How to write a successful CV
By Dimitrios Shistohilis
04/2016
What information
should a CV include?
What are the most
important aspects of CV that you look for?
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45%
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Previous related work
experience
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35%
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Qualifications & skills
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25%
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Easy to read
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16%
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Accomplishments
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14%
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Spelling & grammar
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9%
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Education (these were not just graduate recruiters
or this score would be much higher!)
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9%
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Intangibles: individuality/desire to succeed
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3%
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Clear objective
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2%
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Keywords added
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1%
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Contact information
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1%
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Personal experiences
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1%
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Computer skills
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Personal
details
Normally
these would be your name, address, date of birth (although
with age discrimination laws now in force this isn't essential), telephone number and email.
Education and qualifications
Your
degree subject and university, plus A levels and GCSEs or equivalents. Mention
grades unless poor!
Work experience
- Use ACTION
WORDS such as developed, planned and organised.
- Even work in a shop, bar or restaurant will involve WORKING
IN ATEAM, providing
a QUALITY SERVICE to customers, and dealing
tactfully with complaints.
- Try to relate
the SKILLS to the job. A finance job will involve NUMERACY, analytical and PROBLEM
SOLVING SKILLS so focus on these whereas for a marketing
role you would place a bit more emphasis on PERSUADING
AND NEGOTIATING skills.
- All of my work
experiences have involved working within a team-based culture. This
involved planning, organisation, coordination and commitment e.g., in
retail, this ensured daily sales targets were met, a fair distribution of
tasks and effective communication amongst all staff members.
Interests
and achievements
Writing
about your interests
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Reading, cinema, stamp-collecting, playing computer games
Suggests a solitary individual who doesn't get on with other people.
This may not be true, but selectors will interpret the evidence they see
before them.
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Cinema: member
of the University Film-Making Society
Travel: travelled through Europe by train this summer in a group of four people, visiting historic sites and practising my French and Italian Reading: helped younger pupils with reading difficulties at school.
This could be the same individual as in the first example, but the
impression is completely the opposite: an outgoing proactive individual who
helps others.
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- Keep this section short and to the point. As you grow older, your
employment record will take precedence and interests will typically
diminish greatly in length and importance.
- Bullets can be used to separate interests into different
types: sporting, creative etc.
- Don't use the
old boring cliches here: "socialising with friends".
- Don't put many
passive, solitary hobbies (reading, watching TV, stamp collecting) or you may
be perceived as lacking people skills. If you do put these, then say what
you read or watch: "I particularly enjoy
Dickens, for the vivid insights you get into life in Victorian times".
- Show a range of interests to avoid coming across as
narrow: if everything centres around sport they may wonder if you could
hold a conversation with a client who wasn't interested in sport.
- Hobbies that are
a little out of the ordinary can help you to stand out from the crowd:
skydiving or mountaineering can show a sense of wanting to stretch
yourself and an ability to rely on yourself in demanding situations
- Any interests relevant to the job are worth mentioning: current
affairs if you wish to be a journalist;
- Any evidence of LEADERSHIP is
important to mention: captain or coach of a sports team, course
representative, chair of a student society, scout leader: "As captain of the school cricket team, I had
to set a positive example, motivate and coach players and think on my feet
when making bowling and field position changes, often in tense
situations"
- Anything showing evidence of EMPLOYABILITY such
as team working, organising, planning, persuading, negotiating etc.
Skills
- The usual ones to mention
are LANQUAGES (good conversational French, basic
Spanish), COMPUTING (e.g. "good working knowledge of MS
Access and Excel, plus basic web page design skills" and DRIVING
("full current clean driving licence").
- If you are a MATURE candidate
or have lots of relevant skills to offer, a SKILLS
BASED CV may work for you
References
- Many employers don’t check
references at the application stage so unless the vacancy specifically
requests referees it's fine to omit this section completely if you are
running short of space or to say "References are available on
request."
- Normally two referees are
sufficient: one academic (perhaps your tutor or a project supervisor) and
one from an employer (perhaps your last part-time or summer job).
- The order and the emphasis will depend on what you are applying for and what you have to
offer.
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When asked what would make them automatically reject a candidate,
employers said:
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If
you are applying for more than one type of work, you should have a different CV tailored to each career area, highlighting different aspects of your skills and experience.
A PERSONAL
PROFILE at the start of the CV can work for jobs
in competitive industries such as the MEDIA or ADVERTISING, to help you to stand out from the crowd. If used, it needs to be
original and well written. Don’t just use the usual hackneyed expressions: “I am an excellent communicator who
works well in a team…… “
You
will also need a COVERING LETTER to accompany your CV.
What makes a good
CV?
There
is no single "correct" way to write and present a CV but the following
general rules apply:
- It is targeted on the specific job or career area for which you are
applying and brings out the relevant skills you have to offer
- It is carefully and clearly laid out: logically ordered,
easy to read and not cramped
- It
is informative but concise
- It is accurate in content, spelling and grammar.
