I already explained how to make the URL of your public address look good on LinkedIn. Here’s how to customize links to websites so it doesn’t say “my company” or “my website”.

Here’s how easy it is

1. Log into your LinkedIn account
2. Go to the menu at the top and select “Profile” >> “Edit Profile”
3. Click on “Websites” (just below “Connections”)
4. LinkedIn will jump to “Additional Information [edit]”, click on “edit”
5. Next to “Websites” use the scroll down menu and select “other”
6. LinkedIn will instantaneously add a second field and you can input the name of your website, blog or company (e.g. “Your Swiss CV”)
7. In the second field add the Internet address (e.g. “http://www.yourswisscv.com“)
8. You can add up to three websites
9. Don’t forget to scroll down and click “save changes”

That’s it! Now go back to your profile and see if you like it.

Not sure why you should do this?

First of all, it looks more interesting and therefore makes you more interesting to the visitors of your profile. But it also shows that you take the time to improve things instead of being happy with what you automatically get.

After all, you never know when a future employer or customer visits your profile.

Something you can do right now

• Follow the instructions in this article and customize the links to your websites
• Customize your LinkedIn Profile Address if you haven’t done this yet

One of the evergreen questions is: How many pages should my CV be? If you’re preparing your CV in order to find a job in Switzerland, then my answer is: 2 pages, but…

A Curriculum Vitae with 2 pages is what most people use in Switzerland and also what most recruiters expect.

The minimalistic approach

One-pagers often look cramped. If every last square centimeter of the page is filled with information, it can become difficult to read.

And when you realize that you’re starting to leave things out, it’s time to expand to a second page. After all, you don’t want to be in a job interview and say “this isn’t on my CV, but you should know that I also did…”

Can’t get to the point?

I don’t recommend more than 2 pages. When I see a CV with 3 or more pages, I’ll automatically assume that you can’t focus on the really important things and your CV will have to convince me otherwise. And you certainly don’t want to start off with a disadvantage.

So if you have a long CV, you’d better have a good reason to do so and make sure that all information is not only relevant, but also presented in an organized an easy-to-read way.

If you had many jobs

If you had a lot of different jobs, then many pages will often scream job hopper. Of course, no recruiter or hiring manager should think like this, but we all know that they’re only human.

So regardless of how many jobs you had, not everything needs the same level of detail. While I want to know exactly what you did and achieved at your two to three last jobs, I’m not really interested in all the details of your very first job, especially if it was a long time ago and it has nothing to do with the job you’re looking for today.

Escapees from the ivory tower

It seems that many academics are unhappy if their CV is less than a dozen pages. If this is your situation and you’re looking for a job outside of the academic world, then I definitely recommend that you keep it to 2 pages! Anything else shows that you’re not ready to take the red pill and leave the Matrix yet.

Many, many technical skills

What if you have very special technical skills that need a lot of room to list and describe? In this case you could use an additional page apart from the CV. This way your CV will still be easy to read and whoever is interested in learning about your extensive skills in detail can refer to this list.

This, by the way, works also for academic accomplishments like a list of publications.

In summary…

1. In most cases a two page CV will be ideal in Switzerland.
2. If you choose only 1 page, make sure that the document still breathes and that you don’t leave anything important out.
3. If you really want to use more than 2 pages, then you should have a very good reason for doing so.

Here’s part 1, in case you missed it. See also the introduction to the series with the list of topics.

In these articles I explore how you can or should display your home address on your CV if you’re looking for a job in Switzerland.

Granted, I’m going into a lot of details and crazy assumptions, but if you’re aiming for an optimized rather than a merely good or just average CV, then it’s all about the details.

Countries and their codes…

Instead of spelling out the full country name, country codes can save you one line of precious real estate on your CV. On the other hand, like I always say, you should avoid ambiguity.

Now’s the time when you might think that I’m overly obsessive about avoiding ambiguity and that everybody knows the country codes, at least of the countries close to Switzerland. But…

• I know that some people have a hard time remembering if the country code for Austria is AU or AT (AU stands for Australia)
• Others always mix up PT and PL (Portugal and Poland). By the way, did you know that the country code “PO” doesn’t exist?
• And finally, your future manager might have relocated last week from another continent and doesn’t know yet that ES stands for Spain (Estonia is EE) and that FL is the Fuerstentum Liechtenstein.

