How to Write an Interview-Winning CV

What is a CV?

What exactly is a Curriculum Vitae? (Meaning “Course of Life”) -is it a list of your skills and experience? Is it a mini-biography? Is it a chance to get someone to fully appreciate your skills and achievements?

It’s none of these.

A CV is an interview-winning tool. It is not a personal biography, or a list of your skills and experience but a fluid document which means different things to different people, but needs to be relevant to all.

CV Myths:

Before looking at what makes a good CV, let’s first dispel a few myths:

‘The more they know about me, the more chance they have of being impressed’

Wrong! Too many people make the mistake of thinking that the more information they can cram onto their CV the better.

This is not the case.

‘My CV should detail everything I’ve ever done. Ever.’

Wrong! Employers don’t want to know about the time you worked part-time as a shop girl for ABC Retail when you were 16, if you are now a 45-year-old senior manager with 26 years experience under your belt!

‘It doesn’t matter if my CV doesn’t look perfect, my experience will be enough to impress any employer’

Wrong! If your CV is not easily readable, employers will simply bin it and move on to the next one. Why should they spend valuable time trying to digest your CV when they have 300 other applications to look through?

What Do Employers look for?

When preparing your CV it’s very important to write it with your audience in mind. What will they be looking for? What specific skills and experience will they want to see in candidates? By thinking hard about what your prospective employers are looking for, you be in a better position to write a more effective CV.

As a rule, your CV will impress an employer if it displays the following:

• An emphasis on the role you are applying for

Ask you friends or colleagues to read your CV and see if they can tell the exact position you are looking for. If they can’t, neither will your employer, and they may not understand why you are applying to work in the position they are offering.

• A CV that is recent and up to date

Can your prospective employer look at your CV and tell exactly what is you are doing at this exact point in time? If not, you are leaving this to their imagination – Keep your CV up to date and eliminate all doubt!

• A Clear, easy to read layout

Does your CV clearly detail your achievements, or are they hidden with your responsibilities? Is your CV a concise two pages in length, or is it more like a five page essay? Is your CV Crammed with dense, hard to read writing, or is there plenty of ‘White Space’. If your CV is not easy to read, it will not be read.

Sound Tricky?

Writing an effective CV is one of the most difficult tasks you will ever have to do for your job search. It is an accepted fact that is incredibly difficult for an individual to write an effective CV because they do not have the ability to be objective – Every piece of information is important and cannot be edited or removed, leading to a very cluttered, difficult to read CV.

It is worth considering getting your CV professionally prepared by professional, experienced consultants, as they have the objectivity and experience required to pull out the most relevant bits of information, and focus on what employers want to see, not what you want them to see!

How to Write an Interview-Winning CV