CV Guide: How to sell yourself professionally.

Talented recruitment consultants can transform your CV, career aspirations, and current success levels in a matter of minutes. Plus, creating a high-performing CV is an art in itself.

This practical guide will make sure you know all the required elements and is a useful reference whenever you’re searching for a new job.

The most common mistake in job applications is a lack of tailoring. We all have experience of sending out more than one application, but you must adapt your CV to every position you apply for.

Before you start thinking about your CV, you should study the job application carefully. Although some adverts can sound similar, the skill is noticing the differences, nuances, and unique requirements that each employer mentions.

Layout

Hiring managers and consultants normally take a maximum of seven seconds to scan a CV. So, it’s vital that it’s clear, legible, and uses industry-standard formatting:

• Use a font between 10-12 points for general text, and 12-14 for headings
• Bold titles to draw attention to specific areas (Work experience, Skills, etc.)
• Avoid underlining any text since this can make the document feel cluttered
• se fonts such as Calibri, Arial, or Helvetica (avoid using more alternative fonts such as Consolas, Lucida Console, or Sergoe Script)
• Never use any crazy colours or any more than two different fonts
• 1-1.15 line spacing
• Ensure all spacing between paragraphs is consistent
• Two pages are recommended but it can be as many pages as necessary, as long as the information is relevant.

Content

Here’s a checklist of what to include:

• Contact details – Include your full name, email, mobile number, and home address.
  Pro tip: Including your home address allows employers to get an idea of how practical your commute may be. In some cases, this can give you an advantage.
• Education & qualifications – All of your previous education (and current, if you’re still studying) should be listed. Place the most recent qualification at the top. Only mention specific modules if they’re 100% relevant to the job you’re applying for.
• Work experience – Your experience should be listed in reverse order with your most recent role at the top.
  Pro tip: At Office Angels, we like our candidates to include the name of their current and previous employers followed by a brief description of who they are, what they do, size of company and location for example. This helps us to quickly assess each of our candidate’s industry experience.

You should mention details that are relevant to the role you’re applying for. Each role description should use an action-benefit statement:

Action: The action(s) that you took in this role, that allowed you to face specific challenges.

Benefit: What were the benefits to the organisation? Outcomes such as increasing revenue, creating new processes, and or improving systems are excellent examples.

Here’s an example action-benefit statement: Implemented new training strategies that supported a 26% increase in sales.

Pro tip: Use powerful verbs at the beginning of the statement, such as: implemented, created, managed, supervised, directed. Plus, try to quantify wherever possible (I.e. use numbers, percentages, ROI, etc.)

• Skills and achievements – Ask yourself: which skills and achievements are most applicable to the role? It’s also important to understand the different types (e.g. hard and soft skills).

Around 98% of organisations use applicant tracking software (ATS), which automatically scans CVs to find appropriate matches. This can result in up to 75% of CVs being rejected, but with the right job-specific elements you can improve your chances of success.

Always begin with the technical skills required to do the job. These skills are quantifiable and are normally learnt through formal courses.

Here are some popular hard skills across different professions:

Next, your soft skills show how you implement the hard skills you have. These can be harder to teach, and can be more subjective, but here’s a list of the most popular soft skills that hiring managers look for:

Pro tip: Combine an action-benefit statement with your hard and soft skills when you speak with a new potential employer or recruiter: I implemented a new reporting process using excel that boosted the department’s performance by 20%. This helped with time management, so the team could adapt to new challenges.

• Interests – Always try to be specific, as opposed to mentioning more general activities. This is your chance to provide a more complete picture of who you are and what you can contribute. Interests such as blogging, team sports/activities, creative media, volunteering and travel are great ways to show what type of personality you have.
• References – It’s not necessary to mention ‘references available on request’ or include the names of any reference. Employers assume that these will be available in the future.

You can also change the order of each section depending on the type of role, but the above is a basic guideline.

Dos and don’ts

Use the checklists below to make sure your CV has all the required key elements and avoids common mistakes.

Do:

• Use a template
• Check that your contact details, job history and qualifications are up to date
• Study the job advertisement carefully
• Check your CV for spelling and grammatical mistakes (use online tools as well as a standard spellcheck)
• Fill in any CV gaps with reasons (I.e. travelling)
• Use reverse chronological order when listing your work experience and education
• Keep all content concise and relevant
• Be specific regarding your skills and achievements (quantify them with amounts and percentages where possible)
• Split achievements and responsibilities into two bullet pointed sections
• Include qualifications relevant to the job
• Use action-benefit statements with powerful verbs (I.e. handled, led, maximised)
• Include any supporting information such as blog or portfolio examples
• Sell yourself!

Don’t:

• Send a CV that hasn’t been tailored to a specific role and organisation
• Write paragraphs – bullet points are always best
• Include an overlong personal statement and or profile description (100 words max)
• Include any non-essential graphics and or images (unless you’re applying for a graphic design or other creative media roles)
• Use an elaborate font (stick with Arial, Calibri, or Helvetica)
• Break down every module you have within a qualification
• Include ‘references available on request’ line
• Use clichés or jargon
• Spend too much time on design
• Go back more than 15 years in your work experience
• Don’t make the font smaller to fit more in (use another page if necessary)
• Waffle – Every piece of text should be relevant to the role you’re applying for.

There’s a lot to consider when creating an a-star CV and the key is to reach out and get the best advice. Use the best practices in this CV guide whenever you’re working on applications. Many of the tips can be used in interview settings as well as your initial applications.

If you have any questions regarding your CV – or any area of your job applications – reach out to our team today, so we can find out what your goals are, and help you on your career path.