If you mention attention to detail as a skill, make sure your spelling and
grammar is perfect!
What mistakes do candidates make on their CV?
One survey of employers found the following mistakes were most common
- Spelling and grammar 56% of
employers found this
- Not tailored to the job 21%
- Length not right & poor
work history 16%
- Poor format and no use of
bullets 11%
- No
accomplishments 9%
- Contact
& email problems 8%
- Objective/profile was too
vague 5%
How long should a CV be?
There
are no absolute rules but, in general, a new graduate's CV should cover no more than two sides of A4 paper. If
you can summarise your career history comfortably on a single side, this is fine and has advantages when you
are making speculative applications and need to put yourself across concisely.
However, you should not leave out important items, or crowd your text too
closely together in order to fit it onto that single side. ACADEMIC and TECHNICAL CVs
may be much longer: up to 4 or 5 sides.
How do I get my CV down to two pages from three?
- First change your margins in MS Word to Page Layout /
Margins/ Narrow - this will set your margins to 1.27 cm which are big
enough not to look cramped, but give you extra space.
- Secondly change your body font to Lucida Sans in 10 pts size.
Lucida Sans is a modern font which has been designed for clarity on a
computer screen.
Bullets
make CVs more readable
Our brains love lists: they create a reading experience with more
easily acquired information. We process lists more efficiently, and retain
information with less effort. Bulleted lists appeal to our tendency to
categorize things since they divide information into short, distinct items.
They also help to alleviate the "Paradox of choice": the problem
that the more options we have, the worse we feel.
But don't bullet everything on your CV or it will look boring!
Bulleted lists are great for lists of skills or interests but are necessarily limited
in content and nuance, and so contain less depth than paragraphs.
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- Use tables with two or three columns for your academic results and
references.
- Use bullets for content,
rather than long paragraphs of text. (See the box to the right)
- Finally, SET LINE SPACINGS TO SINGLE SPACE
If
after all these tricks you are still on three pages you have to be ruthless
with your content: read every single word and remove it if it doesn't add value
to your CV!
Tips on presentation
- Your CV should be carefully and clearly laid out - not too cramped but not with
large empty spaces either. Use bold and italic typefaces for
headings and important information
- Never back a CV - each page should be on a separate sheet of paper.
It's a good idea to put your name in the footer area so that it appears on
each sheet.
Be
concise: a CV is an appetiser and should not give the reader indigestion. Don't
feel that you have to list every exam you have ever taken, or every activity
you have ever been involved in - consider which are the most relevant and/or
impressive. The best CVs tend to be fairly economical with words, selecting the
most important information and leaving a little something for the interview:
they are an appetiser rather than the main course. Good business communications
tend to be short and to the point, focusing on key facts and your CV should to
some extent emulate this. The longer and more dense your CV is, the harder it
is for an employer to comprehend your achievements.
Different Types of CV
- Chronological - outlining your career history in date order,
normally beginning with the most recent items (reverse chronological).
This is the "conventional"
approach and the easiest to prepare. It is detailed, comprehensive and
biographical and usually works well for "traditional" students
with a good all-round mixture of education and work experience. Mature
students, however, may not benefit from this approach, which does
emphasise your age, any career breaks and work experience which has little
surface relevance to the posts you are applying for now.
- Skills-based: highly-focused CVs which relate your skills and
abilities to a specific job or career area by highlighting these skills and your major
achievements. The
factual, chronological details of your education and work history are
subordinate. These work well for mature graduates and for anybody whose degree
subject and work experience is not directly relevant to their application.
Skills-based CVs should be closely targeted to a specific job.
A SURVEY OF EUROPEAN
EMPLOYERS found
that:
- 49% preferred a traditional
reverse chronological CV (all jobs listed in reverse
chrological order including duties)
- 6% preferred a skills-based CV with skills related to the job highlighted
- 39% liked a combination of both the above styles
- 2% liked a PORTFOLIO with examples of completed
projects
- 4%
had no preference
If you are applying for posts outside
the UK, remember that employers in other countries
are likely to have different expectations of what a CV should include and how
it should be laid out.
Targeting your CV
If
your CV is to be sent to an individual employer which
has requested applications in this format, you should research the organisation
and the position carefully.
In
the present competitive job market, untargeted CVs tend to lose out to those
that have been written with a particular role in mind. For example a marketing
CV will be very different from a TEACHING CV. The MARKETING CV
will focus on RERSUADING,NEGOTIATING, and
similar skills where as the teaching CV will focus more on PRESENTING and LISTENING skills and evidence for these.
If
your CV is to be used for speculative applications, it
is still important to target it - at the very least, on the general career area
in which you want to work. This will enable you to tailor the CV to the work
and to bring out your own relevant experience.
