edmondson and Tom Parker (The Wanted) as the supporting act. If you are a person that loves to dance then this is the place for you, a lot of good music and the atmosphere is top notch.

Photo booth at The Snow Ball

Getting ready for the Snow Ball

The last but very best happening of the year is the Summer Ball. Everybody is happy (hopefully) because the year is over and the summer break is closing in. The exam pressure is off our shoulders and it`s time to celebrate what you have achieved during the year. You can feel the warm breeze, and now it`s time to be social with your best friends. You have now became so close and you know your friends' routines in your sleep. This is one of the happenings that usually old students join in, so this easily becomes the major happening. This event provides you with professional photographer, fair and as well as a famous DJ, last year it was Chris Stark. 

Serine and Anne-Marthe ready for The Summer Ball

Thanks for reading, next time we will tell you a bit about the course we are studying.
Serine and Anne-Marthe

Written by Serine and Anne-Marthe, both studying BSc (Hons) Animal Science at Writtle College.

An international student? Study with us!
Writtle College Open Days

From Norway to Writtle - an international student experience!

Two Norwegian students, Anne-Marthe and Serine, have been keeping a blog of their student experience since arriving at Writtle. Here, they capture their own journey of how they chose Writtle College and settled into life in England!

From Norway to Writtle!

"Hi, my name is Anne-Marthe Brautaset and I am 23-years-old. I am from a small town in Norway which is known for their fish export called Ålesund. Before I came to Writtle I studied Interior Design and have a degree as an Interior consultant, after that I had to get higher education entrance qualifications to be able to apply for a university. I had two gap years after becoming an interior consultant and went travelling a bit to experience the world before I decided what to study at Uni. I was unsure about what I wanted to study, I decided quite fast that I did not want to work with interior. 

Since I was a little girl animals have been a really big passion of mine, and therefore my choice became easy. I have owned several cats and a dog, horse and guinea pig, as well as working in a pet shop for 6 years. I am a very curious and adventurous person by nature and wanted to study abroad, my choices were many and suddenly it was hard to choose. But as I started to read about the course Animal Science I found out this is something for me. In Norway we don`t have the same course, and the animal courses are very limited. Since I was quite sure that I don`t want to study to become a veterinarian I still have the opportunity later in life by studying Animal Science if I change my mind.

Once I made my decision and all the papers was ready to forward to my contact person through Across the Pond, which is a Norwegian agency helping people to study abroad. I applied for a few other universities as well and got accepted to three of them. Then it suddenly became hard, I had to do some research to find out which of the universities that would fit my purpose best. So my choices were between a really nice university next to a beautiful beach, but did not have much practical work in the Animal Science course, as well as being far away from London which then made it harder for me to get back home to Norway during holidays. And then it was Writtle, beautiful campus with a lot of opportunities to get practical work, very close to London and was an Agriculture university. I made my choice to become a student at Writtle College. 

I was lucky enough to have parents that wanted to support me as much as they could and wanted to follow me at my first time at Writtle College. I was so excited, I had never seen the campus before or the area close by. I did not have the opportunity to go to a open day at Writtle and therefore everything was new and exciting as well as scary. I did not know anyone else that was studying at the college or the same course as me. I chose to stay in a hotel with my parents the first days so I could see my room and then plan what I needed to buy.

The first day

This day was the introduction day where you could pick up your keys and sign up for the Writtle surgery and buy a wrist band for freshers' week. When I arrived to pick up my key there was a really polite and smiling girl that asked if I wanted a tour around campus, I could of course not decline to that kind offer and she showed me around the grounds and Strutt - the building that I was going to live in the first year. A few minutes later we found out that this girl was Norwegian, and suddenly I felt a bit more home. She was taking care of me the first few days at freshers' week and helped me make some relations.

The induction of the course

Thursday of freshers' week we had our induction of the course, I was all alone and did not know anyone yet that was going to be in my course. I am not a shy person so it was not a very big problem, but when you are alone in a big crowd you will become a bit unsure whether you are shy or not. I had my notebook ready to make notes, I was excited of how this year would be. This was going to be my home for the next three years, without any known people and close relations nearby. Therefore, it was really important to make relations as fast as I could. But suddenly between all the talking of the crowd waiting for our lecturers to show up, I could recognise a familiar sound. Two people talking, and they were both Norwegian. I turned around and asked; “are you guys Norwegians as well?” they both were very polite and started talking to me, they came down and sat next to me. I did not know that one of those two was going to be my closest and dearest friend by now."

"Hi, my name is Serine Hansen and I'm from the island Nøtterøy, that is outside Norway's oldest city Tønsberg. In Norway I studied the higher education entrance qualification with science (studiekompetanse med realfag) before coming to Writtle. I have always loved animals and known it’s what I want to work with. And for a while I was set on going to vet school, but the more I learned about the animal business world, the less sure I was that vet school was the right decision for me. During my exchange year as a student in California and lived with a family where the mom was a vet. They had 17 animals, cats, dogs, birds, rabbits, fish and a rat. I learned so much during this year and from the family and also from volunteering at a local animal shelter. After this year I started looking more in to vet school mostly in eastern Europe, but one day an agency called Across the Pond came to the school. They were promoting different schools in England and talked about Writtle and the Animal Science course. This course sounded like something I would like to do, so I read up on it and found out that if I changed my mind and wanted to go to vet school, I could use the course towards it. So I was sold. This was the perfect course for me.

