Why Your CV Is Going In The Bin is a free report and is part of the the Living Moxie Toolkit (free). You can sign up for the toolkit using the box on the right or read the page below and use the box at the bottom. If you want to know what’s in the rest of the toolkit, please click here. Dawn xxx
Now then, let’s get on with ways to improve your CV
Writing a CV is obvious. It’s so simple, so glaring. You know it, but do you do it?
You know why you have CV, you probably know a lot about the definite ‘do’s and don’t’, but some peeps even ignore those.
Your cv has one job — sell.
You do this by selling you not by telling you.
People waste months, squandering their time over tiny details that aren’t going to make a hoot of a difference anyway – where if they just focused on the sell, I bet the process would be easier.
Here’s 7 Ways You Can Improve Your CV Now
1. Skip the Foreplay
What do you have in there that is just a warm up, especially at your personal profile or statement.
Read your CV from your readers perspective, not yours.
At each point ask yourself, ‘so what, who cares, what’s in it for them’ — take ten minutes and think of the reasons why each point will benefit them, not you.
If you can’t answer it, or it’s not good enough, get it out.
If it starts ‘reliable and hardworking’, or any other CV cliché, come on, seriously? After all your experience, knowledge, qualifications, that’s the most important part.
I bet it’s not.
The first line of your CV has a purpose, to get the next line read, then the next, then the next all the way to the last point.
Yes, people skim CV’s. Highlight in bold two or three of the absolute golden nuggets.
Struggle with sentence structure? Then write smaller sentences.
If you have used a comma, replace it with a full stop. Make the process easy on the eye for the reader. Help them out.
2. Start With Your Strongest Benefit
Will the person reading, instantly (or within 10 seconds) know they will be better of if they meet/hire you?
Or have you hidden your biggest assets? Are they in there somewhere but lost half way down the page.
e.g. Applying for a managerial position?
You could begin your profile with ‘Manager, with 12 years leadership experience…’ not ‘Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills’.
Specific, concrete, to the point. Answer instantly what they are seeking.
Answer the advert, job description or person specification.
3. Yuckie Font Type & Cramming
No comic sans — that is all. No. Never.
The rule (norm or general consensus) is no more than 2 pages. However, that doesn’t mean you squish and squash everything in because you have too much to say!
Cramming does nothing to help the reader. Create plenty white space.
Why? It’s easier to read.
If you are sending your CV via email or recruitment websites and it’s going to be read from a screen, you need to consider this even more.
Light comes from behind and if it’s crammed, with hardly any or no white space it’s very hard to read.
4. Be Respectful of Da Bullet!
Yes, add bullets.
But a list of 20 bullets ‘kinda defeats the purpose of having bullets, no?
- Bullets are little mini important statements
- Bullets allow your reader to move easily down the page
- Bullets aren’t paragraphs, paragraphs are paragraphs!
- Bullets are lists, we skim bullets, focus at bullet 1, 3, and 7. Make them important.
- Bullets can also be used to highlight to mark important points
- Bullets! The key is in the name, quick information
- Bullets in a CV allow for better digestion of key information
Go through your CV ask yourself if each bullet sells you. Have you repeated yourself in any bullet?
Have you got the most important in 1, 3, 7th place?
Have you more than 7?
Rewrite and delete the fluff.
5. The Layout
Choose the right layout for you, not because it’s a pretty ‘free template’, either chronological, functional or combined.
What’s the difference?
A chronological CV is a good layout to use to showcase your experience and career for a progressive role.
Let’s assume your entire career has been in retail, you started as a Sales Assistant and now are a Manager, maybe not all roles were with the same company, but you can clearly layout your route from where you started to where you are now.
Using a chronological layout: (if applying for a position within the same field) the reader will no doubt recognise the route you have taken.
In your personal statement, clearly state what you are wishing to achieve next in your career, why the experience you have to date will bring added value to the position that is available. Layout positions worked, bullet key experience, qualifications, and your achievements.
A functional CV is great for showcasing your skills and expertise rather than the chronology of your employment so far.
Choose a functional CV if you have gaps in employment or if you have worked for many organisations & employers.
Perhaps your career involves short term contracts, a variety of part time work or you’ve been freelancing, a functional CV will showcase you the best.
Using a functional layout: use the personal statement to showcase achievements.
Choose 4/5 of your key skills to highlight, remembering to keep bullet points to the point. Include voluntary and nonpaid work if it relevant to the position.
6. Sell Don’t Tell
Think of the last big weekly shop that you did. (Go with me here, it’ll make sense, I promise.)
How did you end up with the items you paid for?
Let’s assume ginger nuts were bought. Did buy on how the ingredients were sourced, that the packaging is suitable for recycling or that the butter used was from a cow running free in a field. (You may have, in which case substitute gingernuts for something else!)
Or did you buy them because you remember that you like to dip a ginger nut in a cuppa, watching your favourite TV program, which was coming on that night, you could see yourself all comfy, relaxed enjoying the experience, which is funny as there is a picture on the package with someone doing the same thing!
Sell the benefits.
Heard the saying…
Tell me I forget. Show me I remember. Involve me I understand
An example:
Tell: Worked as a HR assistant with responsibility for administration and training event planning.
Sell: As an HR assistant, 3 years experience working with Senior Managers. Co-ordinated and organised the smooth running of 40+ in house training events per year for all staff. Supported managers in the organising of interview days. Solely responsible for job fair recruitment and used past marketing experience to produce recruitment materials. Proficient in Microsoft Office packages and Adobe Photoshop.
7. Don’t Lose Steam
Your personal profile is the sizzle.
The grabber of attention.
The remainder is the juicy steak.
Remember your reader, they have a pile of CV’s to get through. They will probably have read the same information over and over, in CV’s that have been put together by people who think that their entire CV is going to be read.
Try it, read the same chapter of a book 200 times!
Get their attention, read points 1 and 2. And then keep going.
Don’t lose steam because it’s the last page.
Use plenty verbs. Create pictures in their head.
And never disappoint.
If you give them sizzle via your Personal Profile, proving you have for the role much more than what they were looking for, don’t you dare disappoint them.
Have you ever waited ages for a meal and it was rotten? Same thing applies. Keep the quality the whole way through.
Sorry, but the date, title and where and then the line ‘worked at the (insert where) doing (insert title)’ is a lack of steam.
Choose a functional CV if you struggle or find you are repeating yourself.
Getting to hobbies and interests and putting in any old thing, is a lack of steam.
Making up dates and times is a lack of steam (and lying!)
Lastly, don’t hold back.
Ever.
Your CV is a selling activity, recruiters are expecting to be sold the best you.
Make yourself marketable.
If you struggle finding good things to say about you, it’s an esteem issue, this will help.
Struggle on the structure. Short. Snappy. Sentences.
Leave a Reply