Even
if you are using the same CV for a number of employers, you should personalise the COVERING LETTER -
e.g. by putting in a paragraph on why you want to work for that organisation.
How NOT to do it
One graduate had emailed out over 80 CVs without getting a single
reply and was puzzled as to why.
I asked him to show me what he had sent out. He had sent identical CVs
and letters to all the companies in one mass email. Recruiters opening the
email could see the names of the 80 companies he had applied to in the
"To: " box of the email!
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Emailed CVs and Web
CVs
- Put your COVERING
LETTER as the
body of your email. It's wise to format it as plain text as then it can be read by any
email reader.
- Emails are not as easy to
read as letters. Stick to simple text with short
paragraphs and plenty of spacing. Break messages into points and
make each one a new paragraph with a full line gap between paragraphs. DON'T
"SHOUT": WRITE IN UPPER CASE!
- Your CV is then
sent as an attachment. Say you'll send a printed CV if required.
In which format should you send your CV?
A survey of American recruiters found that:
- 63% preferred MS Office Word format .docx
- 36%
preferred Adobe Acrobat format .pdf
- 1%
preferred rich-text format .rtf
- 0%
preferred text format .txt
- 0%
preferred web page format .html
LinkedIn
It's
a good idea to have your profile and CV (without personal details such as your
address of course) on LINKEDIN. In 2016, 89% of businesses planned to use social networks for
recruitment and LinkedIn was by far the most popular one for this purpose with
86% of companies wishing to use it, 60% were considering Facebook and 50%
Twitter. Make sure that your Facebook page doesn't carry evidence of any of
your indiscretions that employers might view - making your page private and
viewable only by friends and family is wise!
Skype
Interviews
Conducting
interviews via Skype offers employers all the advantages of a telephone interview in terms of
cost-effectiveness with the bonus of being able to see the candidate.
While they are still not as widely used as telephone interviews, they are particularly helpful for international
recruitment when interviewing the candidate in another country
As the
candidate, you are likely to find that face-to-face contact with the
interviewer helps to make the interview a slightly less unnatural experience.
The disadvantage is that you
will have to dress as smartly as you would for a real-life
interview (at least from the waist up!) and it won’t be quite as easy to refer to your notes
or application form during the interview.
A Skype interview will be more like a
real-life interview than a telephone interview, but the following points are
worth keeping in mind:
- When preparing for the
interview, choose
your location carefully.
- Use a private
room (not a study area) and put
a “Do Not Disturb – Interview in Progress” sign on the door.
- Sitting at a
desk or table, rather than
in an armchair or on the bed, will help you feel more professional as you
will be sitting up straight.
- Make sure that
the interviewer is not going to be distracted by anything in the
background
- Ask a friend to
Skype you before the interview to check that everything is working, that the background is clear
and that any notes or crib sheets are out of view of the camera.
- Turn off any
other programs running on your computer – you don’t want to be distracted by an email suddenly popping up
while you are speaking.
- Dress smartly as you would for a normal interview as this
will make you feel more confident. You can however wear your pyjama bottoms if these are out of view
of the camera!
- Look at the
camera so it looks
like you are talking directly to the employer and smile! Make sure the webcam aligns on your face and
shoulders. Sit up straight with a good posture rather
than slouching.
- Speak clearly
into the microphone. Avoid
speaking at the same time as other people as this can make it difficult
to hear what is being said on Skype, so you must to allow people to
finish speaking to avoid missing information.
- Consider
turning off your own picture in the top right corner as this can be distracting.
- Make sure that
you have a phone number and/or email for your interviewer, so that you can contact them in the case of
any technical problems.
What questions will I be asked?
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§ How you choose your university degree?
§ Why do you want to work for our
organisation?
§ Why do you want to work in the job you
have applied for?
§ What qualities are important to work in the
role you are applying for?
§ What evidence can you give to show you
possess these qualities?
§ What do
we do?
§ Are you willing to be mobile on the job?
§ Tell me a time you have demonstrated
teamwork/communication.
§ Tell me about a time when you have had
to cope with pressure
§ Tell me about a challenge you have
faced. How did you conduct the challenge? What were the advantages and
disadvantages of your method? The steps you took? The
results?
§ Describe a time when you had to deal
with a difficult customer?
§ When have you used your initiative to
achieve a goal?
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§ Can you mention a time when you have
used your leadership skills?
§ When have you set yourself a goal? What
challenges did you face?
§ Describe a time when you have exceeded a
customer's expectations
§ Describe when you had to motivate
others?
§ What do you think is important when
communicating with people?
§ What skills do you have to offer to a
team?
§ What is your greatest strength?
§ Why shouldn't we hire you?
§ Where do you see yourself in 5 years
time?
§ What do you think your job would involve
doing?
§ Commercial awareness – what has been in
news recently that would affect our organisation?
§ Do you have any questions for us?
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