I worked with Julian on a CV and LinkedIn profile rewrite in January 2025. Julian asked if I could provide some feedback. I left it a month or so to see how the Profile and CV performed in the market place.
I’ve been a contract Business Analyst for the last 19 years. In that time I’ve had a number of engagements, ranging from 6 months to 6 years. In that time, it’s been relatively easy to find work and I have only been “between contracts” for 10 months. When my last contract ended in November last year, due to Government spending restrictions, it was clear that the market is significantly tighter than it was 6 years ago. It was that which prompted me to seek support updating my CV and LinkedIn profile. The webinar started with a list of mistakes people do with the LinkedIn profile. I was doing most of them!
The rewrite/update process was very cathartic! I am very good at what I do, and I recognise when other are good at their jobs, Julian is one of those people. Between contracts, I suffer from periods of self-doubt, not sure why, it’s just a thing. Julian was very supportive.
That first meeting was really helpful in explaining the process and the expected outcomes. He set my homework and we arranged the main meeting. Its really hard to extract yourself from personal nature of a CV and be objective, especially when the last role was 6 years long and I needed to review the content for previous roles. Old CV’s, tasking and contract documents saved my life here. Again, Julian signposted these. The main meeting was very intense, but I was prepared for it and when I needed time to think, Julian gave me that space. I really enjoyed it. Not only did we refine the CV that Julian had written, but he used his CV to explain the objective and he explained why we were doing it. That has allowed me to build further skills statements and career highlights specific to applications I have submitted.
He also provided detailed instructions about how to update my LinkedIn profile, and more importantly, how to play the LinkedIn algorithm to raise the prominence of my profile. He then checked what I had done. So, we are 4 weeks on from completion. I have a second interview for a role this afternoon. I have another interview for a different role on Thursday. I have had 4 other direct approaches from agents, and clients regarding other roles. All of these were on the back of my LinkedIn profile, none of them were related to job board adverts that I had responded to. I consider that time and money well invested.
Thanks go to Julian, he is very good at what he does.
