A recent survey of 500 UK organisations by the National Citizen Service found that the average time spent looking at entry level CV’s was 8.8 seconds and half of those organisations admitted to spending less than 6 seconds reviewing a CV!

 So how can you make sure your CV stands out from the crowd to have the best possible chance of getting more than 6 or 8 seconds?  Having worked in Recruitment for over 10 years, I’ve read a fair number of CVs, some good, some bad and some ugly.    

 Top tips for a good looking CV

 1. Font: First impressions really do count so make sure the font isn’t too swirly or elaborate and the text isn’t too small, you don’t want the reader having to squint! 

2.  Opening statement: how about starting with a punchy personal profile using language that will engage the reader. Avoid over-used terms such as “team player”, “enthusiastic”, “commercial” and “hardworking”. It should be an honest factual statement about your skills and experience. If you are indeed hardworking and commercial, that should come through in your CV. It also shouldn’t be an essay so opt for bullet points or one paragraph of text.

3.Key achievements: highlighting your Key Achievements in each role is also essential in a competitive market.  This isn’t the opportunity to regurgitate your job description. Make sure these are results focussed and you have tangible examples (which you can obviously back up in an interview) and use statistics to further validate your capability.

4. Career History: the main career history in your CV needs to be clear, relevant, factual and informative, be mindful of using jargon or acronyms that people outside your current company may not understand and remember that the point of a CV is to give the hiring manager a flavour of your experience and you can expand further on your experience in an interview. 

5.Tailored: be sure to tailor your CV content (even if slightly) for each different position you’re applying for; if there’s people management in the role you’re applying for, make sure that information is clear and at the top.

Should a CV be only 2 pages?

My personal opinion is – don’t struggle to try and squeeze everything onto two pages as this can be detrimental to the information you do manage to keep on, but on the flip side, a CV which is 4/5 even 6 pages long can be over kill and you need to seriously think about what information is and isn’t relevant. 

LinkedIn

Another area to think about is your LinkedIn profile.  More and more hiring managers are looking at potential employees on LinkedIn so it may be worth making sure your CV and LinkedIn profile reflect each other.

Final thoughts

Think of your CV as a restaurant menu. It needs to be well laid out so people know where to look for certain information. And don’t be afraid to ask your trusted friends, colleagues or mentors to have a read through your CV and provide you with their honest feedback.  Remember, a CV is an extension of you so you need to make sure your personality comes out in it and every candidate is unique so make sure your CV is too!!