The Perfect CV

Are you thinking of applying for a new role?

Or maybe just want to get your CV together and looking neat and tidy?

Then read on....

Having worked on both sides of recruitment, I'll give you a general idea of how your CV should look, and what in my experience most employers like to see when looking at a CV.

• Your CV needs to be concise and punchy, not too wordy, and make use of bullet points as much as possible. Think of your CV as a presentation - ideally in an interview situation you'll be able to extend on points made in your CV by explaining them in more detail.
• ALWAYS make sure that your CV covers dates since your first action. For example, if you have on there education ending in September 2010 but then didn't start a role until February 2011, add in a caption explaining what you were doing between those dates, even if it was just looking for a role.
• Now, you're reading this Article on LinkedIn, therefore you have a LinkedIn account. So make sure that your CV and LinkedIn match. Don't have 2 completely separate things, they need to be the same, as effectively your LinkedIn profile should just be an extension of your CV.
• Be specific. This is absolutely key. You should know specifically what type of role that you are going to be applying for and your CV should really be geared to that.
• MOST RECENT ROLE FIRST. This is a killer on CV's. A CV should be easy to scan through and should always show the most recent role highest on the CV working down to the least recent.
• Last but not least, create your CV in Word, no fancy formatting, size 11 font for your descriptions, size 11 Italics for your Place of employment, job title and dates and size 14 bold for your Headers, and try to keep your CV fairly short. If you have 20 roles then just keep the bullet points for each role description to a minimum.

To help you along, below is a General Template for you to copy and paste and use at will.

Name

General Location (City/Town)

Personal Statement

Work History ??

Skills???????

? ????????????

Education (If Required)

I hope you've found this useful - and do let me know if you have any tips of your own. I've shared what has been best practise for me over the years, and for getting my attention as a Recruiter on both the agency side, and the Client side.

The Honest Recruiter

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