Early summer is the perfect time to spring clean your CV.
When a recruiter or a job advertisement has a pressing deadline, you will be able to relax in the knowledge that your CV is ready to send. Working on a CV now, ahead of the peak hiring periods, allows you the time to carefully assess your CV and career against your objectives. Make sure that you take the opportunity to review every aspect to ensure a thorough update. Here is a checklist you may find useful to follow.
Format
The best and most effective CV format is still a traditional one. Colours and shaded boxes have been experimented with in a bid to make a CV stand out. If this applies to yours, it’s time to go back to basics. A plain neat black font (Arial or Calibri) is always best. Lines to separate sections can work well, but avoid text boxes or shading, as application tracking software is unable to read unusual formats.
Contact Details
It sounds obvious, but make sure all of your contact details are current and correct. If you are still using a jovial personal email address from your university days, it would be advisable to change it to something that befits your professional profile. The best option is simply your name.
Writing Style
If your CV is written in the first person, or worse still, the third person, you would be advised to change it to the current CV best practice of using the ‘smart’ third person. “Increased sales by 20%, whilst reducing overheads by 10%,” is far better than “I increased sales…” or “She/he increased sales….” Omitting a pronoun means that the statement starts with an action verb which makes it more dynamic. ‘Smart’ third person creates a professional tone without it sounding too personal or remote.
Personal Profile
This is your elevator or 30-second pitch and as such, your personal profile needs to read seamlessly, so an update with an additional new sentence may jar. This area should always be written afresh when updating a CV. It needs to explain clearly your area of expertise, your experience and what you can offer. Many profiles are filled with empty adjectives and clichéd phrases, if this applies to yours, now is definitely the time to change it!
Past & Present Role
Greater space needs to be given to your latest, most relevant role/s, so make sure you cut back and edit the detail in your earlier career. When providing information on your various positions, equal space at the very least should be given to responsibilities and achievements, however, ideally the split should be two-thirds to achievements and one-third to responsibilities. If you are struggling to apply this ratio, remember that describing what you delivered will often cover your accountabilities.
Language
Recruiters never fail to be surprised when they receive an ‘updated’ CV with the last couple of roles still in the present tense. We know it sounds obvious, but do make sure your past roles are described in the past tense. The use of action verbs is an effective way of making a CV sound more dynamic. ‘Delivered review process,’ sounds better than ‘completing a review process.’ Make sure that your terminology corresponds to current industry standards, especially within fast-paced sectors such as technology.
Personal Information
A date of birth and marital status are not required on a modern CV. Use the title of additional information instead of personal information, and add further beneficial skills such as software or speaking a language. You need to consider whether your interests add value to your CV message. Sports participation, societies and volunteering are beneficial to include, whereas socialising with friends, is not. When updating your CV you may wish to reconsider including activities from several years ago. If marathon running from your undergraduate days is listed, you may be asked what your current personal best is during small talk in the lift.
Education
If you are at a mid-point in your career, your education may feel like a long time ago. Changing the title of this area to ‘Qualifications and Professional Development’ allows you to add more recent work related courses and additional professional qualifications. An appetite for continual learning and development is always well received by recruiters and hiring managers.
Last, but certainly not least – spelling and grammar. Checking your own CV is not advised; errors are mentally corrected by an author when text is read back. Ask somebody else to read it for you or engage the services of a proofreader. Spelling and grammar errors consistently top the list of CV mistakes by recruiters and hiring managers. Having invested time to update your CV, you wouldn’t want an errant apostrophe to impact an otherwise positive outcome.
What’s next?
Once you’ve perfected your CV, be sure to upload it to CV-Library so that employers can get in touch with you about relevant jobs!
Post contributed by Jenny Hargrave, founder of InterviewFit, provider of CV writing, interview coaching and career strategy services.
