15 Essential CV Tips!!
Thursday, July 30th, 2009
1. Add your personal details as a header to save space for themore important details
2. Your personal statement should be no more than 60 words. It needs to be unique to you and your experience. Always tailor it to the role you are going for and do not use a list of stock phrases eg “ looking for a new challenge”
3. If you are a Senior level jobseeker leave your education at the end of your CV
4. If you have completed a thesis / dissertation, add the title of the thesis. It maybe really relevant to the organisations current challenges
5. Always include your grade (2:1 etc) and if you won any awards in college
6. Work Experience. Always remember it’s your 2 most recent jobs that are likely to get you your next job, so provide the most amount of detail on these roles
7. Put yourself in the position of the person reading your CV. Always include a background to your organisation ( not a web address ), size, nature of the business, products, turnover, who you reported into and how many your managed. This sets the scene for the person reviewing the CV . You should be able to include everything above in roughly 3 lines.
8. Divide each position you’ve held into responsibilities and achievements. Always provide what you did and not what your organisation did. Always make yourself unique – what did you do that is above and beyond every other person / jobseeker working in your field. At a Senior level your CV should only be achievement based.
9. Remember that many in-house and agency recruiters search their extensive databases using the google “word search” technique. If the keywords aren’t on the CV, it will not be found!
10. Include at least 7-10 bullet points outlining your responsibilities and at least 3 achievements or projects that you worked on
11. Always outline the “results” of your actions. Quantify how your actions were of benefit to the businss eg. Introduced a which resulted in a 10% cost saving for the business
12. Do not go into too much detail on roles you were involved in 10 years ago
13. Ideally keep your CV to 2 pages or 3 pages maximum
14 Interests and hobbies – always remember the role that you are applying to. Keep your interests brief . How relevent are the transferable skills gained through your interests and hobbies. For example, if you play chess, the skills acquired would suit the role of trader
15 Referees – always make them “available on request”. It’s really important that your referee has the heads up in advance of anyone calling them for a reference.
If you need you want to make the long term investment and get your CV redrafted please contact Mairead Griffin FCIPD, Career Coach @ Careermentors . Phone 01 2160880 or Email mairead@careermentors.ie . Further information on the Career Mentors Website: http://www.careermentors.ie/index.htm
in the areas of Career Direction, Career Change, Interviewing Skills, CV Preparation, Online Job Searching, Redundancy Support & Outplacement