Your CV is your single-most valuable tool when applying for new career opportunities. It is your chance to make your first impression with a prospective employer, explain your story, highlight your achievements and outline your aspirations. With extensive years’ experience within the recruitment sector, here at SimkissGuy we want to share our advice for crafting the best CV possible, to ensure you stand out from the crowd when it comes to applications.
First things first – always ensure your CV looks immediately professional! Recruiters and Hiring Managers alike look for a sharp and clear layout, presented modestly in black and white (avoiding photos, logos and colours) and ensuring it is written in an eligible font – this is to make certain that the reader can easily pick out all the information you’ve so carefully created. Verify that all the company names, employment dates and job titles have been noted correctly and do briefly explain any gaps on your CV so that the prospective employer understands your career journey to-date – a simple sentence or two will suffice.
In terms of content, we absolutely recommend using bullet points to outline the duties and responsibilities for each position you’ve listed on your CV. Using this format helps to break up large chunks of text and makes it far easier to digest by the reader, which ensures that no vital information is missed! Crucially, for each individual job application you make, review and tailor your CV accordingly: ensure that your CV demonstrates or references the strengths, experiences and key skills that the job requires, and where possible try to mirror or echo the language used in the job description as this will help identify the synergies between the role and your experience.
Lastly, it is worth remembering that your CV is the only opportunity you have during these early application stages to convey your unique qualities and strengths, so injecting some flair and personality will really help. Try to keep personal statements to a few sentences and be as creative as possible, whilst remembering that they should only provide a synopsis of your core skills and attributes as an applicant. And whilst it isn’t essential, including a personal interests section can help give some insight into you as an individual outside of work and highlight what motivates you in your spare time – you never know, it could well be an interesting conversation point in an interview!
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