Get Your CV Noticed
When we sit down with a candidate the first question we ask them is: What is a CV?
The most common answer is “a statement of my skills and experience”. Well yes, but also no… Its foremost function is actually a marketing document. So, we describe it as a ‘sales pitch’ highlighting your relevant skills and experience to a prospective hiring manager – a subtle but important difference.
The second function is a script for an interview. 70% of your interviews will focus on a walk-through of your experiences and skills to date, so a well-written CV gives you control of the narrative.
Finally, this is the ideal time to assess your career and analyse the skills you want to gain to reach your career goals.
Types of CV
Functional CV - focused on your skills and abilities; works best when your experience is not exactly aligned to the role you are applying to, you are changing career or there are career gaps and you want to highlight your transferrable skills.
Chronological CV - the standard CV format, written in reverse-chronological order (most recent role first) highlighting your academic and career history.
Advantages of this format are:
- As the CV flows better, it is easier to understand and talk through.
- It provides a timestamp and highlights the depth of your experience.
- It emphasises the story of your career progression and growth.
What should a CV include?
When applying to a specific position, look through the job description and tailor your CV around it. Many of the people we work with have a ‘Master CV document’ that includes all of their experience, which is then shortened to a 2/3 page role specific CV.
We would advocate making sure you use dates in the MMM, YYYY format. Look at 2018 – 2019, This could be 1st Jan 2018 to 31st Dec 2019 (2 years), or 31st Dec 2018 to 1st Jan 2019 (2 days), its important for the reader to understand the length of time you did something.
Avoid long text sections, acronyms that are specific to a company and make sure it focuses on your role and contributions to the team effort. Regularly, our candidates use ‘we’ or ‘my team’, which blurs your input. It is fine to say “we achieved this” as long as you then caveat with “and my focus / my part / my contribution was to…”.
Core Sections
- Name, Preferred pronouns, Contact Details, Skills, Education, Career History, Hobbies and Interests, References.
Profile / Summary / Objective
- Whilst many CV writing experts advocate an opening section, we’re not convinced it adds much value, due to the generic nature of the piece. If you are going to have an opening statement – ensure it gives an honest description of you, who you are, soft skills, how you like to work or be considered – more personality and non-clichéd character-based content not included elsewhere.
Education, Certifications and Professional Qualifications
Include dates, the institution (or organisation) and the details of the qualification achieved. If relevant, you can add a couple of bullet points highlight relevant topics covered.
Training and Development
Timestamp what training and development you have received and who provided it, highlighting the knowledge or skills gained.
Career History - how to articulate your experience
This is a detailed summary of your career, skills and experience starting with the most recent.
If you have more than 10 years’ experience, we suggest using a short ‘Early Career’ section, so more space can be allocated to the more recent and relevant aspects of your career.
Structuring High Impact FAB Content
FAB – Features, Achievements and Benefits
Features – Provide a succinct overview of your experience that is factual and objective.
Example: 10 years’ experience In B2B sales environment, focused on selling SAAS solutions to major corporates.
Accomplishments / Achievements – What did you do and how did you do it? Provide specific results and, if relevant, give numbers and statistics.
Example: Generated 30 new clients in a year, delivering a 60% increase in new sales revenue and opened up new sales channels.
Benefits – Explain the benefit or value of the work you delivered to the company, providing an example that shows what you can do for the new employer.
Example: Clear impact on the company’s bottom line, diversified the client base within the eCommerce sectors.
These can then be brought together in a single bullet point:
- 10 years of B2B SAAS solutions sales to large corporations across Europe. In 2022, I generated 30 new clients, increasing sales by 60%, developing New Sales channels, which improved profitability through expanded our client base into eCommerce.
By writing your experience in this way, the reader can quickly identify what your skill set is and will be able to relate this to their own needs.
Awards, Publications, Hobbies and Interests
In this section you can write additional information that showcases who you are outside of the workplace, but also the significant achievements or accomplishments that help to define you.
References
Include two or three references from academic, employment or personal.
Provide the referees name and contact details and capacity in which they know you.
