CV Optimisation

The Objective:

Your CV is the equivalent of your marketing brochure. A well prepared CV should give prospective employers (customers) a good idea of the value that your product could potentially add to their organisation. If the CV does this successfully, the prospective employer, or customer, will want to take a closer look at the product – which means that they will want to talk to you and you will be invited to an interview. This leads us to a very important point that should be borne in mind as you prepare your CV.

The primary objective of the CV is to win you an interview, i.e. the opportunity of selling your product in a face to face meeting with the customer.

What Should I Include?

The prospect of starting to compile this most critical document can be daunting! However this is the first step in your job search and it is worth putting a lot of thought into how you project your greatest personal attributes and career highlights. You will need to be very capable of articulating this once you get an interview.

Before you start to write your CV, there are three simple questions to be addressed.

• What should you include (and what should you leave out)?
• How do you decide where to put various pieces of information?
• How much detail should you go into?

Let’s consider each of these questions.

The answer to this question is very simple. We’ve just dealt, above, with the objective of the CV. Now, when you have to decide whether to include any particular piece of information, or word, or phase, just ask yourself this:

“If I include this, will it increase, or decrease, the chances of the CV achieving its objective?”

If the inclusion of the information, or word, or phase, increases, the chances of achieving the objective, then it should be included. If it decreases the chances, it should be left out. If it neither increases nor decreases the chances, it should be left out – because it is probably irrelevant, and CV readers generally do not have time to waste on irrelevancies. So the answer to the question is: only include those things that will increase the chances of achieving the objective. The art of tailoring your CV for each specific application will allow for changes in layout and format as well as content depending on what the most important criteria are for each position/company. You need to become skilled at interrogating each job specification to ensure you can extract the most pertinent information and tailor your CV accordingly.

Compiling the CV / What Goes Where?

A few key points before you start:

• Keep your CV to 2 (maximum 3) pages. Remember that yours may be one of several applications being reviewed for the job. The potential employer shouldn’t have to wade through pages of information to extract the pertinent points. Furthermore, you don’t want to give the impression that you are unable to present information in a clear and concise way.
• If information does not make the front page it is not important. Many hiring Managers rarely get past the first page of a CV. Note how newspapers always aim to get their key stories on the front page. If you don’t get your relevant information on the first page you may miss out on interviews. Typically your CV has a 2 – 3 minute window to make an impact.
• Eliminate all errors in spelling and grammar.
• Use headings to clarify sections.
• Take the liberty of summarising several jobs from many years ago if going into detail does not add anything.
• Make the visual impact of the document as impressive as possible. Pay close attention to layout, aiming for a clear and consistent structure.
• Do not include:
  • Negative information
  • Photographs (unless specifically requested)
  • Reasons for leaving previous positions.
  • References (unless specifically requested)
  • Weird interests
  • Misleading information
  • Salary details

Create a ‘Winning’ / ‘Achievement Based’ CV

To compile an ‘Achievement-based’ rather than a ‘Traditional responsibility-based’ CV you will need to think beyond your responsibilities in a specific role and focus on what how you excelled and how you added value to your employer. In order to identify your achievements it can be useful to examine the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each role and how you performed against them. Naturally it makes sense that you extract the areas where you excelled and include these on your CV. Ultimately you will outline your responsibilities but also project your notable accomplishments and why a prospective employer should select you for interview.

Personal Profiles

If you are applying for various jobs that are all in the same industry, you could write a profile that applies to all jobs in that particular industry. However it is preferable if you write your personal profile for each individual position. If the profile is tailor-made to the job vacancy it can act as ‘a teaser’ or hook so the employer will investigate further by reading the rest of your CV. Keywords are a very powerful tool in your CV and should be used! Use keywords to summarise your experience in the profile. Keywords will also help ensure that your CV comes up when employers search in their CV databases.

Applying for a Specific Job:

When you are applying for a specific job the first step is to interrogate the job description and be clear on the ‘must have’ elements. Once you have identified the ‘must haves’ and the relevant skills and competencies you can then work on tailoring your CV accordingly.

Compiling a ‘winning CV’ can be very time consuming and you may have to make a number of attempts before you are happy with the final masterpiece. It is also a ‘work in progress’ which you can continuously tailor and update as appropriate. There is no doubt however that spending time on your CV is a very valuable exercise and highly relevant in order to secure the job interviews you want.

 

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