CV Hints & Tips

Your CV is your very own personal brochure. Done well it is designed to sell your education and experience in a summary format. Under no circumstances lie or stretch the truth in your CV. You will be found out or you will simply be in a job that you are not able to perform to the best of your ability in. You will therefore have wasted your employer and your time. Remember your CV is the tool to get you the interview not to get you the job. After you have been invited to the interview the rest is down to you.

Your CV must be amended for each job for which you apply. Having one CV that fits all purposes will rarely result in your being invited to an interview, particularly when you consider that a decision will be made by an employer within little more than 30 seconds to invite you to an interview or not. It is however recommended that you create one master CV template. This you can then amend to make it bespoke to each employment position for which you apply.

Let’s just imagine you were buying a car. What would you want to know about the car before you entered into a sale? We would individually seek different things. For example:

• Mechanics – how does it work?
• Speed – how fast does it go?
• Economy – how economical is it?

Surprisingly employers are no different when they are seeking the preferred candidate for an employment vacancy. As an applicant when your write your CV it is important that you fine tune your skills, abilities and aspirations according to the employment position for which you are applying. For example:

• Mechanics – how exactly do you work? For example, do you like to work alone or part of a team; are you a perfectionist or more interested in getting fast results?
• Speed – how fast do you work? Do you need to have all the facts before you make a decision or do you make assumptions and undertake the work?
• Economical – are you good value for money? Do you have the skills, qualifications, etc that the employer is seeking or do they need to invest in training?

Plan and prepare your CV before putting “pen to paper”

• Decide exactly how you will capture the reader’s attention for example, if you are applying to an advertisement highlight the key words and the essential criteria specified within the advert, if you are applying speculatively, research information about the company and use it.
• Consider what you have to offer that will benefit the company.
• If you are applying for a particular employment position check the closing date and ensure that your application is received before the closing date and not after.

Presentation of your CV

• Always type your CV or get someone to do it for you. Under no circumstances hand write your CV.
• Be creative in the presentation and use professional font styles and sizes. (Do not use too many different styles and sizes). Spell check and grammar check the CV.
• Ensure there are white spaces (you are not writing a book).
• Use bullet points not long sentences.
• Present the information logically.
• Ensure your CV is not more than 2 pages (A4) in length. (One page is quite sufficient if you have held only one employment position).
• Print out your CV on quality paper (not too thick) using a laser printer.

Structure & content of your CV

• Use bold headings to separate subject areas, e.g., education, experience, etc
• Put the most important information first.
• List your qualifications not your grades unless the employer is specifically asking for them.
• Start with your most recent employment or education history first, namely in reverse order.
• Write in some detail your most recent employment position and summarise those you have held some years ago. Additionally, if you have held numerous employment positions in the last 5 years, detail the last two or three or focus upon those employment positions that are relevant to the job for which you are applying.
• Use command words to describe your achievements, e.g., developed, managed, etc.
• Briefly list your responsibilities and accountabilities.
• Detail your achievements.
• Summarise your later experience and education.
• Leave out your interests and activities or at least keep these to the bare minimum.
• Leave out your referees. Employers will ask for these at a later stage.
  Remember to include your covering letter. (Refer to covering letter hints and tips).

CV Writing Service

If you need your CV writing or reviewing and updating simply contact Complete People Management Ltd via www.completepeoplemanagement.co.uk or at info@completepeoplemanagement.co.uk or on 0870 224 0919

Our aim is to get you to the interview. To do this we will need to know about the following:

• Skills
• Abilities
• Aspirations
• About the job you are applying for e.g., job description
• About the company you are applying to.
• Why you are applying for the job and the company.