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• Do you put off writing your CV?
• Have you copied someone else’s because it was much better than yours?
• Downloaded a ‘fill-in-the-blank’ template from internet and still stumped?

Are you proud of your CV or does it make you cringe?

That last question is actually the litmus test question — if it makes you cringe, chances are it will send shivers up potential hirers also.

Introduction

Depending on what age you are, you may have had the luxury of 1/2 an hour before leaving school in the company of the ‘guidance’ teacher (who hadn’t written a CV in 30 years) showing you how to ‘put one together’.

Or perhaps you were like me, and got out left before that day arrived.

I left school 25 years ago. However, just at the turn of this year I answered an email from a lovely gentleman who was looking for advice for their son, he said ‘they had half an hour with a careers advisor at school but that was all’, geez, I wonder if it was the same dude that was there in 1986/87!

Ditch the Emotional Attachment

I understand that selling yourself isn’t natural to many of us. which I’ve written about before, however, it’s the one time when blowing your own horn is expected. Employers and agencies are begging that you do it more.

Your CV and application forms are no place to hold back your best.

No one else can sell you as well as you can.

I would also recommend you never lust after and fall in love with your CV, some peeps are so attached to their written work of art and think it’s fantastic because it’s 8 pages (too) long and just looks great, all because they have really gone to town and back with Microsoft Word.

Adding borders, fancy swirl things and different colours to make it stand out will do that, but perhaps not in the positive way you imagine!

Bag a ‘Decent’ Email Address

If you’ve an email address that goes something like ‘hotlips@’, or ‘bigboy@’, or ‘upthe…@’, or you’re using your current employee email, change it. The first examples are tacky, unprofessional, and really say way too much about you even if you have hot lips and are a big boy, or both!

Better still use yourname@…try gmail or yahoo.

Personal Information:

Don’t include marital status, age, date of birth, the number of children you have, and Primary School. It’s against the law for an employer to ask you the first four, and they don’t really care about your primary school.

And you don’t need to type ‘CURRICULUM VITAE’ right across the top.

Excessive Pages:

This one is always up for debate, how many pages should a CV be? The standard is no more than two. Is your CV concise, relevant, and straight to the point? Brevity, if you can say it 1 word, instead of ten. Say it.

Think of your reader. Who wants to read twelve pages of all about you?

And if you are applying for a position that finds you pulling in experience from 15/20 years ago, I recommend the cover letter as your way of explaining why you have written that far back.

When it says ‘send a cv or apply online briefly describe your duties’ it means briefly.

Ditch The Comic Sans and Playing Around With Fonts Etc:

Keep it simple; your CV is not a creative experiment – unless you know the hiring employer is looking for creatives, and it’s expected.

I have seen CVs with eight different colours and clip art!

No snazzy fonts: Arial, Veranda, Tahoma or Palatino Linotype are easiest to read.

No different sizes, i.e. using size 8 to cram more in. Annoying huh? Size 12 or 14 at most.

Standard is Arial, Size 12/14 and black font or dark grey.

Unprofessional Formatting:

If you are going to use tabs make sure they line up. Think of your reader; plenty of white space and simplicity are best.

Spelling Errors:

I’m not the world’s greatest speller, so I am with you here if that’s you. However, your CV is not a place for errors; they stand ouet a mile.

Have at least three people read it, not for the content, but for spelling. And spell checks, as you know, don’t pick up every word out of context like this word hear/here or their and there, your and you’re. I don’t even see my own.

Read your CV backwards; start at the bottom and towards the top. Your brain will not be making sense of the words so it’s easier to spot mistooks.

Use Tables

Tables are very useful when writing a CV. If you spend forever trying to get everything all uniformed and in a straight line, use a table. That’s what they’re there for. (Just remember to hide the gridlines once done.)

Mailing In Too Small An Envelope:

If you print your CV on A4 paper, send it in an A4 envelope instead of cramming it into a tiny one three sizes too small. I kid you not.

Read The Advert (online and offline):

Never apply to the heading alone to be quick.

Most CVs get binned (especially online) because recruitment agencies and employers know when the CV and quick blurb has not been targeted properly. How do they know? Many online CV applications are digitally scanned for key words.

Thinking Of The CV As A Legally Binding Document:

A CV is not a legally binding document unless you sign it. Application forms are as they require a signature. However, there is no place for…

About Little White Lies:

Why bother?

If you have to create stories and magical myths and legends to cover the actual truth, then it does not say much about your integrity or honesty.

Out of all the employers I have worked with (as a go-between for clients) I have never heard any say, white lies are fine, all have said ‘be honest’.

I recommend you don’t do it and seek some professional advice if you need to. You are worth more than lies. Speak to a career coach? An employability worker?

You can lie on paper however I wonder if you would be as good at it face-to-face? Also as soon as you start getting paid and you have lied on your CV and get caught, it moves from being a non-legal document to fraud and deception, I’m just saying!

For example:

Adding qualifications that you don’t have.

Adding places where you didn’t even work.

Adding months to job dates when you didn’t work there.

Telling lies is not the same as tweaking to meet the job specification.

Lying about salary details, these come on your reference.

Schools, Colleges attended don’t add up.

Awarding yourself better exam results.

References:

Not needed unless asked for. Even then, submit separately.

Action To Do Today

Let me help you over the next few posts with your personal profile.

Call six people you’re close too, they can be family, friends or connections. Ask them to give you 10 individual words to describe you. Ask them to take it seriously! Keep them handy until the next post.

The above are very simple points, do you have any recommendations? If something is burning a hole in your brain, please share, you can do that in the comments below, don’t hold back — what you may think is ‘common knowledge’ may not be to another.