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Templates Guide
Suggested for: Everyone; This CV template is based on the Chronological format and contains help notes for further editing
Suggested for: Student, Graduate, School leaver, Limited work experience, Researcher / Academic
Suggested for: Significant work experience, Continuous
employment
Suggested for: Career change, Limited work experience, Career break, Return to work, Mature students
Suggested for: Highly technical roles, Specialist roles, E.g. IT, translator, etc.
Suggested for: All levels of business professionals
Video Transcript: Why you should continually update your CV
Introduction: Here are some of the reasons why continually updating the CV will make you a successful job-hunter.
Cormac Twomey, Director, Consultancy: It’s important to think about your career pretty much like you would a sales process. In a sales process, you typically rely on tools to get you through the process. Part of that, for example, would be a library of case studies and presentations. We’ve all been in a situation where we have had to create something from scratch 2 days before a deadline. It’s never as powerful as if you spent time when you are not under that pressure to articulate clearly what that case study means. This applies the same way to writing your CV. You need to build it over time. Think about what you’ve achieved, articulate clearly what was the objective, what was the process and what was the achievement. If you can do that, when you created that achievement, it will be much more powerful than when you are trying to do it just before sending your CV off for a deadline.
Joel Barnett, Executive Recruiter, Fortune Hill: The importance of building your CV over-time is that is makes creating a strong document that is achievement loaded far easier, because it is quite difficult to remember all the key points that you have achieved in the past 5 years if you suddenly have to write it down. It will also act as a prompt when you are interview as well, so prior to going to interview you can read the CV and have it as an aid whilst you are sitting there across the desk from whomever is interviewing you, and it will remind you of the things you want to highlight in order to make the best possible impression of yourself.
Summary: In summary, adding to your CV as part of your weekly or monthly routine can really help you. This is what the most successful people do. As a reminder of why: knowing what to write will be easier, you’ll remember all the key details so your content will be stronger and you’ll always have a CV that’s ready.
Audio Transcript: Common CV Mistakes
If 9 out of 10 people make mistakes on their CV you should aim to be the 1 who doesn’t!
Keep your CV to between 2 and 3 pages and prioritise the skills and achievements most relevant to the job. Write a great personal profile and make sure you don’t include negative information like why you left and personal information like your age.
Really think about your formatting – keep it neat and simple and always do a spell check.
The more specific the CV is to the employer you apply to, the greater the success you have of being invited to interview. A very simple method to make your CV specific is to analyse the job description and ensure you use similar language and meet each requirement.
Use this checklist to avoid common CV mistakes
Use this checklist to avoid common CV mistakes
Omitting essential skills – the skills the role requires must be shown clearly on your CV, prioritised and ideally mentioned consistently.
Listing too many skills – it looks unfocused, un-realistic and reveals nothing about you.
Waffle – less most definitely is more. Recruiters are busy people, so keep your CV under two sides for maximum impact. Every word, every sentence needs to have a purpose for the specific employer. If it’s not important, remove it.
Work experience written like a job description - instead, focus on how you performed and show the benefits of employing you.
Inclusion of negative information - for example: reasons for leaving, poor exam results (omit instead)
Using jargon - keep your CV easy-to-read, avoid technical jargon or expressions that only make sense to previous jobs
Sending the same CV off to multiple jobs - simply put, you must tailor your CV to the specific job
Poor spelling and grammar - check through your CV, then check it again. Read your CV aloud to help check what you have written rather than what you THINK you have written. Get someone else to check it.
Leaving gaps in your employment history - It arouses suspicion. If you have a gap explain it.