Ten Top Tips for a Fabulous CV

Your CV is the key to getting an interview. It’s your opportunity to present all your skills, expertise and achievements in a persuasive way. Treat it as a ‘ written interview’ – using it to convince the employer that you match the qualities and experience they need to do the job.

Remember that competition for every job is now tougher than ever, so your CV has to stand out from the rest and make each word fight for you. Faced with hundreds of CVs to sift through, an employer - who is always under pressure fitting this task into an already hectic schedule - will get rid of any CVs that aren’t easy to read or show any form of carelessness e.g. typing mistakes or poor quality printing. Give yourself the best chance of securing an interview and follow these ‘Ten Top Tips’.

1. Understand what employers are looking for

Evidence that you have:

• The qualifications to do the job
• The skills/abilities to do the job
• The personality to fit in
• The commitment to justify their investment in taking you on

2. Make your content relevant

You should ‘customise’ your CV for every job, so you may need several versions:

• What message(s) are you trying to convey?
• How well do you meet the employer’s expectations?
• How well do you match the job’s requirements?
• What evidence is there in your CV that you can satisfy the requirements? e.g.
  • Similar work /experience
  • Ability to get on with people
  • Ability to take responsibility
  • Likelihood that you’ll fit in
  • Reliability and commitment
• Always send with a covering letter – this must be top quality too (see separate Ten Top Tips for Impressive Covering Letters) Attach one or two relevant testimonials

 3. Get your CV noticed

Imagine you are the employer:

• They are always under pressure – looking through CVs to decide who to interview is just one of many tasks they are doing in addition to their already hectic workload
• Your CV is one in a pile of possibly hundreds
• Make your CV stand out – e.g. use cream coloured paper and dark blue ink
• Good quality paper – 100gsm - cheap paper (80gsm) suggests poor quality content

4. Make it easy to read

Make people want to read it:

• Nice clean type face and minimum of 12-point type size, large margins and good line spacing
• Does it have a clear layout – strong headings to assist ‘scan reading’?
• Is the print legible – was the printer/photocopier running out of ink?
• No spelling mistakes/errors
• Don’t make it too long, 2 – 3 pages maximum

5. Follow a logical format

Use the following headings and sequence:

• Name
• Contact details
• Personal profile – in one sentence, give a statement about yourself that explains the type of person you are, your area of expertise (relevant to this particular job) and your ambitions - if the employer reads nothing else on your CV, make sure this is compelling enough to secure an interview
• Work Experience/Career History – most recent work first. Don’t just give a boring list of duties, highlight key areas of responsibility and major achievements. Don’t leave any gaps in dates – people assume you’ve something to hide if dates aren’t accounted for
• Education – how far back you go depends on where you are in your career but never go beyond secondary school. Only include exam grades if they are impressive
• Interests and Activities – don’t just put one word descriptions e.g. sport or travel, explain in detail what type of sports, whether you belong to a club, how often you play, if you’ve won any competitions etc. For travel – what countries you have visited and something about what interests you about travelling. This is a key section to help the employer understand you as a person. They use it to make judgements about whether you will fit into their culture
• References – you need all the space in your CV for your information, so ‘Available on request’ is acceptable, unless they are very impressive and likely to influence the employer just by seeing you are associated with them

6. Attach a photograph –Yes or No?

There’s a recent trend towards sending a colour passport type photograph attached to a CV. Some employers like this, others hate it so try and find out their view before you risk irritating them. If you do send one, make sure it’s good quality and does you justice, otherwise it will create a very negative impression. Unless you’re sure this will seriously improve your chances of selection, I would advise against it

7. What not to include

This is your CV, not a formal application form that has specific questions, so you can put in or leave out anything you like:

Don’t include anything that is likely to put the employer off – for example:

• Age/date of birth
• Dependants
• Marital status
• Poor exam grades
• Reasons for leaving jobs

8. Check, check and check again

• Check you haven’t included anything that might cause concern/give the employer cause to reject you
• Use the ‘Spell Check’ on your computer
• Get someone else to read it (preferably a professional person – not just a pal who won’t necessarily want to give you negative feedback) – take their comments on board and make the necessary changes

9. Send it to the right place/person

• Post or email – check the instructions/employer’s preference
• If posting, envelope must be correctly/neatly addressed
• Check correct postage – may be heavier than normal first class if you’ve included testimonials etc.

10. Follow up

• You need to check that your CV has been received, so a courtesy call to the employer is quite acceptable. This ensures it has arrived safely (which is never a sure thing either by post or email) and reinforces your interest in the job