…or rather the full country name?

As a general recommendation, I would say that it’s okay to use the country code if you’re living in a Western European country, but by spelling out the full country name you can reduce the risk of misunderstandings to zero (unless you send your CV to Mr. Murphy).

Translated or original city name

This one’s a bit tricky. I’ve seen CVs in which the only non-English word was “Genève”. I thought that this looked a bit odd, although it was certainly not wrong.

This is very subjective, but in an English CV I would write “Geneva” and “Zurich” (without the “Umlaut”), but keep all other Swiss places in their original language.

But what about Fribourg and Freiburg?

Fribourg / Freiburg is one of the bilingual places in Switzerland. If you’re living in such a place and don’t know which version to use when applying for a job, you can check on the company website. If the homepage shows up in German use Freiburg, if the first language is French, then write Fribourg.

And if the standard language is English? Then look up the contact information and see how they display their address.

If you know the name of the HR person or the hiring manager, then look them up on LinkedIn. Their profile will most probably be in English, but you can check their job history. Do the locations where they used to work sound more French or more German? You can also look up the names of the schools they attended in the education section.

I think that’s enough craziness for today. If you disagree, then please read some of the older articles and let me know what you think in the comments (especially if you disagree with anything I say).

What you can do right now:

1. How do you mention your home country in your address? Decide whether to use the abbreviation in front of the ZIP code or the full country name. Trust your gut feeling if you have doubts.
2. City names in English or the local language? Again, there’s not really any right or wrong answers. But make sure to be consistent.

This is part 3 of the "Personal Information in your CV" series.
See also the introduction to the series with the list of topics.

That’s the way we do it

First of all, it’s best to feature addresses the way they’re used in Switzerland, even if you’re living in another country. This way your address will look more familiar to a recruiter.

As an example, here’s the address of World Vision Switzerland:

World Vision Schweiz
Kriesbachstrasse 30
CH-8600 Duebendorf

When in Geneva…

As you may know, the nice people in Geneva like to do things a bit differently. When it comes to addresses, they prefer writing the house number before the street name. Here’s the address of the International Labour Organization:

ILO
4 route des Morillons
CH-1211 Geneve 22

However, if you’re sending your job application to different places in Switzerland, including Geneva, then just use the standard method of

[street name] [street number]

This shouldn’t be a problem in Geneva and it will make your life much easier.

Abbr.

Avoid abbreviations in your address. There’s a good chance that the person who receives your job application isn’t familiar with your language or your home country.

Even in Switzerland, where French is one of the national languages, many people don’t know that “rte” is the abbreviation for “route” (road).

In a CV it’s always best to avoid ambiguity. After all, it certainly doesn’t help if the recruiter feels ignorant while reading your CV…

Something you can do right now

Check your address in your CV:

• Do you use the “Swiss” address format”?
• Do you use any (avoidable) abbreviations?

Other useful articles

• What you should mention about yourself: List of all the elements of the Personal Information section
• Personal Information section: your name (part 1): how this all began…

The reason is simple: LinkedIn automatically creates an address that looks bad. Here’s an example I just made up:

http://linkedin.com/pub/mickeymouse/1/20b/793

Now wouldn’t you love to get rid of these annoying characters at the end?

Just follow these easy steps

1. Log into your LinkedIn account
2. Go to the menu at the top and select “Profile” >> “Edit Profile”
3. At the end of the first section look for “Public Profile” followed by your current address. Click “Edit”
4. At the top you’ll see “Your Public Profile URL”. Click “Edit”
5. Enter your name and confirm by clicking “Set Address”

Congratulations, you’re all done!

What if your name is already taken?

First of all, don’t panic! Then find a variation to your name while trying to stay as close to the original as possible.

With our initial example it could be “MickeyTMouse” if your middle name is “Tiberius” or “MMouse” or “MTMouse” etc.

