How to write a CV that does the job

You CV is likely to be the first contact you have with a potential employer. Follow some simple advice and your CV could be the first step to your new career.

Sell yourself

A CV is a sales brochure in which you are selling yourself. So right at the top of the first page should be your name in large font. There is nothing worse than having to leaf through loads of CVs and struggling to distinguish between candidates. Your name should leap out.

Follow your name with a one sentence description of yourself, wrapped in a clear box. This should be a section that describes your best attributes and why they fit the role for which you are applying. What I'm saying here it that you should tailor your CV to fit the job. Tell the reader why your skills and experience meet their requirements.

Write this sentence, reread and tweak to improve. Then read again, and rewrite again. Keep doing this until it can't get any better. Unless you are applying for really varied roles, I think this is the one bit of your CV that needs to be changed for each application. As it is just one sentence, make it good. Think about the keywords that the interviewer is looking for.

Here's one example a starting point:

Highly motivated, committed and ambitious team leader, with 4 years' experience managing call centre staff, seeking challenging next step in the customer service industry.

Pick out your key skills and experience

Next you should list your last few jobs. For each you should provide a header including:

• Your job title
• The company/employer name
• The dates you worked

Then under each role outline the key duties you performed, and next to each give specific examples of what you achieved or learned. Use bullet points to enhance the legibility.

So each job section could look something like:

Team Leader, Big Company PLC, July 2008 - Present

• Responsible for performance management of 5 agents
• Key role in project to devise new incentive scheme
• Reduced staff sick days by 25%
• Awarded team leader of the month on 5 occasions

Notice how I've picked out key phrases in bold to draw attention to the achievements. Try to write in short, concise statements that are easy to scan. Interviewers like CVs that are easy to speed read, especially when there are lots of applicants.

Make sure you can back up these statements if they arise as questions in the interview. Never lie, as this can go badly wrong in more ways than one.

List your academic achievements

The importance of your qualifications depends on the stage of your career. For your first full time job, these are very important as you won't have much else aside from part time jobs to talk about. At this point, you may want to list individual results for exams and degrees.

Later in your career, your experience is what counts. A summary of your results will be more appropriate at this point. Although you should list any recent vocational qualification or training courses that are relevant.

And for each of your key qualifications, try to list any key knowledge or skills you learned that are relevant to the role, similar to the example for the job role in the previous section.

Be interesting

Your hobbies and interests section should be pretty concise, but try to include at least one talking point, or quirky fact. Your interviewer is likely to be future colleague and so they'll want to work with interesting and stimulating people.

Plus, you'll be setting up an easy ice breaker question for the face to face. Whenever I've interviewed people, I've tried to find out what they are really like. This is tricky in interviews as people are generally very nervous so I'd look for a question that helps relax the atmosphere. I'd often pull these from the candidates hobbies section.

Keep it short and snappy

Fit your CV onto 2 pages, no more. If it is too long, edit it down - do not just shrink the font size! Your CV should be clear and well formatted with obvious titles and sections.

Put yourself in the place of the interviewer and imagine having loads of CVs to read. What would you look for? Any simple spelling mistake is CV suicide. Same with obvious grammatical errors. Whether you are confident or not in these areas, always use a spell checker, and try to get a friend or relative to proof read your CV.

Don't go crazy with colours and fonts, unless you're a trained designer going for a design job. For everybody else, it can go badly wrong.

And that's my advice. Work through your CV step-by-step and make each section as short, relevant and focused as you can.

 

How to write a CV that really SELLS you!

The only purpose of a CV and cover letter is to get you to the job interview. Use the following advice to create a great CV that really sells you to a potential employer.

Also create a cover letter that targets the key things the interviewer is looking for.

The CV - What's it for?

Any decent job could have many applicants. The only thing giving you the chance of an interview is your CV and cover letter. They have to be relevant to the job advertised, immediately interesting to the reader and proof that you can do the job.

Before you start writing the CV think about what skills you have:
Are you good at communicating, planning, working in a team, problem solving, leading, motivating others, numeracy, IT, caring for others?
Create a table with 2 columns. In the first put down all your skills/strengths. In the second give an example e.g. for communicating in the second column you could put 'In my current job I led a team which solved a difficult problem saving the company £1000'.

