Tips and Advice
There is no right or wrong way of writing a CV, though everyone you speak to will give you a different view as to what it should look like, what it should contain and how many pages you should write etc.
The following brief notes are for guidance purposes only – they are not definitive in terms of best practice CV writing.
Purpose
Your principal objective is to secure an interview and your secondary objective is to set the agenda for the interview. What the decision-maker should be thinking when reading your CV is ‘What can this individual bring to the party and how could he/she contribute to the bottom line’? If this is not apparent in your CV, you may not get the interview you want.
Preparation Stage
Plan what you want to say and if necessary, write several drafts.
Your CV should always be up to date and accurate.
It should be clear and concise. Avoid abbreviations and jargon.
Think about your reader. He or she will probably have lots of CVs to read and other paperwork to process, so try to keep your CV to 2/3 pages and do not send unnecessary attachments.
Summary Statements and Profiles:
Summary statements and profiles are commonly used at the beginning of a CV and can help to provide a clear statement of what you have to offer. If well written, it can gain the attention of the reader and provide the much needed encouragement to read on. It is often easier to write once you have written the main body of your CV. Keep it brief and targeted to the job that you have applied for, which means, review it regularly!
Achievement Statements:
Your CV should be written as an ‘active’ rather than a ‘passive’ document and should focus on what you have achieved rather than what you are responsible for. It should clearly demonstrate past ability with measurable evidence. Use bullet points to facilitate easy reading.
The components of a well-written achievement include:
Challenge – highlight the circumstances that surrounded the achievement.
Action - how you executed the achievement, what you did etc.
Result – the impact of your action. Include key deliverables, measures, contribution etc.
Begin each achievement with strong action verbs that indicate level, strengths and focus on results. For example ‘achieved’, ‘delivered’, ‘exceeded’. Try to avoid weak verbs such as ‘helped to’, ‘coordinated’, ‘responsible for’.
Pulling it together
Career History – a brief summary statement for each position you have held over the last few years is good to include. Do not be tempted to list every job that you have held. Try to focus on the most relevant and use a general summary statement for those earlier roles.
Education and Qualifications – consider what emphasis these should have in your CV. If they were gained some time ago and are not relevant to your career aspirations then provide only brief details toward the end of your CV.
Training Courses – recent training courses will demonstrate on-going learning and up-to-date knowledge. Don’t bother with irrelevant courses – only those that have provided new skills, and keep the list short. Again, it is often better to show this information at the end of your CV.
Languages – particularly relevant for global organisations, and if competent, then state whether you can offer both written and oral fluency.
Membership of Professional Institutions – memberships which have required study etc, are much more significant than those that are simply gained by paying a membership fee. Continuous learning and development are important so show your commitment.
Personal Information – this is largely a matter for you to decide whether to include such information or not. Employers are not allowed to make decisions about a candidate based on age, sex, race or disability etc., however, they may request some of this information for monitoring purposes.
Remember
It is claimed that a CV gets no more than 30-60 seconds attention so you have to grab (and maintain) the interest of your reader quickly and efficiently.
Make your CV work for you and make sure that your reader can see at a glance what you have done. The key information should sell you and should jump off the page.
There are many ways to represent the information you need to include and one of the most commonly accepted versions is the Reverse Chronological. This lists your experience in reverse chronological order and includes job titles/posts with key achievements listed below. Particular emphasis should be placed on posts held within the last ten years rather than going back too far in any great detail, and don’t always feel the need to include all of your educational achievements i.e. if you have a degree then don’t feel the need to list all of your ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels if these were taken quite a number of years ago.
And, above all, keep it simple!
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