Just keep it professional and save the cool / funny / weird ideas for Facebook

Something you can do right now

• Customize your LinkedIn Profile Address
• If you see that one of your LinkedIn contacts has an “ugly” address, you could send them a link to this article
• And then read this article on how to customize links to websites like your blog or the homepage of your company

Please check this article for the full list of elements of the
Personal information section.
And in case you missed part 1, you can catch up here

In this part I’ll mention snowmobiles, Richard Dick and why I recommend USING CAPS IN A CV, at least to some extent…

The Nicholas “Nick” Name

This is something that probably concerns mainly our American friends. Of course, it’s not uncommon for Swiss people to have nicknames, especially in little mountain villages that are accessible only by snowmobile during winter. But just trust me on this one, mentioning your nickname on a Swiss CV will make Richard look like a dick.

The big NAME

If you’re not 100% sure that everybody who reads your CV will know which is your first and which is your family name, don’t hesitate to write your last name in CAPS. You can read more on this topic in the article What’s your name?. Of course, there’s always the possibility that somebody will think that you’re arrogant. But most recruiters will simply be happy that everything’s clear.

I’m not that clever…

Finally, you may have noticed that I always write “first name” and “last name” or “family name”. I don’t recommend adding descriptions to everything in the Personal Info section, but you may still decide to write: “Family name: Swan” “First name: Bella” on your CV. So the reason why I use these “simple expressions” is because I can never remember the difference between “given name” and “surname”. It may not look very cool, but at least it’s clear. And as I keep saying over and over again: Recruiters hate ambiguity!

What you can do right now:

• Don’t use nicknames in your CV when applying for a job in Switzerland
• Is it 100% clear which is your first and last name?
• …and did you use the funky little widget below to tell all your friends about this article?

Wanna help me out? I’m not sure if the comment function really works. So please leave a comment saying “this blog is really cool”

Other useful articles:

• What you should mention about yourself: List of all the elements of the Personal Information section
• Personal Information section: your name (part 1): how this all began…
• The 3 main reasons why you need a CV

[Please check this article for the full list of elements of the Personal Information section]

So how hard can it be to write one’s own name? An evil person or an HR professional would probably reply “how easy is it to mess up?” And since I’m both, I will do my best to confuse you.

The many names

First of all, please don’t mention your 5 first names. Just use your main first name and your main family name.

If you feel naked without writing down both of your family names (cheers to my Spanish and Portuguese friends…), then by all means, mention both names.

But you must be consistent. Don’t use family name 1 in the email, family name 2 in the cover letter and both names in the CV.

You can read more on this topic in the article Name confusion made even worse! (warning: I try to be funny…)

The too short name

If you thought about just using the first letter of your first name: don’t. It looks like you’re either incredibly arrogant or you have things to hide.

Abbreviated names in general are a bad idea on a Swiss CV. So even if you’re very proud of having a second first name, don’t mention it when applying for a job in Switzerland.

If you’re called John Frank Kennedy, don’t write “John F. Kennedy”. It’s very cool, but not on your CV. And even if your name is Peter John Miller, don’t use “Peter J. Miller”.

This looks just strange to Swiss eyes. Unless, of course, making it overly obvious that you’re American is part of your USP.

What you can do right now:

• Use the cute little Social Bookmarking tool below and share this article with your Twitter followers, Facebook friends and LinkedIn contacts
• Oops, this section is about how you can improve your CV, so lets try again: Check your CV for the following:
• Do you have a multitude of names? If so, at least make sure that you use them in a consistent way in your CV, application email and cover letter. And a matching email address would be even better
• Use your full name, no abbreviations

Got anything on your mind? Fire away in the comments!

Other useful articles:

• What’s your name? Yeah, I wonder…
• Name confusion made even worse! Where I try to make a point while trying to be funny.
• What’s the title of your CV? And how do you spell Kuh-ri-kuh-lum Wih-tä?

This article is basically a list of things to come. A table of contents of future articles. I know, this doesn’t sound very exciting, but if you’re serious about optimizing your Swiss CV, then this is for you.

