At the moment there is uncertainty in the work place and also a lot of people qualifying that may be needing to look for jobs.
When it comes to writing your CV it can be hard to know where to start in terms of layout and the amount of information. It is also important to tailor your CV for different jobs so that the more relevant skills feature more prominently.
A CV creates the first impression of you and is sometimes the only opportunity to get yourself noticed by an employer or recruiter so it pays to get this right. In order to make it to the next step to secure a telephone or face to face interview your CV must sell you to the employer by highlighting all of your skills, qualifications and experience.
Your CV should include your contact details, a personal statement, work experience and employment history, qualifications and training, other achievements, skills and interests plus details of referees. Although a CV is primarily a report giving this information is also needs to portray a good image of you as a potential employee.
Employers receive lots of CVs and have to decide quickly who they are and are not going to interview.
On average an employer will only spend just over 8 seconds skimming over your CV before deciding if they want to read on. Therefore you want to make sure you feature quality over quantity. With this in mind your CV should be approximately 2 pages long.
We have put together some of the CV best tips as discussed by managers and CEO’s to help you stand out when applying for jobs:
- If you have a LinkedIn account or other professional account type make sure you include the link to these in your CV. Put these with your contact details.
- Start with a positive, professional summary. Focus on accomplishments and successes, keep these at the top of your CV. Then if you have more than one role on there, think of the thing you are most proud of that stands out for each and make sure they feature first under the heading.
- Avoid writing anything negative, about furlough or redundancies etc. It isn’t lying you can speak about this in your cover letter and interview if needed but there is no need to feature this in your CV.
- If you have any data, evidence or examples of great performance then make sure you add it in.
- Your second section should show experience, keep you explanation of duties and responsibilities to 2 or 3 lines. Some people use bullet points but this can sometime encourage you to write too much. Something along the lines of; ‘I am have completed my apprenticeship in which I was responsible for the servicing and maintenance of vehicles, On a day to day basis I would carry out checks and diagnose issue, reporting back to my manager before fixing any faults. I am able to work of my own initiative and am confident in communicating with different levels of the team in order to complete a job’
- The third sections should list your qualifications and certifications. The actual date of qualifications may not be needed. If you have any membership or qualifications that can be listed after your name make sure you put this with your name at the top for example ‘John Smith AIMI BSc Mtech.’
Other tips include:
- Try not to use a formatted template as this will not stand out from the others.
- Try not to use commonly used phrases such as, ‘I’m a team player, hardworking and excellent communication skills.’ These are the type of phrases that other will use instead try to make a statement and follow it with a different skills for example: Currently I work as part of a team of 5, I am conscientious and use my intuitive to enable myself and the team to complete important tasks such as … ‘
- Do not use the line ‘References, available on request’ it is a waste of space. Include them or don’t include them make a choice.
- Keep your hobbies section. People like to know you have more personality and you can show this through your hobbies, whether
For more support into the world of work please check out the Employability Toolkit which include
s 6 full modules – available to download FREE!