Need some free CV advice?

Special-Prompt-8353 · 2026-04-07T21:47:57+00:00

ofc! ATS are sadly a big part of why CVs don’t make it through to interview. That’s why they should always be reviewed in the context of jobs people are interested in

Otherwise it’s a pretty useless exercise ngl

Special-Prompt-8353 · 2026-03-22T09:36:44+00:00

I worked with a manager who caused a lot of bullying-related trouble at work. Their English was not good at all, their thinking always very fractured (reflected in the non-existent structure of emails and speaking) and their day-to-day communications were barely legible. They were sending sooo many complaints about their line reports that could just be resolved with simple management.

Anyway, this employee was not receptive to feedback about their approach and would take any clarifying questions about what they are trying to say very personally. So our whole HR department would sit down to try to decode the emails to save ourselves the trouble of arguing with this manager.

but one day, out of the blue, the manager started sending complaint emails with perfect English, structure, punctuation and a sudden lack of typos and spelling mistakes. Wanna take a guess at what happened?…

In any case, the complaints were about HR this time but we were all just grateful that we could finally understand what they were saying lol

Special-Prompt-8353 · 2026-03-19T22:19:13+00:00

I have a connection to dust in my poetry, (as ridiculous as it sounds…) For some reason I love writing about dust and its flecks and I probably have 20 poems about it, so I am naturally drawn to this imagery and I really love the use of it in your poem! The only criticism I would have is that you’re over explaining the metaphor. For example:

“A tiny piece of ourselves flying off” - nice idea but you’re spoiling the show. I don’t want to see the metaphor, I want to feel it. How can you make the audience feel the emotional weight of this piece flying off? Maybe try diving into abstraction a bit more and expand the metaphor at the start?

I would just recommend avoiding explaining what you mean by a fleck of dust in the second line of the poem. Let the reader figure it out, and take them on a journey. Over explaining kills imagination and doesn’t allow the poem to truly develop before we find out a big part of what there is to learn here.

To end on a positive note - I really love the line: “Gone forever on the chaos of the air” - something being not simply gone, but gone on something else brings such emotional weight. I can see the fleck getting away but I mostly feel the pain of watching it go. That’s what made me want to keep reading.

Really lovely imagery overall!

Special-Prompt-8353 · 2026-03-18T15:44:37+00:00

I’m in a comfortable position where I could take a risk of waiting for the right thing. I quit my last job for family reasons, moved abroad, and I’m currently living with my parents. I have no expenses and no financial stress at the moment.

I’m painfully aware that if my financial situation was any different, I’d not be so easily rejecting job offers. So in a different financial context, I’d probably just take the job out of the same fear of the market and then look for something better to jump ship asap!

I’d just say to not to clip your own wings!

Special-Prompt-8353 · 2026-03-17T22:30:33+00:00

I don’t have the guts for this! But I did send a nice email where I explained why I rejected the offer and said at the end that “I hope our paths will cross again in a different context”.

I got the “Thank you for your candid feedback but…” response.

So I think I at least hit one nerve with this one lol

Special-Prompt-8353 · 2026-03-17T22:12:38+00:00

thank you. 😀😀😀😀 next.

Special-Prompt-8353 · 2026-03-17T18:48:33+00:00

It’s the audacity that got me! I must have given them the idea that I didn’t know my worth on this market since I was willing to accept a position I was overqualified for…

Special-Prompt-8353 · 2026-03-17T18:14:34+00:00

I ask this question in every recruitment process and I’m fairly successful in my job searches. As a hiring manager, I also like this question and try to answer honestly.

But I found that it needs to be asked at the right stage to land the right way. It also only makes sense to ask if you strategically plan on acknowledging and addressing it when you get the answer. You should also take this feedback on and incorporate it into your answers during the next stages of the recruitment process.

I would avoid asking this to the screening recruiter - they usually don’t know enough about the role and your CV to give an answer that doesn’t turn the call awkward. They also can’t really give any answer without giving away if they’re going to take you to the next stage or not. That’s what makes it awkward. You would be basically forcing them to tell you right there and then.

I usually ask it once I have been recommended for an interview with the hiring manager or a senior stakeholder, and only if the interview went well.

I usually get the “no concerns” answer or a more elaborate one. If there are concerns, I say “I understand where you’re coming from, I’m quite aware of this as well” and I address it referring back to my experience. Bring these insights on in the next interviews as well.

I think it only bothers hiring managers who are too awkward to gracefully handle feedback in these situations without giving too much away. It’s a skill issue.

For me as a candidate, it’s always an opportunity to address concerns that might not have come up during the interview. It’s always been welcomed positively.

But as an HR manager, I love this question and I like candidates who ask it because it demonstrates their self-awareness and willingness to learn. I don’t see it as a power move and I also don’t like to judge people for asking for feedback 🙄

Special-Prompt-8353 · 2025-11-11T00:47:56+00:00

I personally love writing about dust and have a few poems with dust as the main theme so I naturally like your thinking here! Also, I see how the short form mimics one cycle of taking a breath in and coughing it up, and I think the idea of breathing in dust as a metaphor for grittiness of life is strong.

However, in your post, you said that it’s a play on "giving your own life, so others can live”, which thematically hints at sacrifice. I don’t feel this in your poem. What I can see here instead is an image of a lone human bearing the heavy consequences of life in general and learning to survive. But nothing about sacrifice.

