Page 33 - James Caan - Get the Job you Really Want

So, how do you stand out? This is the point at which person-
ality kicks in as an absolute must. As a graduate you are not
selling your C V, you are selling yourself, who you are, what your
values are, your beliefs, your drives, your motivations.
From what I have observed and experienced, I would say

that very few graduates have actually sat down and thought
about the questions every job candidate should ask: What are
my characteristics? What are my UsPs? What are the

features and benefits i can offer to an employer?

Graduates often waste too much of their time trying to
craft their C V. They go back to their Duke of Edinburgh’s Awards
or their time as head boy or head girl. That is all interesting
material, but rarely compelling: it doesn’t exactly lift o≠ the

page. As an employer what I am really interested in is, ‘Who
are you? What do you stand for? What do you bring to the
table?’ When I am interviewing a graduate, these are, for me,

the decision-making issues. I’d almost like to see a graduate
C V dealing only with answers to those questions.
But I have found over the years, a graduate can fill three
pages with details of their dissertation, yet include nothing
about any practical experience, whether they have the

discipline to turn up for work every day, whether they can take
on responsibility, whether they are prepared to knuckle down
to a task.

I was giving a talk at Cambridge University. There were 300
people in the room and I am sure many of them were sitting
there as graduates thinking, ‘I’d love to work for someone like
James Caan.’ Yet only a handful waited until the conference was

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