Most job seekers lose the plot on length. Outside academia, medicine and research, South African employers want a focused one-to-two-page CV — not a multi-page record of everything you have ever done. This week's prompt puts your document in front of an AI acting as a hiring manager and asks it to say, plainly, which one you have written and what to cut. Run it, then do the 10-minute task below. Copy-paste this into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini: Act as a senior hiring manager hiring in South Africa. Audit the CV text below and tell me whether it is structured as a targeted one-to-two-page CV or an exhaustive multi-page academic document. List every section that is irrelevant to a corporate role — for example primary schooling, obsolete hobbies, or an exhaustive list of publications — and tell me exactly what to remove. Use South African English and call the document a CV, not a resume. CV Text: [PASTE YOUR FULL CV TEXT HERE] Your 10-minute task: Paste your whole CV into the prompt and read the verdict. Cut at least one section it flags as irrelevant. Save the trimmed version as Firstname_Lastname_CV.pdf. Reply below: Tell us the one section you cut. — Bruce

Morning all — new week, fresh scoreboard. Post your top 3 job-search goals for the week in the comments below. Keep them doable by Friday: one CV fix, one application sent, one person messaged all count. I'll read every single one, and Friday's Win Wall is where I celebrate whatever you got done. — Bruce

Earl Nightingale put it bluntly: rewards come in exact proportion to service. Not to effort. Not to how badly you want it. To the value you actually deliver to other people. I hire and manage people across my own businesses, so I read a lot of CVs. And that one line explains almost everything about who gets the interview and who doesn't. Two graduates, same degree, same drive, same desperation — and it's rarely the one who worked hardest who gets the call. It's the one whose value was visible on paper. Here's the part that stings a little: an employer can't feel your effort. They can only see what you can prove. "Hardworking team player" tells them nothing. "Reconciled R12,000 in daily takings with zero shortages" tells them you handle money and you don't make mistakes. Same person. Only one of those gets read twice. Nightingale's point isn't "accept less." It's the opposite — if you want a bigger reward, build something bigger to show. Your CV is where you make your service legible. Most people leave it invisible, then wonder why the silence. So this week, let's fix one thing properly. This week's gem: the XYZ formula Every strong CV bullet answers three questions — what you did (X), how well it landed, measured (Y), and how you did it (Z). Cut customer wait times by 40% by reorganising the queue system. That's the same job as "responsible for customer service" — said in a way an employer can actually weigh. Your 10-minute task today: open your CV, pick your single strongest bullet, and rewrite it as X, measured by Y, by doing Z. Just one. And if you don't have a number, use a benchmark — top 10% of your class, 30 enquiries a day, R5,000 handled. That's your one goal for the week. One bullet today, then one more each day until Friday. Seven bullets and your CV reads like a different person wrote it. Now your part: paste your rewritten bullet in the comments below. Not the whole CV — just the one line. I'll read every single one, and I'll check back in on Wednesday to see how the week is going.

Steve joined at the end of September, and his bio made me smile: "new guy..checking things out." That's the right way in. No pressure here — look around, pick one thing, try it. Stella's been with us since mid-September and hasn't said hello yet, so consider this the nudge. 👏 Both of you — one small thing today. Comment below with: 1. What you're studying, or what you just finished 2. What you want to walk away with: a CV you're proud to send, a LinkedIn that's complete, or interview confidence Everyone else, say hi to Stella and Steve — and if you've been quietly watching, this is your invitation too.