Twenty-somethings’ CVs have to sparkle more than ever before. Would mine have made the star pile?

I marvel at the CVs that land on my desk. People in their twenties who have had more life experiences than Scott of the Antarctic, speak more languages than Duolingo can muster and who, in their summer holidays, have saved large chunks of the planet – or at least fostered a gibbon for a few weeks (“gave me a greater appreciation of the challenges of having very long arms”). And I’m not just talking about people whose names feature more barrels than a bank robber’s shotgun or whose home address mentions the words Schloss or The Manor. 

I went to a very rare gathering of my entirely normal – well, sort of – family the other day and met lots of distant teenage relatives whom, like the older people I used to loathe, I quizzed in detail about their lives. One, aged 16 and something of a mathematics prodigy, is already attached to a prestigious university where he’s looking at new ways of generating energy from wave power (no smoking behind the bike shed). Another was using his gap year to do a business diploma and I quote, “for fun”. I asked him whether he might be able to find the time for an ayahuasca trip in Colombia or at least start sleeping around with some unsuitable partners? Despite him looking a little rock’n’roll, he said that he preferred to use his spare time to prepare himself for the world of work.

Then I had dinner with friends in Hampstead, where their youngest son was preparing to start at a new sixth-form college (the final two years in the UK before university) that encourages students to take time off each week to assist on community projects. I imagine that senior citizens in their part of north London must fear leaving their homes in case yet another teenager insists on carrying their shopping bags or giving them a fireman’s lift up the steep incline of Hampstead High Street. 

Often, after I have read a pile of these extraordinary CVs, I am left with one worry. Today, right now, would I interview my younger self? If my CV when I was 21 slipped into the pile, would I scrawl “must see” on the covering letter?

I certainly lacked any hobbies that would catch a recruiter’s attention today, let alone some AI-powered CV scraper (nowadays you need a few eye-catchers: Ethiopian cinema, putting on West End shows, the electronic lute – ideally all three). And there was no second language to boast about (my German being barely proficient enough to secure a bratwurst in an emergency). And as for volunteering? I was too busy playing records.

But I did have a lot of work experience. How about that summer job washing dishes (only, problem: I was fired after one day for being too chatty). I had another holiday job in a toy factory where my friend Nick and I had to sort through returned products to discover the problem – “Bucking Bronco refuses to buck” being our go-to explanation with that particular game. I had also been a barman in a theatre, which was mostly fun, though being in a fairly Irish part of the city, there were endless unhelpful commentaries on my Guinness-pouring skills. And I was a waiter, which I loved, especially when we would finish off the wine that guests had left in their bottles after service. Then I hit my stride and, for several university holidays, worked in Liberty’s fabric department where I became a little over-confident at assessing how much fabric, say, a stout lady might need for a knee-length summer smock. But none of it was quite the stuff of a recruiter’s dreams.

And yet, while CVs are, of course, powerful tools, I still think it’s hard to beat a good cover letter. It’s here that you can shine, allow your personality a chance to do the heavy lifting. Be enthusiastic. Not sound too much like the Pope but kinder. I must have written a couple of persuasive ones along the way because occasionally people called me in for an interview.

But when I look at the CVs of young people today and I see the slog that people have put into preparing themselves for a hard-to-enter job market, I return to that question: would I have interviewed me at 21? Or would I be destined for a life of trying to determine what ails the Bucking Bronco?