Five Tips for Improving Your CV

How you present yourself on your CV can be the difference between getting a job at your first interview and months of fruitless searching. Depending on the job you’re applying for, your CV might be in a pile along with thousands of others and the recruiter might scan it for just a few seconds before deciding whether you’re an appropriate candidate or not. That’s why in those few seconds your CV needs to be eye-catching and impressive enough to make the recruiter sit up and read through it in detail. Here are 5 top tips to help you improve your CV and maximize your chances of successful employment.

Target your CV

A potentially costly mistake many job applicants make is sending the same CV to each and every job they apply for. Why is this a mistake? Every job is different. Even if the job title is the same, every company will be looking for slightly different things, certain elements that fit in best with their existing working environment. So before you go sending your CV off, take the time to research the company you’re applying to. Browse their website; get more of an idea of what they do and the kinds of people that work there. Try to identify if they value certain qualities above others and, armed with this additional information, tweak your CV accordingly. This could be as simple as rearranging your list of skills, rephrasing lines of text or elaborating on a certain point you know is particularly relevant to the company. Maybe even alter the font and layout of your CV so the recruiter will see certain elements first. These are all things that will likely raise you above the majority of other job applicants who simply send the same CV to every company they apply to.

Keep it clean

A cluttered CV will almost certainly have an adverse affect. If you’ve squeezed too much information onto each page it’ll look messy and the recruiter may well have a job making sense of it all. Keep your layout on the minimalistic side: clean, elegant, easy to read and structured in a logical way. The person reading it will appreciate the effort you’ve made to keep it this way.

Choose your font wisely

Closely related to the second tip, this one is almost a given but something many people seemingly struggle with. There is a time and a place for fancy, funny, inventive, creative fonts and a CV certainly isn’t it. Times New Roman is always a safe bet, as are Arial, Verdana and Lucida Sans. Font size should typically be either 10 points or 12 point; any smaller and you risk it being uncomfortable for the recruiter to read. Any larger and you’ll waste space and make your CV look a bit silly. Try and stay away from Serif fonts, they are considered much less readable than the ones previously listed and rarely used on the web because of this. Remember, the majority of CV’s these days are viewed on a computer monitor.

You are not writing a novel

Generally speaking a new graduate should ensure their CV does not exceed 2 A4 pages in length. Brevity is key here; if you go rambling on in minute detail about everything you’ve ever done, the recruiter will likely just discard it and start reading the next. The rules are slightly different for those people with experience under their belt or who are applying for specialized or technical jobs. A 4 or 5 page CV might not be out of the question; careful analysis of what the company is after should provide some hints as to what length is appropriate.

Have someone else check your CV

The benefits of this fifth and final point cannot be understated. The unbiased and fair opinion of another person can help tremendously when you’re finalizing your CV. They may be able to point out errors or omissions in what you’ve written, provide suggestions and generally give you some constructive criticism. The more people you can find to read through your CV the better.

Five Tips for Improving Your CV