CV inspiration from a menu? Sounds fishy…

“Colin the coley grilled under the toughest questioning serving time alongside partners in crime crispy potatoes, spinach and capers and a lemon butter sauce. 18 years sentence.”

This was just one of the menu entries that leapt off the page at a recent visit to the Butterfly and the Pig, a restaurant-cum-bar in Glasgow’s Bath Street. The other entries showed similar levels of wit, with dishes such as Cilla Black is back in black in a pudden and Well, that was like swimming upstream.

The inventiveness continued with the descriptions and extended into the pricing: the 18 year sentence mentioned above was of course £18, and other dishes had prices such as 14 feathers & 95 beaks, 6 canaries and 95 wharfs, or 7 toadstools and 25 buttons.

Of course, such creativity would have been moot if the food hadn’t lived up to the expectations, but – spoiler alert – it’s some of the best food to be had in Glasgow, and there’s a fair bit of competition for that title.

However, it was the quality of the copywriting that drew me in. In fact, the branding is fantastic overall; it’s fun, it’s cohesive, it’s madcap – and it’s taking a big chance. Because not every customer will respond to a narrative hook. Some will find the overall levels of quirk too much to swallow. Which, of course, is their loss.

But it does mean that the majority of those who are drawn in will arrive in an expectant, positive and receptive frame of mind. They’re buying into the overall experience, not just the food. By taking that risk, the restaurant has taken a bold step in defining its audience.

Lest you might be thinking you’ve accidentally clicked on a TripAdvisor review or something, there is an actual, CV-related point to this. It’s coming up in a moment. But reflect on this: if you’ve read this far and you’re still reading, you are my target audience.

Because I’ve taken a similar approach with my CV. I’ve worked with a number of very different clients, ranging from crypto trading to cyber security to app-enabled sex toys. Each one has demanded a very specific TOV and approach and that was something that I had front of mind when building my CV.

In a similar manner to the way that the Butterfly and the Pig tailor each menu item and price to suit the offering – Desperate Dan references for the steak pie, Our Cilla for the black pudding – each entry in my CV has been written to reflect the nature of the work that I did. A mini discourse on cyber security for Callsign; a slightly risqué approach for MysteryVibe; Robert Lewandowski for OANDA; and so on.

It doesn’t always work.

I’ve had my fair share of flat-down rejections of course, and not all of them have come from whatever lashed-up AI is powering applicant tracking platforms this week. I’ve had potential prospects come back to me and say, “I don’t understand this. What do you actually do?”. And that’s fine.

Because the jobs that I do land are almost invariably the people who get the approach. The ones who do respond to a narrative hook. The ones who place value on the ability to take both (calculated) risks and a conceptual and creative approach to copywriting. It’s not an approach that works for everyone – as I've indicated, me included on occasion – but when it does, the end justifies the means.

It means that I tend to find assignments that I really enjoy, ones where I can bounce ideas around with like-minded people. Don’t get me wrong – I’m happy sitting down and banging out long-form B2B white papers and data sheets; I don’t think you can be a copywriter if you can’t derive some satisfaction from doing that. But I’ll readily admit that the conceptual jobs are the ones that are the most fun to be involved in.

And fun is important. In this increasingly online world, where remote working is the norm and human contact is limited to avoiding eye contact with the Amazon delivery driver, we need to find fun where we get it. Water-cooler moments just don't happen on Slack or Teams. Post-work pub sessions are rarity. Client lunches are rarer still.

But I know that if a client lunch did happen and it involved a trip to Glasgow and a visit to the Butterfly and the Pig, I'd wager a whole bunch of beaks, canaries or toadstools that it would be a great assignment.