CV Tips - Writing a Professional CV

In today’s fast moving and competitive world of recruitment, creating an effective job CV can often mean the difference between success and failure. It can take time and a great deal of effort to produce something which sells your skills and abilities in an inspiring way and gets you the interview within 2 pages. Yet by following a few simple rules and advice, you can maximise your chances and stand out from the other applicants.

Rule 1 – Get inside the HR departments head

Imagine the busy personnel or HR administrator that suddenly has a vacancy because someone has decided to leave for whatever reason. Now filling the role will take up quite a bit of his or her valuable time which they would rather spend doing other things. Finding the perfect person immediately would be so much easier than ploughing through loads of CV’s. They have a job description in front of them that was given to them by their boss. It includes experience or qualifications that are essential for the job and some attributes that are desirable but not absolutely necessary. They start going through the pile of CV’s on the desk scanning each one for about half a minute and makes a judgement.

Put simply they don’t have the time to read the CV that is more than two pages and all the relevant information is hidden in long paragraphs. – Its filed, in the bin!

Fancy formatting, coloured text or multiple fonts do not impress. They ask themselves, is this person trying to hide something? Are they trying to cover for their lack of experience for the job behind a flashy CV? – Its filed, in the bin!

Are there spelling mistakes or poor punctuation? This person is just sloppy! – Its filed, in the bin!

They get to the end and breaths a sigh of relief, as the pile of CV’s on the desk is much smaller already. Time for another coffee and then starts reading….

Rule 2 – Think about how your CV will get through the initial stage.

Make sure your CV is concise and to the point. They need to see your experience, skills and achievements in the first half a minute.

They know what they want and you have what they want so why distract them by adding in lots of unnecessary information.

Simple is best. Plain formatting, properly laid out under clear headings. The recruiter will want to see what you have done, when you did it and where you did it. Fancy formatting will make your CV more difficult to read. Don’t make a CV stand out for the wrong reasons.

Make sure that you keep checking your spelling, punctuation and grammar. It is the first step in your personal presentation to an employer. It says a lot about you. Also, poor English will distract the employer from reading the content of your CV.

Rule 3 – Clearly define the headings for your CV.

This is the list of headings that you should include on your CV

Contact details

Personal details

Interests Profile

Work experience or Career history

Education

Skills

Rule 4 – Make it easy for them.

Remember, they have very little time and they don’t know you yet. They are only interested in what you can offer the company.

E & O E – Copyright 2007 CV Writing Ltd

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