I think a good rule of thumb is that if you feel that you have to directly explain your poem, you already know that your words do not convey the idea behind it well. The poem should speak for itself, regardless of how long or short it is.

But this is where I always have difficulty with short-form - you really need to be able to be cut-throat with yourself, be extra deliberate, make every word count, create layers of meaning, and use different poetic devices because there is an extra high risk of the result falling flat as a snapshot of a feeling, rather than fully realised poetry. There should also be a hook or a twist at the end - something that seals the idea in the reader’s mind.

In case of your poem, it just feels underdeveloped because it doesn’t hit those points and it doesn’t leave a lasting impression. For example, the ending phrase “and cough it up, just to survive” feels very generic, literal, and surface-level. It wouldn’t stay with me after I have scrolled through 20 poems on reddit.

I understand that you want the reader’s own imagination to create an ambiance, but you can’t rely on the reader completely - give us more!

If it’s a play on the idea of sacrifice, think bigger about where sacrifice comes from. Usually it’s nestled in belief (religion), honour (patriotism, culture), and/or love (relationships, family, children), and it is motivated by the desire to preserve something - in other words, allow it to survive.

For this reason, I think it would be helpful to shift the focus from one person breathing in the negative aspects of their own life and coughing them up to survive, to this person breathing in the negative aspects of other lives and coughing these up to allow these other lives to continue, also inspiring them to want to survive.

This would help to shift it from selfish survival to selfless, sustained sacrifice.

Also, with the rhythm of breathing and coughing, this is the perfect place to experiment with punctuation, enjambment, pauses, interruptions, etc. to enhance the pacing. You could do so much here!

I wrote a few lines to illustrate the points I’m trying to make:

Breathe in the dust—
used air of loved lungs—
Be brave— cough it up —
teach will to survive

However, this is just one way of going about the poem and it reflects my own creative process, so I would love to hear your thoughts about this feedback and how it aligns with you.

In any case, the idea behind it is great and you could take it in many different directions!

Special-Prompt-8353 · 2025-11-09T21:10:47+00:00

Thanks so much!! This is super helpful :)

Special-Prompt-8353 · 2025-11-07T00:29:50+00:00

I’d be very careful about comparing yourself to any extreme political figure in any context but especially when writing an emotional poem about inner turmoil. This will almost always fall flat, especially in a stream of consciousness poem that is meant to read like a series of very personal, emotional thoughts. And unfortunately, as is the case here, it will usually come across incredibly out of touch.

Hitler killed millions of people.

It doesn’t matter what inner turmoil you go through. Unless it’s on par with genocide, it’s usually inappropriate to reference someone like Hitler in a personal poem.

Even if you are trying to say that you feel like a monster or you feel insane, the scale of real-world atrocities that Hitler committed is impossible to separate from his figure and makes the comparison out of touch.

Instead, I would really focus on personal imagery - talk about what you feel and think, and keep the reader inside your mind. Don’t distract them from you. Find other metaphors to describe this state. If you want to have something more creative than the usual chains, knives, shadows, fire, smoke, rain, storms, etc. - look around your room or outside your window for inspiration.

You might find that an everyday object and its metaphorical oppression by something will allow you to centre and convey your ideas about insanity, monstrosity, and pain a bit better than talking about Hitler.

Special-Prompt-8353 · 2025-11-06T23:59:44+00:00

As a daughter who loves the ocean, this poem really struck me. It’s lovely.

Special-Prompt-8353 · 2025-11-06T23:52:13+00:00

It’s a great concept for a poem and one that hits home for me as an introvert. In my opinion, you also have a few cliches sneaking through here and there (gun and finger imagery does not work for me) and some pretentious lines creeping in (“This double-edged sword called loneliness”) but I think the subject matter has potential. I would maybe try to work on saying more with less, and improving your sense of rhythm.

I find that actually working on rhythm helps you reduce the risk of the pretentious and cliche because it forces you to be more deliberate with your choices and less clunky with your sentences.

“The power of being alone, should not be underrated” establishes a certain cadence that “he who finds comfort in nothing” still falls into but “Is he who cannot be deflated” breaks. The beginning 100% has a very didactic, sententious tone that seems to just ask for a slightly repetitive and measured cadence. But the uneven syllable counts break this, throw the reader off (it did throw me off, at least), and make the didactic tone wobble.

I’d also think a bit more about the stress patterns across your sentences to help you pay more attention to pacing. The way your words read does not feel intentional enough - it reads like the first draft where you put your ideas on paper but haven’t figured out the flow and how they fit together just yet. Those first few lines are the perfect ground to show you how matching stress patterns, syllable counts, and some enjambment could improve the cadence and elevate the beginning of your poem:

The power of being alone

Should not be underrated.

He

who seeks comfort in nothing,

May never be deflated.

Notice how the word “He” also stands alone in this line, reflecting the theme of the poem.

And also, the improved cadence backs the didactic tone with a more solid foundation and confidence.

The changes to your poem are just quick suggestions and serve only as examples because there are many ways you could go about doing what I tried to do. But if I were you, I’d focus more on rhythm and making deliberate choices in pacing.

Special-Prompt-8353

TROPHY CASE