CV ADVICE

Your CV is your personal catalog that gives you a chance to show off all your talents, competencies and characteristics which in turn makes you the ideal candidate for demanding employers. Therefore, writing an exceptional CV to grab the attention of employers can be one of the most daunting tasks during job hunting.

Most employers and recruiters spend little time in going through a CV before placing them in the Yes or No pile but do not worry as we have compiled a list of 10 ways to make sure your CV stands out!

Include a Personal statement.

Make sure you go out of your way to show that your experience is suitable for the position the employer is recruiting for and the best way of doing that is having a personal statement that is tailored towards why you are the best person for the job.

Keep it short and sweet!

Employers usually take up to 8 or so seconds to go through a CV, therefore make sure your content is precise and to the point, leave the rest of the information about your life for the face to face interview. Do not forget that your CV should only be 2 pages long!

Try to avoid leaving gaps.

If you have been out of work, try and put a positive spin on it and by that we mean to include as much information as to why there is a gap between certain work experiences such as taking time off to do a course or to do volunteer work for example. By not providing the relevant information it may raise suspicion that will most likely lead to your CV being placed in the not suitable pile.

Keep it Current!

Even if you are not looking to leave your company, always make sure to add anything significant that might have occurred in your career recently. In other words, keep it up-to-date. It is not important for an employer to know what activities you took part in whilst in school.

Tailor your CV to your audience.

It may seem like a very tedious task to adapt your CV to suit the requirements of each job that you apply for, however by doing so it will greatly enhance your chance of securing an interview.

Clutter Free Layout.

As we mentioned earlier, an employer or a recruiter spends very little time going through a CV before placing it into the yes or no pile, therefore it is essential to present your most important information in a simple manner so that it is easily accessible when people skim through it. One way of doing this is to avoid adding unnecessary information that would clutter up your CV.

It has to be error free.

It is very easy to make a grammatical or spelling mistake when writing up your CV no matter how good you may think you are and the damage caused by it is almost irreversible in the recruiter’s eyes. So, remember to take your time writing it up and get a few people to look at it just to be sure. It is also extremely important that your employment dates match up and that you give the correct personal details such as phone number and address.

Unique Selling Point.

For every job that you apply for, there maybe hundreds of candidates that you are competing against, so it is crucial to do whatever it take to stand out. Therefore, be different, be unique, show them that you can add a distinct value to the business that nobody else can – this will be your unique selling point! One way of doing this is not only including skills in your CV but solutions to certain problems that you came up with in your current/old job.

Add plenty of keywords.

If you are going to upload your CV onto a job site it is imperative to add as many keywords as possible. The reason behind this is simple, the more buzzwords (which are related to the job title you are interested in) that are on your CV increases the chances of your CV coming up in a search done by an employer.

Make it look good.

Spacing out your CV allows most of your information to be accessible to the eyes of anyone that is skimming through it. Another way of making it look good is by using bullet points which is always favored by employers/recruiters over going through large paragraphs.

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