5 Quick Ways Of Getting Your CV To Sell You

Writing your CV seems like it should be easy to do. How tricky can it be to write down where you’ve worked and what you did when you were there? But, in reality, it’s far from straightforward. Writing your CV is an act of self-definition: it represents who you are in a work context and/or who you want to be.

People reveal far more about themselves in their CV than they realize.  An employer can tell which candidates appear more confident in their capabilities by how easily they talk about their achievements, rather than merely listing their job duties.

So how do you make sure your CV is saying the right things about you? Here are some tips on how you can achieve this:

Contact details

Your CV should be headed with your name and full contact details. Make sure your email address or personal website is business appropriate; audreylovesfood@gmail.com may be a fun email for friends, but not for employers.

Profile

This is the earliest opportunity on your CV to show you have exactly what they’re looking for. Include the key skills and experience you have that are relevant and avoid talking about your personality or softer skills unless you can back them up with evidence. For example, instead of saying, “strong interpersonal skills” write, “my strong relationship management skills enabled the retention of our key clients despite attempts by a competitor to lure them away”.

Quantify your achievements

Telling an employer that you’re great is just giving them your opinion. Showing them that you’re great is giving them an unarguable fact. Consider these two statements:

• Excellent salesman who always meets targets


• Delivered a 47% increase in sales and exceeded a challenging annual sales target by 5%

The first statement tells the recruiter or hiring manager that, in your opinion and in theory, you can do the job. The second statement sells you on the basis of actual facts.

Employment history

The information included under each role you’ve had shouldn’t simply be a summary of your job description. Under each job, highlight activities you were involved in that relate directly to the job you are applying for. Include achievements, such as how you met or exceeded any targets set and how you added value to the organisation. This could include additional income you helped to generate, costs you reduced, improvements in quality or the introduction of new ideas.

Wherever possible, try to quantify your achievements. For example, say your marketing idea generated a 10% increase in sales for the month. No matter what role you worked in, you should find a way to demonstrate your positive impact on your team, organisation or customers.

Relevant skills and experience

If your earlier career history or extra-curricular experience is more relevant to the role you’re applying for than your current role, use a heading like “relevant skills and experience” or “career achievements” to bring together the information and evidence. Make sure that this appears on the first page of your CV, usually before your employment history.

Bottom line….

If you want an employer to get the right impression of you from your CV, then avoid common mistakes like; lack of relevant information, using generic words or simple spelling and grammar errors.

Your CV is your own personal showcase – it needs to convince a recruiter during the job search to progress your application to the next stage.

What next for you? Book a session with a professional CV writer to help you draft that eye-catching CV and have employers calling you for interviews in no time!

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