Your CV – Some Golden Rules
Your CV – Some Golden Rules
Make it clear, factual and concise. Unless you are applying for a graphic design job, keep it a clean simple layout, clear font and crisp white background.
Aim to keep it to two, or three, pages max. Condense by providing the last 2 or 3 roles, or the past 10 years, in detail with a summary of your career before that. Page number with your name reference on each page.
Include an overview statement of no more than three lines highlighting your unique attributes, key strengths and potential contribution. Keep this factual and beware of sounding like a super-being, it can come across as arrogant and unconvincing.
When describing responsibilities or achievements se active verbs like ‘saved, installed, established, planned, initiated, promoted’.
Top Tip – Highlight and quantify specific achievements or actual contributions you have made. For example, ‘Reorganised the document filing system to save the team one day per week through ease of retrieval.’ Or ‘Improved accuracy on order inputting from 90% to 99%, saving time and making customers happier.’ ‘Wrote and instigated marketing plan which doubled incoming enquiries from xx to xxx per month and increased sales by 30%’
There are various possible layouts but best to use a logical order: Overview Statement, Career Detail with your roles and achievements – from current back to your earlier career, Skill Summary, Education, Training & Qualifications, Interests & Hobbies, then References.
Make sure all the details are accurate, and that you’ve briefly explained any gaps. Watch out for typos in dates, like putting the current year on one of your previous jobs
List all of your useful business skills (software, languages) but only the interests and hobbies that are meaningful – the ones you can talk about with some purpose. Social and gym – doesn’t everyone? Only put reading if you can talk about books!
Check for spelling mistakes. Ask a reliable friend or colleague to proofread for you and to tell you if they think you have missed out some of your valuable attributes or qualities.
Write a short, covering letter or email summarising which parts of your experience make you ideal for the job. This is the icing on the cake.
Your CV is your gateway to getting interviews. It is your first chance to make a good impression on a potential employer, so take time to ensure your CV reflects your best qualities. Have several different CVs for different industries and tailor each one in line with the advert for every single job application. Here are 10 things to watch out for.
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- Make it clear, factual and concise. Unless you are applying for a graphic design job, keep it a clean simple layout, clear font and crisp white background.
- Aim to keep it to two, or three, pages max. Condense by providing the last 2 or 3 roles, or the past 10 years, in detail with a summary of your career before that. Page number with your name reference on each page.
- Include an overview statement of no more than three lines highlighting your unique attributes, key strengths and potential contribution. Keep this factual and beware of sounding like a super-being, it can come across as arrogant and unconvincing.
- When describing responsibilities or achievements se active verbs like 'saved, installed, established, planned, initiated, promoted'.
- Top Tip – Highlight and quantify specific achievements or actual contributions you have made. For example, 'Reorganised the document filing system to save the team one day per week through ease of retrieval.' Or 'Improved accuracy on order inputting from 90% to 99%, saving time and making customers happier.' 'Wrote and instigated marketing plan which doubled incoming enquiries from xx to xxx per month and increased sales by 30%'
- There are various possible layouts but best to use a logical order: Overview Statement, Career Detail with your roles and achievements - from current back to your earlier career, Skill Summary, Education, Training & Qualifications, Interests & Hobbies, then References.
- Make sure all the details are accurate, and that you've briefly explained any gaps. Watch out for typos in dates, like putting the current year on one of your previous jobs
- List all of your useful business skills (software, languages) but only the interests and hobbies that are meaningful - the ones you can talk about with some purpose. Social and gym - doesn’t everyone? Only put reading if you can talk about books!
- Check for spelling mistakes. Ask a reliable friend or colleague to proofread for you and to tell you if they think you have missed out some of your valuable attributes or qualities.
- Write a short, covering letter or email summarising which parts of your experience make you ideal for the job. This is the icing on the cake.
Make it clear, factual and concise. Unless you are applying for a graphic design job, keep it a clean simple layout, clear font and crisp white background.
Aim to keep it to two, or three, pages max. Condense by providing the last 2 or 3 roles, or the past 10 years, in detail with a summary of your career before that. Page number with your name reference on each page.
Include an overview statement of no more than three lines highlighting your unique attributes, key strengths and potential contribution. Keep this factual and beware of sounding like a super-being, it can come across as arrogant and unconvincing.
When describing responsibilities or achievements se active verbs like ‘saved, installed, established, planned, initiated, promoted’.
Top Tip – Highlight and quantify specific achievements or actual contributions you have made. For example, ‘Reorganised the document filing system to save the team one day per week through ease of retrieval.’ Or ‘Improved accuracy on order inputting from 90% to 99%, saving time and making customers happier.’ ‘Wrote and instigated marketing plan which doubled incoming enquiries from xx to xxx per month and increased sales by 30%’
There are various possible layouts but best to use a logical order: Overview Statement, Career Detail with your roles and achievements – from current back to your earlier career, Skill Summary, Education, Training & Qualifications, Interests & Hobbies, then References.
Make sure all the details are accurate, and that you’ve briefly explained any gaps. Watch out for typos in dates, like putting the current year on one of your previous jobs
List all of your useful business skills (software, languages) but only the interests and hobbies that are meaningful – the ones you can talk about with some purpose. Social and gym – doesn’t everyone? Only put reading if you can talk about books!
Check for spelling mistakes. Ask a reliable friend or colleague to proofread for you and to tell you if they think you have missed out some of your valuable attributes or qualities.
Write a short, covering letter or email summarising which parts of your experience make you ideal for the job. This is the icing on the cake.
Really hot tip! Change that outrageous email address to something more appropriate for business than for the chat room. What may be funny socially may well get noticed but, quite likely for the wrong opportunities.