So what are the tricks of the trade?

I’ve obviously written a lot of CVs; what five things should job seekers bear in mind when writing their own CV?

Within The CV Book, I list what I consider to be the five top tips:

1) Maximise readability: It’s essential for your CV to be easy for the reader to scan quickly and effectively.

2) Include a Professional Profile and Objective: These sections should summarise and emphasise your key attributes and your intended future career path.

3) Include Achievements where possible: If you can include an Achievements section then it can make an instant and dramatic difference to the power of your CV, enabling you to distinguish yourself from other candidates.

4) Keep your CV concise and to-the-point: Too many CVs are quite simply too long. Only include information which will actually help to sell you.

And…

5) Target/tailor your CV: A carefully targeted CV can easily mean the difference between success and failure.

Welcome!

It’s always hard to pick a topic with which to kick off a new blog.  But, given that this blog is brought to you by The CV Centre, I thought I’d start by saying a brief word in response to a key question -  a question which was put to me in a radio interview just this morning: Why is it so important to get your CV right?

My answer’s short but sweet:  You have to see things from the recruiters’ or prospective employers’ point of view.  They’re often faced with a pile of many hundreds of CVs to review – for just one vacancy.  And almost a third of recruiters admit to only reading a CV for a minute or so before deciding whether to interview the candidate.  In fact, many admit to spending even less time!  Twenty to 30 seconds is quite common.  So it’s vital to make your CV stand right out from the competition.  Get your CV right and you’ll get your foot in the door for an interview.  Get it wrong and you’ll end up in the ‘no thank you’ pile – also known as the bin!

This blog is going to become a regular column, drawing on specific questions, topics and problems raised in The CV Centre’s forum and elaborating on them in detail.  Please do visit our forum and let me have your thoughts.

I look forward to speaking with you again soon.

Kind regards,