Creating A Successful CV to Help You To Stand Out From The Crowd

Your CV is your personal marketing tool and the first thing an employer gets to know about you. Therefore, your CV needs to be easy to read and digest, interesting, positive, relevant and concise

The purpose of your CV is to get you an interview.  Information should be presented in a way that employers can instantly spot your skills, attributes, experience, achievements and personality. Content is just as important as presentation and employers won’t spend long reading your CV to search for details.

How Should I Structure My CV?

When structuring your CV you need to think about:

• The overall presentation: is it professional, ordered logically, with suitable headings?
• The content: how concise it is, the language you use, the way you write your sentences

The way you order your information depends somewhat on your past history and current situation and there are a variety of styles you can use. If you have little or no work experience you should put your education section before your work experience and focus more on your key skills section. Remember, whichever style you use you must tailor it to the job you are applying for.

CV Styles and Formats

There are many different CV styles and formats

Skills based CV: This allows you to highlight the relevant skills developed through academic and social activities and can be a way of playing down lack of experience whilst drawing the readers’ eye to key skills. If you have little or no work experience or are looking for a career change this may be a suitable style to use.

Reverse Chronological / Traditional CV: One of the most common types of CV’s. Presented in reverse chronological order, it displays your most recent experience and achievements first.  It can also highlight your educational achievements first and then any work experience

Hybrid CV:  This allows you to really play around with the CV to highlight the most relevant things about you in relation to the job you are applying for. It can be a mixture of both the skills based and reverse chronological. It is the easiest format to use to make your CV stand out.

How Can I Increase My Chances of Getting An Interview?

Points to Remember.

• You must tailor your CV to the job you are applying for
• What are the essential and desirable qualities, experiences and skills required?
• What examples can you use to back-up any claims you make about skills and experiences?
• Have you any additional skills and experiences that are relevant that will help you stand out from the crowd?

Get ready

Now that you know how to create a successful CV, it’s time to put that into practice.

Help is always available, so get the expert’s view by requesting a free CV review today.