Career Advice

8 STEPS TO A  SUCCESSFUL CV

Writing a successful CV can be the key to securing your next great job.  How do you capture the interest of an employer,  hiring manager or recruiter when you apply for a job ?  Writing a successful CV can be the key to securing  your next great job opportunity.

Keep It Brief and Concise

Be mindful that the person reading your CV is also reading countless others for any one particular role. The reader will want to see all the relevant details quickly and easily. Keep your CV to a maximum of two or three pages. Include your contact details, education and qualifications, work history and experience, relevant skills related to the job your applying for, own interests, achievements or personal interests and referees.

Stand Out From a Crowd

Ideally you want your CV to stand out from thousands of others. It needs to reflect your capability and interest in a job. To be credible and taken seriously its important to make sure your CV is well structured , has no spelling errors, displays clear headings and includes contact details in the footer of each page. Be creative with your CV by adding some colour  and use a font that is no nonsense and  easy to read like Arial and Calibri.    

Promote your Skills and Experience

When filling a job role, employers essentially look for CV’s  that display the relevant skills and experience inline with the specific job role.

Make sure you fully understand the job role you are applying for, including  the role responsibilities, essential and desirable skills/qualifications and experience required for that role.  Ensure you are promoting your capability and include the skills and experience you’re bringing to the table. Key aspect of your past work experience could be very relevant to the role you’re applying .  For instance you may have strong communication skills, problem solving skills, time management skills or able to speak a foreign language.

Demonstrate your Achievements

If you want to impress an employer, share brief details about any achievements you’ve accomplished within your work history, against each of your past job roles.   For instance you may have been awarded Sales Person of the Year, implemented an improved workflow strategy or reduced company spend on their stationery order.  Employers are on the look out for candidates who  are results orientated  and continually focused on customers and ways to improve process and performance.          

Training is Valuable

Employers are always impressed with people who focus on improving their skills and experience through further education and training. Its important to list any training and education you’ve undertaken and make it relevant and by adding the name of the training body, certificate or licence achieved and date completed.

Your Interests and Contribution to the Community are Important

Believe it or not, employers also want to know about you as an individual. To help employers get closer  to the ‘authentic’ you, a CV becomes more interesting if you also add your personal interests to help complete the picture of who you are, what you enjoy and what you’ve achieved.

Its helpful to add brief details or bullet points to list your interests, any volunteer work or involvement with community related projects, associations or charitable organisations.

Candidates are recognised for the time they dedicate to other activities outside of work so consider adding this valuable information to you CV.  

References

Most employers, regardless of the job role you are applying for, will expect you to provide suitable referees. This is an important part of the assessment and recruitment process to further verify and confirm the details in your CV, your achievements and performance in previous roles. Make sure your referees are also relevant. Employers will expect referees to be someone you have directly reported to rather than a work colleague or team member.

It’s helpful to have details of referees listed at the end of your CV and it should include the names of at least (2) referees, their job title and the company they represent. You can provide contact numbers at a later stage to ensure referees are not contacted without your prior approval or knowledge.    

Keep your CV updated

Dedicate time to keeping your CV up to date on an annual basis and keep adding new skills, experience, training and volunteer work as you go . This will make life easier for when you need to apply for your next career move. By updating and reviewing your CV regularly you will save valuable time in not having to recall past details, dates and job role information years later.