Khulisa’s Senior Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning (MERL) Specialist, Leticia Taimo, is a hiring manager who reviews a lot of M&E CVs as part of her job. When we asked Leticia to provide her top tips for M&E professionals seeking to be hired, her first tip was: Write a strong opening paragraph that summarizes your experience.
“It’s really important to have an initial paragraph that gives people a good summary of who you are as a professional. I don’t know why, but a lot of people don’t have this initial paragraph. But that’s what’s actually going to make me, as a hiring manager, want to read further. It’s important to consolidate and summarize your expertise into a short paragraph that’s about six sentences long” says Leticia.
“You should start with something like: ‘I’m Leticia Taimo, with a master’s degree in development studies and eight–plus years of experience in international development, five of which are in monitoring and evaluation.’ That’s what I want to know immediately: What’s your level of education and how many years of experience do you have?
Then you’d follow with specific examples of your expertise in M&E. This is where you would name-drop some of the clients that you’ve worked with. If you’ve done projects for USAID, you would say, for example: ‘I have managed a one-million-dollar USAID project on early grade reading in South Africa. I also have experience working with NGOs such as…’ and you can give examples. Putting names of organizations upfront – names that people will recognize – makes them more curious to read more about you. Don’t just tell me, ‘I’m experienced working with donors, governments, and NGOs.’ That doesn’t tell me anything.
Then you’d move on to tell me if you have expertise in different countries, if that’s relevant for the role. You’d tell me the languages that you speak: ‘Fluent in Portuguese, English, and French’, for example. And then if you have won any important awards, you should list them. And that’s your paragraph. That’s what people want to see.
Also, this can ultimately be the paragraph that you also put on LinkedIn. It’s like your elevator pitch: When you want to summarize what you’ve done, and your key skills, this is the paragraph you use. Work on it for your CV, and then use it for your LinkedIn profile.”
Stay tuned next week for Leticia’s second M&E CV tip. Also, browse Khulisa’s current job opportunities.