Now you have a list of your best skills.

The job advertisement

Look carefully at the job advertisement. In it will be good clues on what sort of person they are looking for. Highlight the statements like 'Applicants need to be numerate with good communication skills. They need to be able to work under pressure to tight deadlines'.

Now build these skills into your cover letter and CV to demonstrate you meet the requirements for the job. Give examples to demonstrate how numerate you are, why you are a good communicator etc. Remember if someone is going to pay you £20,000 per year they need to know you can earn their company at least £40,000 per year otherwise why should they give you their money! Put yourself into the mind of the advertiser. What are they looking for - how can you prove you are the best person for their job.

Make your CV interesting

Imagine the person reading your letter and CV. They may have 100 applicants from which they need to invite 5 max. for interview. If your application is boring, or doesn't immediately prove you meet their advertised requirements it will be binned

Apply the 1.5 second rule - When you read it can you capture the reader's interest in you in the top 1/3 of the first page?

IF the answer in no this is how you improve it:

At the top put your name, address, telephone number and email address. This enables the employer to contact you easily.

Immediately below this put a short section - My Personal Skills and Achievements
In this use the table you prepared in section 1. What skills do you have that match the ones they advertised for? For example I am highly numerate with excellent communication skills. My Teamworking skills are excellent and I deliver all my projects on time and within budget. I have worked effectively in the XXXX industry for 5 years and have significantly contributed to the improved profitability of my current employer.

In the next section put your Employment History
Put your latest job first. If there are gaps - you may have taken a year out travelling - cover this by putting a positive comment about the experience '2006-2007 travelled in the Far East to improve my knowledge of other cultures and languages'.

If you have changed jobs every year or so for the last 10 or 20 years, try to minimise the negative impression this will give by merging jobs together if very similar.

In every job put a summary of your greatest achievement. Try to put numbers to your claims: 'I reduced costs in my department by 5% in 2 years'.
Every company only has three business variables - Cost, Price, Units Sold. Try to impress the reader by showing how you have positively affected at least one of these in each of your previous jobs.

Next put a section on Education. This should show:
Your Degree, college obtained, subject and level
Your A levels, school obtained, subjects and levels
Your GCSE's, school obtained, subjects and levels

Also if you have been in employment any relevant training courses

A final section on Interests should describe your hobbies. Try to have an interesting hobby, something the interviewer will remember you by after the interview. Voluntary work at Oxfam or another charity organisation will leave a good impression. It is also a fascinating thing to do on a Saturday morning.

At the end put the names and addresses of two referees. Select them carefully. Will they give a very positive image of you?

The Cover Letter

The cover letter should be created to match the requirements from the job advert. Remember the table you made of the skills needed in the advert. Now you put them into the letter with a great example for each showing how you fulfill this requirement. For example: If they want someone with at least 5 years in their industry outline that you have extensive knowledge of this area from your X years working in it and mention a couple of your quantifiable (measurable) achievements. 'I successfully implemented a 3% price increase and also increased the number of customers by 8% in 2007'.

Also include this in your CV and make sure the letter and CV are consistent.

Address your letter and CV to the right person - do your research first!

Show interest in the job and company

Ring the company before sending off your letter and CV. Ask to be put through to the person advertising the job. Have several relevant questions to ask them about the advert. For example 'The advert asked for 5 years of IT experience. I only have 3 but am certain I meet all your other criteria very well. Will this be acceptable?

By ringing you have immediately established a rapport with the advertiser. When they see your CV it will be given more consideration.

Use the internet to research the company and the job. Is it what you want? Print off the company web pages and bring them to your interview to show you do your research. Probably the people interviewing you will not have looked at their web site and will be impressed!

Remember finding a job is a job in itself. You need to apply for a lot. If you are never invited for interview there is something wrong with your letter and CV. Ask friends and colleagues to look at it and offer improvements. If a friend has a great CV ask to see it and use their writing skills to help you.

Stay positive and keep looking. Most jobs never get advertised. They are filled by word of mouth, so ring companies and ask if they have any jobs that suit your skills. Ask your friends and colleagues to let you know if they see anything coming up.

Good luck and stay POSITIVE.
Eventually you will find that great job - just keep working at it.