What a cool experiment I just went through. I’ve been in London for just over a week and aggressively looking for my dream job in Europe for about two weeks.

In Canada we use resumes while here in Europe they use CVs. I knew that but I couldn’t find a decent CV template or even a standard CV template that I thought best displayed my skills. So I was sending out my “resume-style” CV to head-hunters and employers and getting very good response.

The secret was that I am pretty selective about which jobs I’m applying to. I don’t want to waste anyone’s time (especially my own) and I see no point in applying to relevant jobs just because job sites like Monster and Jobsite make it so easy to apply.

OK, the point is this. Early last week I received a call from a recruiter that informed me that his client required a CV in a standard format and asked me to change my info to fit his client’s needs. He also mentioned that I’d probably be better off sticking to that format for the rest of my job search as it is more ‘in-line’ with what everyone expected to see. He was a very knowledgeable dude and a nice guy so I took his advice.

Can you guess what happened? Before this change-over I would normally get a follow-up call from a recruiter on half of the jobs I would apply to. With the new CV I was getting about one reply to every five CVs I’ve sent out. The cover letter was exactly the same so I know that wasn’t the reason.

The difference was that the CV didn’t have a summary statement first thing. Instead, it went right into my education (yawn!). On the other hand, my resume has a very benefits-oriented statement right under my name and address info.

As it was pointed out to me today, my CV almost burried the skills that most recruiters and ultimately employers would be most interested in. Dumb! Dumb! Dumb!

That is basic marketing 101 and I knew when I was changing over to the CV format that something wasn’t right. I’ve now added the profile summary to my CV and moved around the order of the information I’m presenting and I expect the response rate to shoot back up again.

Live and learn. I’ve always believed in testing and finding a new job is no different. I probably lost a few good opportunities using this original CV format but I’m also anticipating that the new CV will perform better than the original resume so in the end, I’ll still be further ahead than before.

What a great little lesson in marketing in the real world.