I contacted Across the Pond and they helped with all the applications and letters that I needed to do for the apply to schools in England. I was pretty set on going to Writtle College, but I also looked into other schools. In the end I ended up with Writtle. They could offer me more practical work with animals, sports and most important short and easy travelling between Writtle and Nøtterøy. To be sure of my choice, I wanted to go on one of the open days, but they were a bit hard to fit in to my schedule with school in Norway. So I talked to Across the Pond and they helped to set up so I could come a day that fitted with my schedule and be guided around the school. I brought my dad with me and we were guided around school with a man from the international student service and one of the animal science lectures. This was so good to see the school with my own eyes and get to talk to one of the animal lecturers. My dad really liked the school, the beautiful campus, and the area around. So my decision was final and all I had to do was wait for the applications to go through and be accepted to the school.

The first week

I arrived around 8 in the evening on the first day. So I called the warden and got the keys for my room. I met a nice girl in the hallway and she invited me to the common room to come and socialise with the other students that was there. So I did and met some of my new neighbours for the year. The next day I went and got my ID and did some of the information activities that was listed in the introduction guide. In the evening I went to the international 'meet and greet', this was so nice. I got to know other international students and some Norwegians that were in their 2^nd year. 

So we then went to the party down at the 'baa' and they introduced me to a lot of people and I got to know some freshers that did the same course as me. The next couple of days I went shopping in town to get what I needed for my room and on Wednesday night we went to town to the club that is sponsoring the school. On Thursday was the introduction day of the course and in the hallway outside I met a 1^st year that was Norwegian. We walked in to the lecture hall together and sat down talking. Suddenly a girl turned around and ask if we were also Norwegian. So we sat down with her instead, not knowing this was going to be my closest friend for the years to come."  

Writtle College: http://writtle.ac.uk/international
Open Days: http://writtle.ac.uk/opendays 

        

The world of animal science – an alligator dissection

Writtle College Animal Science lecturer, Nieky van Veggel, was part of the dissection team during last week’s student seminar. Here he discusses the experience and the benefits to our students.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Last week has been a week of weird and wonderful at Writtle College. We organised our annual Inspiration and Activity Week for our higher education students. This is a week where there are no formal lectures scheduled, but instead students have the opportunity to attend a range of different activities, including demonstrations, workshops, industry visits and guest lectures.

This year we had a truly unique experience on the timetable: Writtle College lecturers Jarmila Bone and Nieky van Veggel and third year BSc (Hons) Animal Science student Ed Church organised a live demonstration dissection of an American Alligator. To top it all off this dissection was performed in the Northumberland Lecture Theatre, giving 170 curious students and staff an opportunity to experience this fascinating dissection up close. Attendance was overwhelming, with interest shown by Higher Education (HE) and Further Education (FE) students across disciplines, ranging from horticulture and conservation to equine and animal science. In addition, we were fortunate to have alumni and staff in attendance, as well as students from other HE and FE institutions.

The dissection itself was a very interesting experience. The alligator in question used to belong to a private collection and had died unexpectedly. Although her death was unfortunate, it did enable us to provide the audience with a great and unique learning experience. It really was a fascinating opportunity for students to witness an exotic dissection such as this first hand.

I think it is safe to say it was a positive experience for all involved, including staff and students. Offering students with experiences like this, both as audience members or in this case for Ed as an actual demonstrator to a general public, make Writtle College a unique learning environment.

Finally, I think events like this demonstrate the wide variety of activities the College, and the School of Sport, Equine and Animal Science, organises. We’re really looking forward to running similar events like this in the future, so watch this space!”

Postgraduate Animal Science courses at Writtle College

Writtle College Animal Science and Management degrees

Inside Nature’s Giants – Writtle College Edition

The American Alligator

Writtle College veterinarian Jarmila Bone, animal scientist Nieky van Veggel and third year animal science student Ed Church join forces in a bid to get under the skin of the alligator.

The team will uncover the alligator’s incredible jaw muscles and dental features. But while alligators’ spiked teeth are excellent for gripping prey as they plunge into a death roll, they are useless for chewing. So how do these animals manage to digest large chunks of raw meat and bone? During the dissection, the team will reveal the digestive system and inspect the stomach contents for clues.

Furthermore, they will reveal the bizarre plumbing between the heart and the stomach that might provide the key to this puzzle.

Writtle College students and staff are invited to join the dissection team in the Northumberland Lecture Theatre on a journey through the unique anatomy of the alligator in Inspiration & Activity week on Thursday 21 November 2013 from 14:00 – 16:00. Contact nieky.vanveggel@writtle.ac.uk

Image source: Wikipedia

Postgraduate Animal Science courses at Writtle College

Writtle College Animal Science and Management degrees