Can’t do without (= necessary)

• Your name: Duh, obvious. But watch out, I’ll find plenty of ways to make this simple topic complicated. And that’s a promise
• Your address: I will write about abbreviations (rte, Str.) and country codes (CH, DE, IT, AT, AU, etc.) vs. plain old text
• Your phone number: mobile or home phone number? Do you remember what your voicemail message says? And once again: country codes!
• Your email address: Maria_1981@yahoo.com, OldFashioned@aol.com, pete@mysexyhomepage.ch, moon-flower@hotmail.fr. ‘Nuff said!
• Day of birth, birthday, age: what’s better? “21.10.1978”, “32 years old” or just zilch?

Like I said, this article is just a teaser (I think I said “table of contents”) of things to come. So watch out for some cool stuff!

Possible, recommended, it depends

• Place of origin, nationality and type of work permit: now that’s an interesting topic. And it’s pretty tricky on a CV.
• Marital status: does anybody still care? Well, some employers definitely do. But please don’t write “unmarried” on your CV.
• Children: they’re cute. Or so I’m told. But why mention them on your CV?

Never mention this in your CV

I’m sure we can come up with plenty of things that should never find their CV to a CV. Let me know something you actually saw on a CV or just the weirdest thing that you can come up with.

What you can do right now

• Check the “Personal Information” section of your CV to see if you have all the elements mentioned above.
• If your CV features something that I didn’t mention, then please mention it in the comments

Switch around your first and last names

If people regularly say to you “hi [last name]” or “hello Mr. [first name]”, then make sure to mention your name as [first name] [last name] on the CV and have [last name].[first name]@email.com as your email address. Or the other way around. It doesn’t matter, because nobody will know.

Example:

• Name: John Peter
• Email: peter.john@email.com

Maybe you think I’m nuts, but you wouldn’t believe how often this happens. And like I said before, recruiters hate ambiguity.

Even more fun with email addresses

Assuming your last name is in fact John, then you could use the email address peter.j@email.com. Just to make things more interesting.

Multiple first and last names

In this case we’ve just hit the jackpot and the sky’s the limit! You can play with abbreviations, change the order of the names, strategically leave out one of the names depending on where you mention them and so much more.

Example with two first names (Peter Paul) and one last name (John):

• Name on CV: John Peter (because you think that mentioning your last name first looks more professional)
• Email address on CV: peter.j@email.com
• Signature in email: Peter John
• Name used as email sender: John P. Paul (because all your friends call you Paul)

Confused already? That’s the idea. And I guarantee that the person who receives your application will be as well

What you can do right now:

• First, please remember that this was supposed to be funny. That is, until I remembered that I’ve actually seen it all in actual job applications…
• If you know that people have trouble with your names or you’re applying abroad, check your CV, email address, etc. Just in case…

Can you came up with even more ways to confuse everybody? Please share in the comments!

Other useful articles:

• What’s your name: why just mentioning your name on your CV might not be good enough
• Should I mention hobbies in my Swiss CV?

Date and place
Some CVs mention the place and date at the end. I once even received a job application where the signature was scanned in just after the place and date. This is common with jobseekers from Germany.

But if you apply for a job in the land of milk and chocolate, don’t mention “Berlin, 20th of July 2010”.

Legal disclaimer
In Italy it’s common to add a legal disclaimer at the end of the CV. I’m not fluent in Italian, but I think it says something like “according to law xyz article abc paragraph III/3.b I allow the processing of my personal information for recruiting purposes”.

In Switzerland the majority of the population doesn’t speak Italian and Italian laws don’t apply here anyway. So again, better leave it off your CV.

What you need to know about Switzerland

One of the things about Switzerland is that it’s a very small country and people are very protective of their way of doing things.

So not adapting your CV to the local habits is a good way to show that you’re not willing to try to fit in.

You thought that I forgot to add a after the last sentence? Think again, I was totally serious!

What you can do right now:

• make sure that your CV doesn’t contain place/date or a legal disclaimer.

Is there anything else in your CV that looks like it might not make a great impression on a Swiss CV? Ask me in the comments if you’re not sure.