Top 5 Tips for an Ideal CV
Here are my top 5 tips to
help you put together a great CV. I was a headhunter for 5 years and you
wouldn’t believe the CVs that I had to read! Short ones, long ones, badly laid
out ones, miss-spelt ones, you name it, I saw it! The problem was, a bad CV meant
I couldn’t easily work out if the person would be any good at the job for which
they were applying, so guess what, I didn’t waste my time and I just moved onto
the next CV.
Put these top tips into
practice in your CV and I guarantee that you will see an improvement in the
number of interviews you get!
Top Tip 1: Layout
Simply put, a good CV
crisply and concisely articulates your skills and experiences in a way that
proves to a prospective employer that you could do the job they are looking to
fill. However, doing this is not always an easy task, especially because your
CV is a promotional document, not just an information sheet.
It must grasp the reader's eye within
30 seconds, as this is usually all the time people give to reading a CV. Your
CV should be relevant to the position for which you are applying, which means
that ideally you will produce a new version of your CV for each job that you
apply for.
Keep the layout simple,
uncluttered and in an easy-to-read font, present the CV on plain white A4 paper
and keep it to a maximum of 2 pages in length.
Ask someone to proof read
your CV - it's amazing how spell-checkers can miss things, and please make sure
your personal details are correct - it sound obvious but people do get things
like telephone numbers wrong.
Finally, always tell the
truth in the CV and be prepared to back up any statement you make on your CV
with evidence. Aside from lying being unethical and possibly illegal, what’s
the point stretching the truth on your CV, getting the job and then getting
fired for having lied on your CV?
Top Tip 2: Your Personal
Information
People frequently give far
too much personal information away in their CV. You only need to give enough
information for your prospective employer to make contact with you and to be
sure that you are legally entitle to work in the UK. So, just include:
·
Your name
·
Nationality (if outside the
EU, indicate your status to work in the UK)
·
Contact information
including your address, telephone number and email address. Please make sure
your email address is a simple, professional sounding one as
kinkyboots@hotmail.org really doesn’t make
you out to be all that professional, and consider getting a separate email
address just for job hunting.
Examples of information you
do not need to include are salary details (these can be included in a
covering letter if appropriate), referees (these will be requested if you get
offered a job), dependent children, marriage status, religion, hobbies and
other interests - none of which are relevant to you being able to do the job
for which you are applying.
Top Tip 3: Your Personal Positioning Statement
I’d like to introduce you
to a concept I call a Personal Positioning Statement (PPS).
In marketing terms, a positioning statement for a product or a brand is a
concise articulation of the essential qualities of the product/brand and the
target market for which it is designed. A personal positioning statement is an
extension of this concept but applied to you and your job search.
To be successful in
creating a great CV that will get you the interview and hopefully the job, you
need to have a clear understanding of the skills and experiences that make you
stand out from the crowd (your “qualities”), as well as an understanding of how
you could put those skills to best use in the job/organisation of your dreams
(the “target market”) and you include all this information in your PPS at the
top of your CV.
Please don't confuse a PPS with the usual paragraph of text at the top of a CV
that lots of people include, which contains unsubstantiated claims that they
are a great person, brilliant communicator etc.
Your PPS should be brief
and should contain the following information, which will then be expanded on in
the rest of your CV:
1.
An overview of your skills & experiences and what you're
looking for
. For example "I am a
qualified Chartered Accountant looking for a role as a Finance Director in a
high growth SME."
2.
A description of your specific skills & experiences. For example "my specific experience includes 8 years’
Financial & Management accounting, Company Secretarial duties, Treasury, IT
Management & Implementation and Facilities Management."
3.
Additional specific information. For example "I have spent the past three years in a variety
of Financial and IT roles in a high growth business in which I have managed and
motivated teams of up to sixteen people to a high level of achievement. I also
have the ability and desire to contribute and influence at board level and the
capacity to participate in the leadership and strategic development of an
organisation."
By taking the time to create a PPS, you will have developed a good understanding of the skills you have to offer a new employer - which will make your interview go much more successfully because the interviewer won't have to try to guess if you can do the job! In addition, you won’t be able to create a PPS unless you know exactly what job you're looking for, which means you will only be going for jobs you can and want to do!
Top Tip 4: Career History
In this section of your CV you should list jobs that you have had, starting from the most recent first and go backwards. Be as specific and detailed as possible to avoid any ambiguity or confusion to your potential new employers. Give the dates that you started and finished the role, the job title, the company for which you worked and give a short one-line description of the company’s activities and it’s website. Then give a 2 or 3 line description of the role that you undertook, using active sounding words such as managed, sold, created etc.
You now need to list your key achievements in that role, giving 5 specific examples of you doing your job where you have been successful. Include as much specific information as you can, for example amount of business generated, number of people managed, size and scope of projects undertaken. The more specific you can be, the more credible you will come across to your future employers.
Repeat this process for each job you've had, but gradually give less information for older roles. The reason for doing this is so that potential employers can not only see what jobs you’ve done in the past, but that you’ve been successful in them, and that you have developed the right transferable skills to be successful doing a new job in their organisation.
Top Tip 5: Education,
training & qualifications
In this final section of your CV, list your education, training & qualifications in the order of most recent first. But remember, these are only relevant if they will allow you to do your job better, or if they are requested by the employer as essential or desirable to have. You can also briefly cover older, less relevant ones if you like.
I
do hope that you have found this report useful, and please remember that I can
help you if you want to apply for your next job but don’t have the
Ideal CV that will get you the all important
interview.
Call me now
on 01379 873 561 or email me at
pete@GetYourIdealJob.com to arrange a free initial consultation.
In
the session you will receive the key knowledge and tools required to make a CV
that will get you that interview.
Kindest
regards,
Peter
Bernard.