I have mixed feelings.
firstly the CFAV identifies the Cadet on SMS, clicks the CV tab then ticks the boxes they have done…simple enough
but then so is the output.
the wording is very generic and although explains the DofE or what leadership course is surely anyone who reads it will be able to tell it is not a personal account.
thus i have to ask…what is it achieving?
there are not enough boxes to make it an accurate account of what was achieved, resulting in a brief overview which will not separate one Cadet from another…therefore generic CV of anyone rather than the Cadet in question…
does the F3822 not achieve this already in a neat solution? if an “employer” would want to know more they can ask the question…?
I think you are missing the point. This is something cadets can give to their employers which elucidates precisely what these activities give them in terms of ‘soft’ skills. It’s not meant to separate one cadet from another - it’s for an individual cadet to sell themselves and have a record of what they have done and what they have learnt.
The 3822 is just a list of unintelligible (often part-washed) activity names which don’t mean anything to anyone outside of the organisation.
This should only ever be used to help compile a personal statement on a CV or application in terms of what cadets have done to build a verbal picture of what qualities / attributes they think they have that makes them standout, given we have such a banal education/exam system in the UK.
Our kids did ‘trident’ when they were at school and had a folder to keep all their certificates. When they applied for jobs I said to them highlight extra curricular actives and what qualities you think they show you offer to build a picture of them beyond the ubiqutous exam results and leave the folders at home. They were never asked to produce them.
Among the interviews I’ve done, I’ve interviewed youngsters at work and they bring all their certificates and other things (which would include this), which is nice but meaningless, as it should all be on the application / CV, but you flick through it out of courtesy. It makes you wonder how long HQAC expect a job interview to be, in the 20 or so minutes we allow, you don’t have time for faff like this. It’s not like a military selection process that drags on over a few days. Plus the Cadet CV being very generic, if it was a drawn out selection / screening process, with lots of people being done, by the time interviewers / ‘sifters’ had seen a couple they’d lose interest.
The fact that you have to click buttons to say what a cadet is done and SMS can’t pull that data out sucks. A waste of time IMO and something else the admin team could take forward @xab
You’d have thought it would just ‘print out’ a full blown account of everything the cadet had done. The way this has been set up you have to trawl through the cadet’s record to see what they’ve done and one assumes miss a tick box and it doesn’t get included.
It would be better saved as a Word document to allow free editing.
As I said you wouldn’t use this as a stand alone document. Would you?
pEp you raise the first issue i have with it…(although i made nothing of it in my OP)
its ok if you know the individual well but it does seem backward that it is placed on SMS…this could easily be on sharepoint as a dropdown list and be just as accurate.
why linked it to the system used to record events and activities attended only to then choose them??
GHE2 - agreed why is it not editable? it is far to generic imo…although i understand @redowling’s point it offers soft skills it is a bit of a tick box…although and is a bit of an “attendance” course…by attending doesn’t necessarily mean they skills were picked up or used…
The cadet CV is generic so cadets can better explain their activities in civilian employee speak and relate to their specific experience - if you ask the average cadet what do you do at cadets? they will give activity topic headings and wont give the buzz words which will assist them explain what skills/qualities they have gained from the activities. The CV should be seen as helping hand to cadets and if you read the desk guide you will see the info can be saved and changed prior to use in a personal CV or other doc
Why is it not auto populated?? - I am sure this is because SMS is not always kept up to date etc and will allow an accurate record. The info is not meant to be used to fill a interview, but give the opportunity to best sell the cadet should they wish to use cadet activity/qualities gained at the interview.
I believe it is a great step forward for our cadets,
If this is the case all that’s required is a set of generic paragraphs for personal statements or a generic personal statement to be edited and a list of things done / achieved in Word document.
As for SMS’ updated status, I’m sure if a cadet thought they had done something that wasn’t on the list, they’d say. Unless the implication is we should be database updaters first and instructors in a youth organisation second.
I’d have to say that it’s more likely because no one has the time or skill to integrate it with the system properly. A simple ‘tick the boxes yourselves’ doesn’t require access to the database. I dread to think what it might be like trying to properly query SMS.
PDF is useless and I can’t understand why it is even suggested as a format.
This is the cadet’s information about what they have done, to make it less easy to use than a Word document is mysttifying. Is there anything sensitive / confidential to the outside world that they wouldn’t have already shared on their CV or application.
This should be in a format that cadets can pull information from for CVs or applications. Which is why I feel it should be a few generic paragraphs and a list of activities/achievements in Word.
[quote=“raz, post:7, topic:1896”]
Why is it not auto populated?? - I am sure this is because SMS is not always kept up to date etc and will allow an accurate record.
[/quote]I’d have to say that it’s more likely because no one has the time or skill to integrate it with the system properly. A simple ‘tick the boxes yourselves’ doesn’t require access to the database. I dread to think what it might be like trying to properly query SMS. [/quote]
Everytime I have asked if we can do queries via a wizard or similar (akin to the one I’ve used and query currently running as I type … incidentally pulling several thousand data points) it has been some BS about confidentiality, when the most confidential information we hold is name, address, phone number, which is already on school databases and readily extracted no doubt.
However the comments that potentially no one has the skill (or time) to put something like that together so we can execute queries is probably nearer the truth than anything else and confidentiality is a smokescreen. When I do things on my family tree I can run queries and pull several thousand records from online databases.
I think you are being a bit offensive and derogatory there chaps. I’ve seen the replies from the legal bods before (stored in the chain of other emails stored on the project site).
The confidentiality angle is by and large a nonsense. But I suppose it keeps the legal bods in a job.
WE at the squadron input ALL the detail and only squadrons can access this ordinarily. Even this CV we can’t put half or more of what cadets do, because either someone doesn’t know how to set it up or doesn’t have the time. We could but it would take time.
I don’t know if it still happens but when our kids were in Yr8 we had a letter saying that basic name/address etc info would be ‘shared’ with the local youth service and we had to say if we would allow it or not. WRT schools they have much more ‘intimate’ detail about their pupils than we ever would on cadets and they will share this with relevant bodies. What we have is little more than someone putting their record collection onto a database at home and in all honesty it has the same interest value to the outside world as what we keep on cadets and staff come to that. With respect to staff the only vaguely interesting thing perhaps is the service/CIN, everything else is held by others anyway.
We got letters from school with a name and address block. From the layout it was mail merged, but we in the Corps can’t even use this facility because some muppet has got their panties knotted over something. Speaking to parents they get texts and emails all sent en masse from schools, something that would be bloody useful at times from a cadet perspective, but no we wouldn’t be able to do it (or send letters) unless we held separate records, which would get someone at HQAC / MoD jumpng up and down.
The MOD, not HQAC. You really don’t listen do you?
Have you thought seriously about why you are in the ATC? (Although I secretly suspect you were sacked years ago and just harbour a grudge against “the establishment”). Forget all this whinging you do and concentrate on what YOU do best, whatever that may be.
I managed to copy and paste sections of the cv into word and I am not a PCs geek - Scotland region has had all the ‘statements’ on sharepoint for along time prior to the SMS format you see now - ps all the achievements were gathered by adult volunteers as I understand
It is possible to edit the generic details surrounding an activity before saving/printing the document, more details are available from the HQAC Announcement
For something that has been in development for a few years it looks ok, and does what it should, in an ideal world it would select most activities (classification) from SMS itself in order to make it a less manual process.
