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  6 CV-writing tips that will turn your good CV into a great one

  A good CV is nice, but how about a perfect CV?Most of us have a solid idea of what a good CV looks like. It’s got your name, employment history and education details on it, right? While a good CV may get you a look in with the HR manager, a great CV will seal the deal.Here’s a selection of tips to help you take your CV from good to great and secure your next job interview.Get the basics spot on.There are many ways to write a good CV. The structure is intentionally flexible, allowing you to move, add or delete sections with ease so that the relevant parts of your career are prominent. However, some sections are non-negotiable, such as your name, contact details, personal statement, employment history and qualifications. Forgetting any of these, or even leaving them with errors, can be a detriment to your candidacy.Note that HR managers expect to see your career history and education presented in reverse chronological order too. It makes sense to layout your experience in this way because it prioritizes your most recent achievements and, in turn, the peak of your career so far.Embrace the active voice.Using the active voice is the ultimate way to show prospective employers the impact you created in previous roles and prove you can bring similar success to a new job. This all comes down to how you phrase the sentences in your CV.For example, doesn’t ‘I coordinated all email marketing campaigns’ sound better than ‘All email marketing campaigns were coordinated by me’?The active voice is snappier and more concise than the passive. Scan through your CV and swap lengthy passive sentences for active words to make your points more impactful. A perfect CV employs a selection of these powerful verbs to describe your capabilities and achievements. Give some of these a try:GeneratedSpearheadedDecreasedIncreasedMaximizedModifiedFosteredQuantify your achievementsIt’s all very well telling the prospective employer what you did in your last role, but all great CVs show these details. That means getting specific with your examples.The simplest way to do this is by injecting numbers to quantify your abilities and accomplishments. Supporting your achievements with tangible figures helps HR managers gauge the impact you will make because they know exactly what you’ve already done.Take a look at the following examples:Managed a team of 7Increased e-commerce sales by 15% in 1 yearOnboarded and trained new staff in groups of up to 20If you fail to include figures in your CV, the HR manager will get the gist. But a perfect CV is strengthened with essential figures and metrics that demonstrate exactly what you’re capable of.Create structure with clear headingsBig, bold headings are a CV must. Without them, HR managers may struggle to navigate the document. After all, research shows prospective employers spend a mere six seconds poring over each CV. If they can’t identify the information they need in that short time frame, they’re likely to move onto the next candidate.Clear headings must introduce each section. While bolding the titles alone would work, it’s better to also increase the font size or even underline each heading with a solid line to maintain clarity.Give prominence to each role in your employment history and each qualification or educational institution too. Otherwise, the details may be swallowed amongst the mass of text. You may choose to bold your dates of employment, job title and the company name, for example.Utilize white spaceTwo pages is the ideal length for a CV, but if you have an extensive career history, it can be tricky to hit the sweet spot.I often see experienced professionals attempt to cram every detail onto two pages, resulting in tight page margins, teeny-tiny font sizes and hefty chunks of dense text. But this is not friendly on my eyes, let alone the HR manager’s.No matter where you are in your career, give the words on your CV room to breathe.Keep font sizes between 10 and 12 points for body text and 12 and 14 points for headings. Maintain page margins between 1.27cm and 2.5cm, and adjust line spacing to somewhere between single and double-spaced to create a balanced, professional appearance. You may feel like you’re wasting precious CV real estate, but you're actually making it easier for an HR manager to read (and be impressed by) your CV.Tweak and tailor to every roleIf the job description is the question, your CV is the answer ‒ a great CV must supply a well-rounded, appropriate response if you want to secure top marks. How can you achieve this?When reviewing the job description, tease it apart and identify the essential requirements. Then, tweak and tailor your CV so that it reflects the specific job criteria. This doesn’t necessarily mean rewriting your entire CV. It might mean adding a few keywords in your personal statement, moving an important role to a prominent position or even skimming down the details of an old position to create room for more relevant skills.No two roles are the same, so why would you supply different HR managers with the same CV? If you do, you may not do yourself justice and cost yourself the job.A good CV is nice, but taking it to the next level is how you’ll finally land that interview. And as it turns out, doing so isn’t too hard ‒ it is simply a case of making it more relevant, more pleasing on the eye and more professional. With just a few small adjustments, you make an HR manager’s job much easier, easily placing yourself ahead of the competition.

