The weekend is now upon us and if you are giving thought to updating your CV or currently refining it, here are some take away tips to ensure your CV packs a punch.
- Do include your contact details at the top of the CV – email address and phone number are especially important but also show the town or county where you live, this is because recruitment agency databases have location filters and settings. Do not put your contact details as a header or a footer, these may not be seen on screen.
- The profile section – this should be a decent paragraph long, about 8-10 lines, use it wisely to incorporate key words which quickly convey who you are. If you have experience with joint business plans, FOB sales, P&L or are CIM qualified then put this into the profile. Include sector experience – grocery, retail, online, licensing, toys, nursery, gift. Try to make the profile as informative and impactful as possible so avoid words without meaning.
- Career history – rather than simply stating what you have done, back it up with results and outcomes. Make the words clear and concise e.g. ‘I was tasked with developing X account which was trading at Y value in 2019. The account is now trading at Z value as a result of my BLANK’ – give a brief outline as to how growth was achieved. Employers will be far more impressed by this rather than a ‘Grew Tesco by X% or £X’.
- Avoid setting out a job description, this could relate to anyone, your CV needs to be tailored to who you are, what you have done and what successes you have achieved. The best way to accomplish this is to cherry pick some strong examples of responsibilities and achievements and back these up with facts and figures. Think of the ones which you had to really work hard for, these say much more about you and your capabilities. Stating things like ‘attending trade shows’ is not the best use of white space.
- Embrace white space. Do not be afraid to have your CV clearly set out on 3 pages if it means using a font size the reader can easily see. Avoid italics if possible, these strain eye sight. Think about the person receiving your CV, they may have already read 50 or 100+ CV’s that week. A CV which has each page crammed with text is not a pleasant prospect to look at, it may get put off to tomorrow then the next day and the next…
- If you need to use narrow margins for your CV to be on 2 pages do make sure the 2 pages have clear white space in them – otherwise use 3 pages. Best font size is 12.
- Do include hobbies or interests but make them come to life with a little bit of information added to them.
- Be objective with your career history and really think ‘am I letting the person reading this CV know what I can do? Am I telling them how I achieved this result?’ If you are not, then you run risk of a rejection.
- Employers want to know facts and figures so in order for your CV to really stand out you must clearly show achievements alongside actions.
Hopefully these pointers will set you on the right track to CV success.
Happy weekend everyone.