Preparing your CV
Preparing your CV
Please give your CV some thought and spend some time on getting it right – it may make all the difference in getting the job you really want.
Most importantly, always thoroughly proof-read your CV or ask someone to do it for you before sending it to either an agency or a potential employer.
- Make sure your CV is well laid out so that it is immediately easy to read and understand. Leave plenty of white space.
- Use concise, unambiguous sentences, avoid exaggerations and a flowery writing style.
- Do not make false claims; honesty is always the best policy.
- Bullet points are useful to highlight relevant skills and experience and help break up continuous text.
- Depending on your experience, two pages is an ideal length.
- Stress your past accomplishments and the skills you used to get the results you achieved.
- Focus on information which is relevant to your own career goals.
- If you are making a career change, stress what skills are transferable to support your new career objectives.
- Put your highest level of education first.
- Put your most recent job first and work backward chronologically in time.
- Ensure all dates are accurate.
- Explain any long career gaps (i.e. traveling, maternity leave etc.) these will only need to be explained to our clients.
- Don’t change tenses back and forth.
- Describe what you did 90% of the time, not 10% of the time.
- Avoid references to hobbies, activities and memberships which are not business related or have no relevance to your current career goals or job objectives.
If you are preparing a CV for a specific vacancy, explain why you would be good at the position for which you are applying. This is a brief summary of your significant technical and managerial skills (where appropriate). Include accomplishments and soft skills such as team player, dependable and successfully meeting deadlines. E.g. – Achieved a fundraising target of £100,000 within one year.