  18 min read 167 views
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  Five lines that are killing your CV

  Struggling to set your CV apart? With a number of jobs seemingly requiring similar skillsets, CVs can often end up looking like virtual replicas of one another, making the hiring process more difficult (and more irritating) for recruiters. And much of it simply comes down to an overreliance on the same old stock phrases. To help you ditch the clichés, here are five lines you should steer clear of when you’re writing your CV: 1. ‘Although I don’t have much experience in…’ Hiring managers aren’t immediately attracted to candidates that constantly apologise. Not only does it show a lack of confidence in your ability to do the job at hand, it also emphasises your shortcomings instead of focusing on what skills you actually do have. If it’s a skill or qualification that is essential for the job you’re applying for, apologising isn’t going to persuade the employer to consider you, and if it’s not 100% necessary, why mention it? Either way, you’re unlikely to ever come out in a positive light after your admission. In fact, if you doubt yourself, the employer will probably doubt you too. Remember: think about what you can offer in a role, not what you can’t. What you should do: Focus on what skills and experience you have that make you a good fit, and draw attention to those instead. Be positive, confident, and sure of your abilities – and recruiters will be too.  2. ‘I’m great at multi-tasking’ Let’s face it, multi-tasking is important for almost every role. Unfortunately, this has led to a phrase which has been so overused in CVs, that it’s probably lost all meaning to employers. We’re not saying that the ability to multi-task isn’t a valuable attribute. However, simply including that you’re good at it provides very little value to recruiters. You actually need to back it up. Think of relevant examples of when you’ve put your multi-tasking skills to the test, and how they’ve been employed to benefit the business. It’s all about how you say it – not just about what you say. What you should do: Talk about any tasks you’ve done that exemplify your multitasking skills, and use them to quantify your claims (i.e. how you managed multiple tasks to achieve a successful outcome – and what the outcome actually was). This way, you’re avoiding the clichéd phrase that almost everyone has in their CV, and replacing it with a tangible example that makes your CV unique. 3. ‘I’m a team player, who also works well alone’ Chances are, you’ll be good in a group and working individually. Most people are. However, the real problem with this phrase isn’t the fact that it’s notoriously overused, it’s that it doesn’t really say a lot. To an employer, saying you’re ‘a team player, who also works well alone’ just looks like a slightly lazy way of trying to cover all bases, because you feel that maybe, one of them might be a necessary requirement. Essentially, it’s the CV equivalent of sitting on the fence. So, instead of including both, why not focus on the one the role requires the most? If you’re going to be working in a team, then focus on that. And if it involves working independently, utilise those skills instead. Simple. What you should do: To avoid recruiters skimming over this point, make it mean more. Demonstrate a time where you’ve proved your success of working in a team, or how you’ve completed tasks independently. It’ll sound much better than the generic wording, not to mention represent your skills more accurately. 4. ‘I’m a perfectionist’ Whether you use this phrase on its own, or couple it with its even more irritating prefix ‘my biggest weakness is…’, this point simply has no place in your CV. Even if you genuinely are a perfectionist, this over-exaggerated character-defining phrase often translates as: ‘I’m really picky over minor details’. In reality, nothing is perfect – especially in the workplace.If an employer reads about your obsession with perfection in your CV, they may be left wondering how you’d really react when things don’t go to plan. Either that, or you’re trying to pretend you have no real weaknesses, other than your pursuit of greatness. Which, unfortunately, is something recruiters can spot a mile off. There aren’t a lot of positive outcomes. What you should do: Be honest. If you give recruiters enough of your skills, achievements, and experience, they’ll be able to make an informed decision on what you’re really like. And never, ever bring up weaknesses on your CV. Save that for the interview…  5. ‘I’m a people person’ Although this attribute is incredibly important attribute to have for a number of jobs (particularly customer facing ones), it’s a bad idea to include it in your CV. As with most clichéd phrases, it doesn’t have much meaning. Doesn’t everyone have the ability to speak to other humans, at least to some extent? Additionally, it’s likely that your CV will be sent to someone in HR, and members of this industry notoriously dislike this phrase – so not only will you be using an overused line, you’ll also risk mildly irritating the person with the power to move your application further. Without any context or elaboration, this is essentially just a fancy use of alliteration – and one that your CV could definitely do without. What you should do: Don’t be afraid to demonstrate your ‘people skills’, but display them in a way that effectively describes your communication skills, customer service experience, and affability, all at the same time. Proven instances and examples of successful interactions and good relationships with colleagues or customers will always work in your favour.

  18 min read 298 views

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